There are standards you have set for every facet of your life. Your work, your studying, your content consumption, working out, and whatever else you spend your time with. You've set a bar for what you expect your time to be worth, not strictly defined by money, and you rarely (if ever) drop below that bar. You may pick podcasts about your industry if you only have time for one podcast a week, or you may execute a certain attention to detail in your work. This is your bar, and it's set.
When you work with someone else, their bar may not be as high as yours. They may not have reached that apex point to position their bar where yours is, or they may not care to at all. It may even be higher than yours.
There is someone in the relationship that has to reposition their bar accordingly and work harder to match their partner's. Many are not willing to do this, and many are not even capable of matching the higher bar.
This is where partnerships falter; friends lower their bar to not hurt their friend's feelings, arguments start between partners, or resentment slowly grows until it finally boils over in a dramatic flame that burns out completely forever.
An even worse outcome is that the one with the higher bar may never make mention of it, never boil over, never start an argument, and is forced to endure a life of compromise because they lowered their bar. A flurry of what-ifs follows as they look back on the years wasted in compromise, to do what? Hide their true feelings to prevent an argument? Say nothing to prevent making a situation awkward?
You have to pick your partnerships carefully. Understand where your bar is, raise it to where you want it to be, and settle for nothing less. Be selfish with this.
Once you have identified where your bar is, only intersect with people in that area that match the standard you've set. Accept nothing less. Compromising on this point will land you exactly where you were before.
This extends to far more than just your actual work, this is a necessary step of finding good people to intersect with in every area of progress in your life.
I have been going to the gym for 8 years now. I go because I must. In psychology, there's a concept of automated tasks that your brain just clicks and runs; The gym is one of those for me.
I do not go to the gym because I am heartbroken. I do not go to the gym because "We go Jim". I do not workout with ridiculous intensity to show others how serious I am. I have been going to the gym before my first relationship, and I will still be far into my last. I have been going to the gym years before TikTok existed and I will still be years after it's gone. I don't risk injury for the perception of intensity today; I will be here tomorrow, the day after, and the decades after that.
The day of my last breath will have a workout logged. This is a bar I have set for myself and will not compromise. This is my life yesterday, today, and tomorrow.
To go to the gym with someone that doesn't match your standard is to sacrifice your future self. You could risk injury, inconsistent scheduling, or even attaching yourself to the motivational boom-bust cycle that exists with so many of these TikTok gym bros.
So is the same for your work.
This is not to say you cannot be friends with someone that doesn't match your standards, but it certainly means you shouldn't be working with them, going to the gym with them, or intersecting with them in areas that require progress.
Compromising on your standards is as much a disservice to yourself as it is to the world. You have gifts unique to you, passions that only you can foster, goals only you can accomplish; lowering your bar puts all of those at jeopardy for ridiculous intrapersonal reasons. Do not deprive the world of your abilities because you couldn't say "no" to working with someone.
Understand your standard and stick to it. Only intersect with people that match your standard.