I think this has become a theme in my life, but it's one I've become aware of only recently. Actually, only with the reading of the first post have I really put together all the episodes in the recent past that evidence this. (All of, er, two.)
I said in a presentation on leadership the other day that I think caring about other people can help you be a good leader because, when you care about the interests of your team members, it's easier to demand things on their behalf from the higher-ups. In other words, it's easier to fight on behalf of others, I said, than it is to fight on behalf of yourself. I don't have any more answer for why this is true for me now than I did at the time.
Just at work today, I remarked to a coworker that I thought I'd be much clearer-headed and able to stand up for a coworker who was being insulted than I would be, in that moment, to stand up for myself. Sure, I could probably come up with a ton of decent comebacks and objections if I had time to think about it (the introvert's curse? lol), but it seems that when it's really going down, it's easier to fight on behalf of someone else than it is to fight on my own behalf. Whether I'm too accommodating, too afraid of saying the wrong thing, whether someone being such a jerk to me hurts my feelings and is so unexpected that I'm frozen, whether my empathy for others is capable of cutting through the noise and fear in my body, or whatever it might be, that's just the way I think it is, for now.