How can you balance self respect with humility and kindness to others?

How can you balance self respect with humility? For example I find that when I know I have hurt someone, even if I had a reason to be angry, I hate that I have hurt them and I would rather put my pride aside and apologise to them and try and be their friend again. Does this make me a doormat? Should you put your pride aside and try and make amends when you get the feeling of guilt? Is that how you know when to put someone else first?|||Make sure you value yourself equal to others, then when you apologize you know you are worth being forgiven, regardless of what they say.|||In many popular circles you would be considered weak and vulnerable if not a push over but what in fact is that you seem to be aware of your own ego and manage to keep it in check by not allowing it to over inflate itself with self importance.





I would recommend you consider some of these teachings for guidance in such areas: http://www.kabbalah.info/|||That doesn't make you a doormat at all. If you step on someone's foot, you're sorry for causing them pain. If you hurt someone's feelings, you're sorry for causing them pain.|||No-one can arrange other people's actions.


If you have hurt someone it is right to apologise.


Do the right thing even if others do not.


As for guilt: read 1 JOHN 1:9. Believe it.|||thinking of others sometimes ahead of ourselves...


that wont always work...some are married to chauvanists..|||It does not require a balance because one does not take away from the others.|||You shouldn't ever give up common sense about who you are around and their behavior, but the best thing to do is to understand that their behavior arises due to causes and conditions, and isn't permanent. Your perceptions of their behavior, i.e. anger at them, is causing YOU suffering, as well as the suffering you might cause them by however you feel you've "hurt them" (usually people are ignorant to the suffering they cause and why they're doing what they do, they just do it).





You should learn to start subduing your reaction (notice I didn't say "dump it" or "get rid of it") to their behavior, by understanding that your perception of their behavior is what gets your dander up and why. You learn that you can't control the causes and conditions of THEIR behavior, but you can learn to subdue your reactions to it through the logic and understanding of the dependent nature of their behavior. Understanding the dependent nature of your view of them is also important.





Having said all of that, you can learn to not react to them and let their behaviors drop, BUT if their behaviors are causing serious harm and suffering to other sentient beings, you should learn to find ways (ex. whaling, child abuse, etc.) to get involved in some group, call the police, etc., that will help the other suffering beings.





Again, common sense should never overrule anything. Learn to subdue your "pride" by understanding where it's coming from and your reaction to theirs by understanding the same from their pov. Be patient w/ yourself as you learn the logic of it all and think of the old adage "do unto others..." and the other, "... help me to accept the things I cannot change, change the things I can and the wisdom to know the difference.





May all sentient beings find happiness and its causes, be free of suffering and its causes and learn to dwell in equanimity (and I say this, about "equanimity" to myself as well. I'm not perfect).





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