When it is suggested that one be kind, agreeable, forgiving, or cooperative, people in recovery regularly protest, saying that that would make them a doormat.
What is a doormat?
A doormat is an inanimate object. Its purpose is for people to wipe their shoes on before entering a building.
The term doormat is not helpful in describing a person. It is not suggested that a person become an inanimate object, whose sole purpose is to satisfy a trivial material need of another. Since this would obviously be inappropriate, the inference is made: being kind, agreeable, forgiving or cooperative is likewise inappropriate.
This is nonsense.
The two situations in which the 'doormat' question arises are firstly handling others' defects of character and secondly negotiating collaborative situations.
Regarding others' defects of character, the injunction is to be patient, tolerance, and forgiving. Why? Because others' behaviour, and certainly their character, cannot be changed by me whining or directing. Others are not my bonded servants. They are not obliged to change because I insist. I am not in charge. Most people cannot change or will not change, and, even if they change temporarily, they typically revert soon thereafter, or their attempt to conform creates other problems, including their resentment. Patience, tolerance, and forgiveness are therefore, at the very least, the common sense response, the response that arises out of an acceptance of reality.
If one is with someone fundamentally unreasonable, nothing can be done.
If one is with someone fundamentally reasonable, usually nothing need be done. An occasional polite request can speed the process along, but this works only because the other person is already in a fundamental position of kindness and cooperation.
It should be recalled, also, that one's own apparently reasonable behaviour is often irksome to others. Those worried about being doormats rarely invite others to direct or control their behaviour, concerned that others not be doormats with regard to them. Those most keen not to be doormats are often those who imperiously insist that others submit, doormat-like, to them, mediated through the tyranny of upset and offence.
Regarding the second question of collaboration:
Collaborative endeavours are best run in accordance with the Traditions and Concepts. The more people are involved, the bigger the organisation, the smaller the input required from me. If my ideas are good, they will be readily accepted; they need not be aggressively sold (Tradition Eleven). If, after the event, I spot a problem others have missed, I can raise it (Concept Five), though, again, if the observation is good, it will be readily spotted.
If the organisation is dysfunctional and irrational, it is unlikely I can change this by protest. I can either create more work for the dysfunctional and irrational organisation by being uncooperative, thus amplifying the dysfunction, or I can just get on with it as best as I can.
If the organisation is fundamentally reasonable and rational, it will be automatically seeking my input (Tradition II, Concept IV), and a general spirit of cooperation is best all round.
To sum up, to be kind, agreeable, forgiving, or cooperative is merely to accept the world as it is and act accordingly. My job is to contribute to decision-making processes where this is my role or where this is invited, not to act like the General Manager of Things and Grand Inquisitor, with my lid popping off every time someone else fails to follow my plan.
On a planet of eight billion people, in families with more than two persons, in organisations of more than two persons, the standard, default position is surrender to the majority; in families and organisations of precisely two people, the standard, default position is yielding fifty per cent of the time. Submission, yielding, and surrender are the ordinary routine of life. Protest, resistance, and obstruction should be rare, if not exceptional, measures. This approach is not doormatism: it is love.