I Used to be Nice but I Gave It Up

Nice woman bringing flowers

My therapist once told me that being nice was overrated. It took me awhile but I ultimately saw the light and I’ve given up being nice, thinking about being nice, or even caring whether I am nice or not. Nice has become irrelevant to me.

Kindness, though, is a different matter. Kindness is very important.

On the surface, kind and nice are similar. Kind people avoid being cruel, say kind things, do not shame or dismiss or humiliate other people purposefully. Those seem like “nice” behaviours too. I see a lot of “nice” people in my psychotherapy practice. They are also very unhappy.

Kind and nice might look alike, but the sources are different. The foundation of niceness is what other people think of you. The foundation of kindness is compassion.

Some people believe this….

Be Nice!

“Be nice” always means to be mindful of how other people are perceiving you. Don’t do anything that might disturb, and, in fact, if you can do something that influences someone to think that you are a nice…