Boundaries | INFJ Forum

Boundaries

just me

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Feb 8, 2009
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Do you believe in, or approve of, boundaries? Did Jesus draw a line in the sand just to draw it somewhere? Why do so many people ignore boundaries? Validation? Firm hand? Why do some people try to push a person beyond their known boundaries, then object to the reactions?

Do you believe boundaries are important? I am not talking about the wall, but feel free to go there. This was not meant to be political.
 
There are all sorts of people. Among them are leaders and followers. It is most difficult setting boundaries when dealing with leaders, as they feel like they should set all boundaries. It is when someone unbeknownst to them was made leader and kept a low profile long before they came. They ask about dates. Their "we" mentality is similar to your own, but they just cannot accept boundaries and sneer at them.They fail to understand and it causes friction.

You need to do this and you need to do that. Who do they think they are talking to? So, you might feel it time to talk. You have figured who to talk to, but cannot understand their thoughts. They do not heed to your words, and you do not heed to theirs. It may become a power issue unless boundaries are set. Good analogy. Suppose that, and tell me what you think, if anything.
 
Do you believe in, or approve of, boundaries?
Yeah, unless I'm discussing ideas with someone.

Did Jesus draw a line in the sand just to draw it somewhere?
Probably.

Why do so many people ignore boundaries? Validation?
I think that a lot of people lacked structured homes, often no mother or father. Millions of people are walking around chaotically. No family, no order.
Firm hand?
Yes.

We've all got responsibility.

Why do some people try to push a person beyond their known boundaries, then object to the reactions?
Because they haven't been disciplined.

Do you believe boundaries are important? I am not talking about the wall, but feel free to go there. This was not meant to be political.
Yes, the right to privacy for example, is sacred.
 
A boundary is a setting of terms which a group/individual uses to promote its own agenda.
People disagree on what the overall human agenda is, but everyone understands that there is one.
 
Do you believe in, or approve of, boundaries?
Yes.

Why do so many people ignore boundaries?

Like most other animals, humans are opportunists.

Why do some people try to push a person beyond their known boundaries, then object to the reactions?

Lack of respect, instability, reading people poorly, selfishness, naivety, or desperation.

Do you believe boundaries are important?

Yes.
 
Boundaries are self-imposed limits that we create in order to feel safe. They aren't the same for every person, so a person who is ignorant of this may seem like they are disrespectful of those boundaries. It's upon you to make that clear, though, as they cannot see those boundaries from the off.

The people who actively attempt to penetrate those boundaries do not all have malicious intent. They may see potential that is unused because of those boundaries and try to coax you out of it. Ultimately, though, it is still upon you where you place them and how you deal with them.

It is like this - some boundaries inhibit growth, give an illusion of safety. Yet others are necessary armor we need to traverse life. Either way, boundaries are a choice made by you and noone else. You are the only one who is capable of placing them, and equally you are the only person capable of moving them.
 
Either way, boundaries are a choice made by you and noone else.

Ginny, I liked your post with this one exception. Great post! Please give this a bit more thought and expound, if you will. I agree that some boundaries are like this, but nowhere near the top of the list.
 
We set boundaries in hospitals and elsewhere to protect people from contagious disease and killer germs, etc. We set boundaries when a village gets infected with something dangerous, like quarantines and doctors with special suits. Most Dads set boundaries when their baby girl starts dating later in life. Wait Here. Boundaries are used in war. Fences are boundaries. Walls are boundaries. Hope to see the Great Wall of China some day.
 
Ginny, I liked your post with this one exception. Great post! Please give this a bit more thought and expound, if you will. I agree that some boundaries are like this, but nowhere near the top of the list.
Of course, this only was referring to one kind of boundary. I have no idea what list you're referencing.

We set boundaries in hospitals and elsewhere to protect people from contagious disease and killer germs, etc. We set boundaries when a village gets infected with something dangerous, like quarantines and doctors with special suits. Most Dads set boundaries when their baby girl starts dating later in life. Wait Here. Boundaries are used in war. Fences are boundaries. Walls are boundaries. Hope to see the Great Wall of China some day.
Is this a sugggestion of other kinds of boundaries? This list you mentioned?
 
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Even at the metaphysical level, it is necessary for there to be boundaries in order for there to be difference.

The only domain that lacks boundaries is probably that of nothingness — only a domain in a manner of speaking, of course, since a domain implies boundaries.
 
Do you believe in, or approve of, boundaries? Did Jesus draw a line in the sand just to draw it somewhere? Why do so many people ignore boundaries? Validation? Firm hand? Why do some people try to push a person beyond their known boundaries, then object to the reactions?

