120501306287
Some people are toxic. Avoid them.
There was in the sixties
a man named Fritz Perls who was a gestalt therapist. Gestalt therapy
derives from art history, it proposes you must understand the ‘whole’
before you can understand the details. What you have to look at is the
entire culture, the entire family and community and so on. Perls
proposed that in all relationships people could be either toxic or
nourishing towards one another. It is not necessarily true that the same
person will be toxic or nourishing in every relationship, but the
combination of any two people in a relationship produces toxic or
nourishing consequences. And the important thing that I can tell you is
that there is a test to determine whether someone is toxic or nourishing
in your relationship with them. Here is the test: You have spent some
time with this person, either you have a drink or go for dinner or you
go to a ball game. It doesn’t matter very much but at the end of that
time you observe whether you are more energised or less energised.
Whether you are tired or whether you are exhilarated. If you are more
tired then you have been poisoned. If you have more energy you have been
nourished. The test is almost infallible and I suggest that you use it
for the rest of your life.
— Milton Glaser