Okay, there are a number of different questions here, so I'm going to try to break it up into different parts.
First: Other people and situations often put difficult demands upon us. Fine. Could you please explain how to investigate with wisdom in regard to those demands. Is it a wanted demand, is it an appropriate demand and so on? When we investigate into the demands others put on us, we need to consider a lot of different factors that are involved in the demands. For myself, there are some demands that a particular person can put on me, in which another person can not put on me. So we actually add a new ingredient for making a decision. Who is it who is actually giving us the demands?
When my father and mother were alive, if they wanted me to do certain things, and if it was within reason, I'd do it. But if someone off the street asked me to do exactly the same thing, I wouldn't do it because they aren't my father or my mother. I don't owe them in the same way, I don't have the same responsibility to them. So we have to consider who it is that is putting the demands on us. We have our family, that's one category, and then within our family we have different categories; because our parents are a different category to, for example, our husband, wife, girlfriend, or boyfriend, and a different category to our brothers and sisters. We have these different categories even within the family. Then we have our friends. Some of our friends put demands on us. Is it an appropriate demand for that friendship or not? Again it may be appropriate with one friend, but with another friend it may not be, we may decide that we're not going to do what they demand of us. We can't give a black and white answer here.
We also have a work place, our bosses who put a hundred thousands demands on us. Often we have to do it whether we like it or not. Sometimes no, we're going to say "no" and we may risk losing our jobs. So the boss has a certain relationship. The co-workers also put demands on us. That's a different relationship within the workplace. We have to consider their position and our position and so on. You have all these factors involved even before you consider the demand in itself. So it's not so easy to figure out.
As to it being appropriate or beneficial, merited, wanted and so on, it depends on the situation. For example, if you are at work, if you are at work at a pleasant place that's producing some item which is basically a necessity - fine. The demand is to get these made. We go back to doing them and so on, and if we're a little too slow, your boss can let know that you have to be faster or else you will lose your job, and that's a particular demand the boss may put on us. And if we know that we were really working slowly, then yes, we have to pick up our speed and work a bit faster. If we actually feel we've worked as fast as we could, then maybe we have to say to the boss, "Keep me boss, I am really going as fast as I can", and of course if that's not good enough, the boss can say, "Okay, goodbye, I'll get somebody else", and we have to accept that, too. So depending on what the demand is, we have to consider that.
As to the rest of the question: Also does it make sense to apply the terms "fair" / "unfair" to demands? Sometimes, and sometimes not. Again it depends on the situation. When you're in a job and you have a boss, if they have the right to demand certain things of you, and you may feel it's unfair; then you have two choices: you can either do it or you can say that you won't do it. That's fine. But if the boss wants to fire you for it, then they have that privilege. So yes, you can decide whether it's fair or unfair but sometimes the consequences may not be worth it.
How to judge whether it's fair or unfair? Again, sometimes we don't know. If we get stuck, then we are back in doubt, and I was talking about doubt before, when we are stuck in doubt we need a good friend to talk to. Sometimes it's that good friend that will tell us whether it's "fair" or "unfair". Sometimes in a work place, there are unions that have made certain contracts with the bosses of different companies. When I worked on that road gang, most of the guys on the gang were in the union. I was not because I was not part of the regular team. I only came and relieved people, and then went off again. So I was not a permanent worker, I did not have to be in the union.
But the guys who were there day in and day out, full time, all year, they had to be in the union. And the union had made certain conditions with the councils in Australia as to rules regarding the employees. They simply had to follow these certain rules and requirements that the agreements were based on. Often if something was to be decided as "fair" or "not fair", that's where the rules came in. So for the people who were in the union, if they were treated unfairly according to the rules, then they could talk to the union boss, and the union boss could come and shut down the work totally - if something was unfair. So there are situations like that, where we may have to go and get help from somebody who understands the situation more.
There is an extra thing to mention here regarding "fair" and "unfair". What do you reckon, is life fair? Is life unfair? It is truly hard to answer these questions, isn't it? Is the Law of Kamma fair? Well, we're not enlightened yet, right? We don't really know that the Law of Kamma is fair, or know that some god is up there having to decide who's to die today, who's going to get raped today, who's going to get murdered today. So is the Law of Kamma fair? We believe, kind of, being a Buddhist, that the Law of Kamma must be true because it makes sense; and therefore, if it really is true and makes sense then it should be fair. But we can't see it totally, can we? We can't really see if it's fair because we can't see past lifetimes, we can't see everyone's past lifetimes.
In the news, just recently, some German fellow died. And normally that doesn't mean much, right? Because there are Germans dying every day, every few seconds. But this particular German fellow was, I think 85 or 90 years old. No, that also isn't unusual because old people die, right? But this German guy was an important ex-Nazi that they were trying to find; for 60 or 70 years they've been trying to find this guy and he had escaped. He never got caught. But now he's dead. Somebody would say, "That's not fair! He didn't get punished." But we can't say that. According to Law of Kamma, supposedly he got what he deserved and every one else gets what they deserve. It may not seem "fair", but whether you like it or not, it doesn't matter, if you agree with it or not, doesn't matter, whether you know about it or not, doesn't matter - part of life's rules is Dukkha exists. And our job is not really to figure out if it's fair or not fair all of the time, because we can spin for hours reckoning something's "fair". But really what we have to do is look at Dukkha and try to solve Dukkha - that's our job.