A major source of the underlying issue that many, many people have in setting and maintaining completely appropriate boundaries is the fact that they’ve been deprivileged over the course of their lifetime. They don’t feel they have the right to establish a boundary and hold fast to it. And that sense that they don’t have the right is the result of others claiming that kind of right for themselves.
When you look at your own internal difficulty holding fast to your boundaries, it’s worth asking yourself: to what extent have I internalized, or to what extent have I understandably been swimming upstream, and as a result, not felt entitled to the kind of good treatment, the kind of respect, the kind of reciprocity that other people who are more privileged or more advantaged in society routinely presume for themselves?
There are three factors that lead to privilege, more or less, and they’re really different from each other.
Fortune. Just luck, good or bad. The genetic lottery, avoiding certain illnesses, being born with abilities or looks that happen to be valued in your culture. There’s no moral hazard to it either way.
Virtuous effort. Privilege can be earned, through expertise, licensure, standing. There’s no moral hazard here either, if anything there’s moral benefit.
Advantage. This one matters most for boundaries. Advantage operates by benefiting some and harming others. It’s a tailwind for some, a headwind for others, and the gradual accumulation of it tends to lift some people up by holding others back.
Who gets to set the boundaries? Who gets to decide who’s in and who’s out of a group? Who gets to determine what people owe each other? That’s a significant question, and the answer is very often shaped by advantage, not by anything either person earned or deserved.
My wife is one of the best holistic health practitioners I know, technical, solid, really good at what she does. She was talking with our daughter once about how much she charges per hour for her work. Our daughter just looked at her and asked, mom, how much would you be charging if you were a guy? That was a real moment for my wife to look hard at what she felt entitled to, in the give and take of the market.
That’s an example of how we can internalize difficulty standing up for our own boundaries, and asking for reciprocity that’s roughly fair, because of this background of privilege, or the lack of it.
Waiting to feel like you’ve earned the right isn’t the fix. There’s a different place this comes from, and it doesn’t depend on anyone else’s opinion of you.
Here’s exactly where I want to take this: a concrete way to define what you owe anyone, a way to stop chasing an impossible standard, and a piece of the Dharma that settles the whole question of who’s responsible for what.
