Dear Mountaindewed, [Don?]

Wish I had some wisdom to share with you about what you ask, but sadly I don't.

In my opinion [and my opinion is often wrong] I think that "sticking up for oneself" can be either virtuous or vicious and anything in between depending on the circumstances.

It takes a great deal of prudence to know which is which.

In the course of life there may be times when there are situations that are matters of life or death importance. I think that in these situations, "sticking up for oneself" can be a great virtue.

But I suspect that many of us give a sense of life or death importance to matters that are not really matters of life or death. In such cases, I wonder whether "sticking up for oneself" is a virtue?

Perhaps I am mistaken, but sometimes it seems that persons with low self-esteem or those with a grudge against life can be overly sensitive to minor matters. I fall into this group myself.

And sometimes it seems a person who was wronged at at earlier stage of life might "get revenge" later in life in situations that are not really of great import.

Of course these are just my personal and fallible reflections. Hopefully many people here on the Forums, people with many different life experiences, insights and knowledge will see your post and respond with words more helpful than my poor words.

Something you might want to consider as a possibility: People can sometimes see the world through the eyes of their expectations. These expectations color what they see and can distort it. Things can look awful sometimes because perhaps our expectations about ourselves and others is unrealistic.

For example, it is unrealistic to expect a human being to be perfect. No human being is an all-powerful, all-knowing, all-seeing Infinite Being. But much distress, in my humble opinion is often caused when people have unrealistic expectations.

People are going to sometimes be rude and inconsiderate, neglectful and unfeeling, crude and unfair. Perhaps we can tolerate much of this if we realize that we are people too and have our rude and inconsiderate moments as well. Perhaps it isn't other people who "make" us mad so much as it is our unrealistic expectations about people that cause us anger and distress?

Perhaps it is helpful to distinguish the falls and failures of others into cases that are matters of life or death importance and those that are not. Perhaps then we can live a little more peacefully and tolerantly.

I have seen people treat getting the shortest line at a supermarket checkout as a matter of life or death importance. I have seen people treat getting the closest parking spot to a store as a matter of life or death importance. I can be one of these people myself!

We each have a kind of ideal "self" in the back of our minds, how we think we "should" be in various situations. As we go along in life we continually compare our "real self" with this abstract "ideal self." Sometimes we even use this abstract "ideal self" to mentally beat ourselves up. We beat up the real in the name of the ideal.

Unfortunately, it can happen that our abstract ideal self is not realistic. We may be in the habit of questioning our "real self" but forget to question this "ideal self." Is our "ideal self" realistic or perfectionistic? Sometimes it can prove helpful to take a look at our "ideal self" and enquire into whether it is based on realistic or unrealistic expectations. This can sometimes lower our stress level and threshold of anger. It can also perhaps prevent useless and impractical self-hate and self-loathing.

These are of course only my opinions. I am not a doctor or medical professional and so cannot really offer an "advice" that others could or should rely upon. My field is philosophy and I am not really qualified to speak outside this field.

I do hope you find answers to your question about "sticking up for yourself." Please do not be too hard on yourself and remember that we are all "works in progress" so to speak.

You show a great deal of insight and self-awareness. Both of those are often rare virtues. Sometimes it takes great heroism just to be patient with ourselves. The love we owe others we also owe ourselves if we are to be loving people.

I wish you only the very best, Mountaindewed!

Sincerely yours, Yao Wen