A compromising situation?

I have been wondering lately about compromise... How much is the right amount? What, really, is the difference between being good at compromise and being a door mat? We have all had moments where we thought we were standing firm on what we believe, only to realize that we have just forced an important person out of our lives. Sometimes other people get caught in the middle. Other times, we find ourselves enduring the painful drudgery of having let someone sway us too far. Where do we draw the line?

I believe that finding the right level of compromise is one of the most difficult things that we all must learn about ourselves. There is never one right answer that fits every situation, so its a dynamic idea that must be considered in EVERY part of our lives. It seems to me that in young life, we sweep the entire scale, like a pendulum, seeming like a arrogant, stubborn ass at some points, and being walked over by bugs at others. The important thing, I think, is that we learn from what we see as we are caught in this cycle. How do people react to each version of ourselves, how do we feel based on the amount of latitude we give away to the other party? Ideally, by the time we are "grown up" we are able to recognise the right level, where we feel good for standing up for our ideas and beliefs, but that we don't stampede over others.

In relationships, being willing and able to compromise is one of the things that can make or break a relationship. It is finding the right balance between portraying oneself as stubborn and un-yielding, or being a spineless pushover, the place where we are sympathetic, but firm in our beliefs, that allows a relationship to flourish. And at both extremes, we find an undesirable person who finds failure in most relationships.

As I have gotten older (read "since I got a job"), I believe I have become more tempered. I am no longer so incredibly, passionately, liberal that you cannot have a conversation with me from anywhere near the fence, though I still have strong ideals about a lot things that I find important. I have learned to listen to other people's thought processes before I immediately decide that they are wrong. I have learned to keep my constantly open mouth closed for a few minutes each day to listen to what other people value, and how that shapes their approach to life. And more than anything else, I have learned to give my brain time to process information without and immediate reaction. Certainly, I have some more learning to do in this, but I feel like a more balanced person for it.

And yet...

There is still a voice in the back of my head that is constantly replaying a joke I heard around the time of the 2004 election:

How do you turn a liberal into a conservative? Give them 20 years.

This isn't only in relation to my personal politics, either. I am friends with people I believe to be racist or bigoted in some way. I find myself hearing and understanding, if not agreeing with, justifications of violence. I hear and see people making allowances or having expectations of me just because I am a woman, without complaint. Am I allowing my morals by which I so strongly stood to be eroded by the constant assault of opposition? Or am I simply become more level headed and reasonable? I have always, and still do, live in fear of becoming one of those people who look back at their young life and feel embarrassed, as if they were idiots who were only following the trends of the day, the ideological equivalent to a woman with a poodle perm in the 80s. So it all comes back to this question of compromise...

While right now, I believe like I am growing and maturing in the way that I look at the world, I feel intense urgency to protect myself from the approaching status of philosophical doormat-ism.