We all do it…we rationalize things into the ground. And to top it off we rationalize in a way that helps our perspective…so then we are rationalizing what we are trying to rationalize. It’s a pretty funny storm when you think about it…and at the end we feel good about ourselves.
Allow me to digress…your AFI-Q is a mathematical measure of your own breaking point…the point of your own no-return…when you give up your moral, ethical, psychological, or physiological compass and keep going…even though it is against all of your goals, needs, desires, plans or projected outcomes.
The AFI-Q is defined as the “Awww-Fuck It Quotient”…where it is the outcome of an experience divided by the breaking point of a behavior.
I actually developed the AFI-Q with a college roommate (Eric Wallace) at CSU Sacramento in the late 1990′s. It started to go down like this: If you were going out on the town with friends but had things to do the next day (goals, desires, needs, projected outcomes, etc) and you planned on having a few drinks on that night…there would eventually be a time when you would have to ask if you had reached your AFI-Q. Maybe you had two or three more drinks more than planned and you then started to procrastinate or put off what you had planned the next day…that would be the point of reverse rationalization…”Aww fuck it” and you would keep drinking.
The AFI-Q can be applied to anything…it is in some sense a universal law. It can be applied to running (I’ll just run one more mile/day per week/race per block), to weight lifting (I’ll just lift one more set, swing my KB or CB another set, I’ll max one more time), food (i’ll just have one more piece, one more serving, one more piece of something), to money (i’ll just spend a little bit more on this last thing one more time), to alcohol (would you like another drink? Yup), or anything for that matter when you can go to a point of no return and then decide IN THAT MOMENT that you will change that specific behavior tomorrow…but not right now…
The AFI-Q can be dangerous as well…be careful what you are trying to rationalize…because with some things there are truly points of no return.
So the next time you are reaching for the chocolate cake, another beer, feeling good about another set and know that it could NOT be good for you…ask yourself: “Is this my AFI-Q?”
Choose wisely my friends and apply the rules 
