Lisa warned me a couple of months about betraying myself and the principles i try to live by, and as usual, the voice of reason was completely right. In fact, the exact words she used were “Just look at [person's name] as an example of what happens when you compromise. Do you really want to end up like that?” And how right she was. I talk a good talk about how you should centre your life around your principles rather than your feelings and transient circumstances, but its hard to live.

But recently, i have compromised, and its done far more harm than good. I’ve learnt the hard way, as per usual. What? Alex Cameron admitting fault or conceding a mistake? Enjoy it while it lasts.

First things first though, and that means defining the idea of compromise. Traditionally, compromise tends to refer to meeting in the middle or negotiating to find common ground where a fair and balanced deal can be struck and both sides can have their needs met. Then there is the concept i’m referring to, which is when one person compromises or sacrifices themselves more than the other, and the inequality means they suffer harm because of giving too much. True compromise brings equality, whereas personal compromise in the weakened sense means submitting to someone else’s will.

We are taught to obey. We are taught to keep the peace. We are taught to avoid conflict. But none of these things are realistic, practical or even reasonable. We are taught those things to keep us quiet and make sure everything stays in order. You simply cannot live in peace with all men, and there are those out there who really don’t have your best interests at heart - either because they are so wrapped up in their own, or they’re just plain nasty. They are skilled in aggression, game playing and getting what they want by strong-arming and bending people over backwards like a human crowbar. And let’s face it, human nature is a brutal thing that doesn’t respect our sensitivities.

Your need to be loved, accepted, liked and validated is very easily exploited by those who want everything in the world to be their way. Not only will their feelings for you be diluted by your resistance, you will also risk being labelled arrogant, pig-headed or blinkered for taking a stand. They smother you, confuse you, tantrum, dance around, make you think you’re totally mad and/or unreasonable and do whatever they can to keep you from having your own opinion and standing up for yourself. Love and neediness are so easily confused. If the intensity of your feelings varies according to how much you see someone or how they behave to you, then you’re needy and trying to fill up the emotional black hole. Love is calm, balanced and endures all in the long-term.

Compromise is intimately linked to the concept of boundaries - those invisible glass containers around us that define exactly how close others can come and how we interact with them, if we have them at all. We’re all eager to please and be accepted, we all fear rejection and separation. When we first enter into a relationship of any kind, those boundaries relax and merge into those of someone else’s, and then snap back into place a few months later when the fireworks die down. We overlook and forgive more than we normally would, which gives us the infamous rose-tinted glasses.

Damage from our past and unhealthy, temporary survival strategies we pick up and carry into our adult lives lead us into serious trouble when they mix with other people’s. The classic and infantile example is pacifying, appeasing, keeping the peace or telling people what they want to hear. The basic root of that foolish and destructive automatic knee-jerk behaviour is wanting to avoid conflict and neutralise aggression (i.e. calm someone down). The only problem is that most people have fairly good bullshit detectors, and ultimately the weasel words and half-truths you come up with make the whole problem worse as trust is undermined, and the gain you make in putting it off until another time later is offset by the deception and disrespect you show by doing it in the first place.

So what we’re saying is that its essentially cowardice. And women are the worst for it. Sorry again girls, but you are. And its ok, as its what you’re designed to do, biologically speaking. Just don’t expect us all to do it, or get upset when we don’t.

Maybe, if you’re like me, you use the word “people” instead of “I”, which is a way of de-personalising and intellectualising things that helps you to avoid talking about yourself or the way you feel.

Procrastinators have the same issue as people-pleasers. They avoid their anxiety over what they have to do, but ignoring it and putting it off until tomorrow, using phrases like “one day” or “someday”, when its plainly obvious they’ll just keep putting off until it gets so bad something has to be done for them just to survive or their world will collapse on itself. Again the trouble is that by avoiding the issue, they’re making everything 10 times worse. The temporary relief is like a drug with one hell of a comedown and/or hangover.

There’s a cruel and nefarious self-fulfilling prophecy embedded deep within this pointless meandering that perpetuates it. The reason for pacifying someone or putting off something unpleasant is to avoid the pain or anxiety that’s immediately in front of you. So the logic goes that there is an argument or collapse looming and you’re getting rid of it for the time being. However, 99% of the time there isn’t an argument or collapse on the way, and wouldn’t be, if they dealt with calmly and in an adult and mature way. But once the lies have been told or the deadlines are a few minutes away, the feared argument or collapse suddenly appears. It never would have been there in the first place, but the self-rewarding logic is that it was always there and avoiding it was the right thing to do and it was inevitable anyway.

It takes maturity, experience and some material thought to put away childish things, particularly as facing up to difficult situations and feelings really isn’t enjoyable. But its a case of pretty bad now, or suicidally dreadful later.

Compromising also means tolerating things you normally wouldn’t, as you’re afraid of losing that person if you stand up for yourself and demand its stopped. Often they go out of their way to defend against you confronting them by making you feel as though you will lose them, or will lose something in your relationship. They play the wounded martyr who is perpectually wronged, and you are the evil monster terrorising them. Either that or they are helpless victim who is too fragile to handle life itself or the responsibilities of normal adulthood. When you read it like that, it sounds ridiculous, but your heart doesn’t know reason.