Do you believe boundaries are important? I am not talking about the wall, but feel free to go there. This was not meant to be political.

There are lots of different sorts of boundary. Physical ones are just there whether I approve of them or not - a beach, the edge of the atmosphere, the surface of the Earth. I certainly believe in these and in fact would come to considerable harm if I systematically ignored that sort of boundary.

There are other boundaries that are similar but have softer edges. My home has several boundaries, each having a greater degree of significance - the edge of my land, the walls of my house, my bathroom door for example. There is a physical nature to these but that isn't as objective as the beach, say. You won't get cold and wet if you come into my property - though of course you might if you came off the street and into my bathroom uninvited while I was occupying it, lol! In other words, there is a strong subjective element to these boundaries and their significance depends on convention and possession.

Then there are boundaries of morality and behaviour - there used to be a fairly consistent set in our societies but that's no longer the case now, and people seem to have a considerable degree of choice, though there is still the bedrock of the law with its civil penalties for enforcement. My feeling is that there is a lowest common denominator to these sorts of boundaries: they are vital for the functioning of society - even from a purely secular point of view - because they have a similar role to rules about which side of the road you drive on. If it were a free for all, our communities could not function and would disintegrate.

But now we get to where one person's boundary may cross another's even though that isn't the intention. We had some neighbours a couple of houses away that hit the skids financially - it looks like they started dealing drugs and there were unsavoury people coming and going at strange hours etc. Some people may say, well good luck to them, it pays their mortgage - but it drove their immediate neighbours to distraction with the disturbance and the midnight pot fumes and the reduction in neighbourhood safety, etc. My feeling - they crossed our boundaries of good neighbourliness as well as the law and made our street a little less safe at night than it should have been.

Then there are our personal boundaries - what I know and believe, what my aims are and how I go about achieving them, how I behave. This boundary cannot be hard-edged - far from it, it's fuzzy as heck as long as we have any sort of contact with others. We each have a core deep down which is not even fully accessible to ourselves let alone to others, but our outer layers overlap each other indiscriminately. My own deep feelings about this encounter between people are summed up in several ways. Some of them - the two great love commandments of Christ, His commandment not to judge others but to leave that to a higher Authority, and this poem by WB Yeats that I have quoted several times in the Forum:

Had I the heavens’ embroidered cloths,
Enwrought with golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
Of night and light and the half light,
I would spread the cloths under your feet:
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.


None of this means that we shouldn't try to influence each other - far from it - but we need to recognise that each of us is on our own road, starting from very different places and each currently at very different places. We have such a lot to learn by listening to each other and trying to understand, rather than only projecting ourselves at each other. None of us has a perfect vision of what is ideal, and the gift of humility says that there is always something we can each learn from one another.
 
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Great post, John K. Tell me: what did you learn from the neighbors on their path?
 
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Great post, John K. Tell me: what did you learn from the neighbors on their path?
There's quite a lot really. Some tolerance for people in difficulty - the lady who owned the house had been a reasonable neighbour for 10 years but hit family break-up and financial troubles with teenage children to care for. It was the older children who got involved in the dodgy stuff. There are limits though - boundaries as you have expressed it - and it's when things start to intrude on others beyond nuisance and into issues of health and safety that a change is needed. In fact the state took control in the form of a police raid, and the family had to move out pretty soon after that. Another thing to be learnt is how difficult it can be to apply Christian principles sometimes - in an ideal world friends, family and neighbours could have helped out and the slide into disaster perhaps could have been avoided. No one family in the street could have done this, and the lady concerned would probably not have taken kindly to it anyway - what's more the slide away had gone on for several years beforehand so an intervention could easily have got us into the company of pretty unsavoury guys. I certainly could not have got involved with that because I had my own family problems to deal with. And that is another learning point - that there is no visible boundary sometimes between doing OK and not doing OK. The descent can be gradual and everyone concerned just adjusts to it gradually without noticing much, until suddenly something collapses chaotically. I saw this with my father as he progressed with dementia over several years - I realised I was adapting rather than managing the situation so decided to set synthetic boundaries and when he crossed them I took action even though there was no obvious before and after to an outsider. Things like stopping him from driving, taking over control of his finances, getting carers in and eventually getting him into a care home. If I hadn't done these things there would have been some kind of catastrophe eventually - but the preventative action often seems to be arbitrary and debatable at the time you make it happen - it needs the judgement of Solomon. One of the hardest things I've ever had to do is removing my father's freedom from him a bit at a time - perhaps these things come easy to ESTJs but not to me lol.
 
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