Avoiding conflict is naive and absurd as it’s a part of life and running away from it just means it gets worse and follows you. You can’t out-run it and needs to be dealt with quickly and directly, regardless of how unpleasant a job it is. Sorry kids, a lot of people are going to pick fights with you, and you can’t go around be intimidated, apologising for yourself and trying to make them feel better. Sometimes you’re going to have to stand your ground, roll up your sleeves and stare them down.

And that’s my point. We are taught from day one that “being reasonable” means backing down and accepting someone else’s will. As i mentioned when i was writing about knowing when to strike, you also have to know when to refuse to compromise what you believe, to refuse to apologise for the way you feel and make some demands back from others. You have to know when to, and be brave enough to stand alone and take the ridicule and criticism because you believe you will ultimately be proved right in the end. Learning that strength of character to be mentally independent of others is a painful but valuable lesson.

When compromising yourself becomes habit, passive-aggression and resentment starts to seep out like water between the floorboards, conciously and subconciously. Compromising means you lose focus. The blacks and whites in your own life become confused grey areas as you no longer maintain clear lines around the issues and beliefs you hold. Because you are forever looking around the corner and checking yourself, it means you can’t look at where you’ve been, where you are or what else could be coming from the other direction. Bullys and arrogant ringleaders intuitively sense weak-minded people, just as predators pick off the weakest of the herd. They see those who will compromise and continually press the appropriate buttons once they notice you will keep bending over. And they keep coming for you until its too much hassle. Overruling you becomes easier and easier each time as you’re falling down a slippery slope and quite used to having to pull your pants down.

There is a cure for this progressive and erosive disease, and its known as submissive depression, which in other words means being so unhappy, put down, confused and lost that you no longer have a sense of self and life just gets too much. Only then do things get bad enough that you get tougher and change your ways. Only when you lose all control of your own self and life and are seconds away from emotional meltdown do you actually decide to get on the long road of rebuilding your life and becoming more assertive.

The world won’t stop trying to grind you down, ever, and things only get harder. You get a backbone or have a long slow death as a human slave. It’s that simple. As miserable as that sounds, its a harsh reality we have to accept before we can enjoy the wonderful things life has to offer. I can think of one rather pathetic individual who talked himself out of a job on the Prophecy project by giving away 90% of his own company to one of our guys, in paper, in less than 30 minutes, because he was so desperate. In business, its a bizarre rule of thumb that the grumpier you are, the keener people are to do business with you. People respect those who respect themselves. We look up to strength

I’m becoming more radicalised in my views. I don’t respect people who bend over and/or compromise themselves. I simply don’t have time for wishy-washy people-pleasers or those who tell me what they think i want to hear. The seconds i have left in my life are slipping away from me moment by moment, the world is throwing more at me every day and demanding I’m more than who I am right now, today. Only when you have too much time on your hands do you get into a mess. If you want something done, give it to a busy man. No time means decisiveness and action. That’s why my meetings are now 10 minutes long as i have no time to listen to you faff around the background detail and figure it all out in real time out loud. Everything else other than your point and bottom line is just cluttered noise around the main signal. My patience gets less every hour.

Life is about finding balance, understanding context and discerning the best course of action with the information you have. In times of peace, you prepare for war, in times of change, you prepare for rest. You have to learn when to declare war, defy and disagree, and to stand on your own. In your heart and mind you have to know your way, know what you know and be confident of it. If you act with boldness, you achieve great things, because as the SAS motto so wisely states, who dares wins. Selling price and value is whatever you are brave enough to ask for and what you can convince someone to pay.

The deadliest and most frighteningly dangerous thing can be to lose yourself on behalf of someone else, and you only ever have yourself to blame for not asserting your own rights and needs, which are perfectly natural and reasonable, even if the child-adult you are explaining them to doesn’t see it that way. Don’t let people confuse you or be weak and/or double-minded. The first step on the journey is very easily taken and looks like it has a comfortable reward as its subtle and not dramatic like a major disaster. But those stairs are leading downwards, and you are only a few nightmares away from losing your sanity. The disaster is just at the top of the road, and those who survive and succeed are the ones who have the foresight and wisdom to know what’s ahead, and how matryring themselves will get them there a lot faster. So they change course, and put on their oxygen mask before anyone else’s so they are strong enough to help others who need theirs put on too. If you’re half dead, bleeding or allowing others to drain your fuel supply by running to their every whim, the wind will blow you in every direction because you don’t have the strength to stay tethered to the ground.

So the moral of the story? Don’t bother trying to tell me what you think i want to hear. Don’t talk to me about how you will do what you want to do “one day”. Don’t try pacifying or appeasing me. Don’t be weak and stand up to me. Don’t faff or poodle around wasting my time. Respect me and i’ll respect you back.