When I was a kid, being nice was awesome. Life was easier and it was an easy way to receive praise. Random adults were quick to tell you how impressed they were with your polite words. Other kids’ parents wanted you to be around their kids more. If you were nice in school, teachers were typically a little more lenient with marks. When you’re a kid, being nice is very advantageous. As a grownup… it often feels like a handicap.
When you’re a kid known for being nice, you get away with things. When I was in grade 11, I was in a smaller geography class that was split two thirds my grade and one third grade 12. The teacher had created a fun atmosphere in the class because we were all good students. Two of my friends, however, had a history with him and they liked to play pranks because he always had a fun reaction. The one prank I remember was they used two-sided tape to stick everything to his desk – that was amusing. The one day this teacher stepped out of the class for a few minutes and one of my friends threw a paper airplane that hit me in the back. At that point I was known for being a serious goody-goody, but wanting to be playful I picked it up and tried to toss it back. Unfortunately, it curved and hit the one of two grade 12 girls in the class. Let’s just say she was not known for smiling. After it gently hit her arm, she slowly stood up and then suddenly unloaded on me screaming like a drunken spouse who just stubbed their toe. This caused the teacher to run in the room very concerned and sternly ask: “Who caused this?” Everyone pointed to me (like the good supportive friends they were). Looking at me, the teacher suddenly… started laughing: “Oh, then that’s fine.” And then everyone except the crabby girl started laughing. It was amazing… minus how terrified I was of the girl in that moment and after. She was nasty.
Fun fact: I don’t know if that girl ever smiled that entire semester, but she had all the grade 12 boys in the class serving her because she filled in her shirt so well. That, of course, proves when you’re young there are other ways than being nice to impress certain people. I preferred my way (especially since I didn’t have the other as an option).
In elementary school, I was even more of a goody-goody minus playing sports at recess. I was very competitive. We had a big field that let us play anything we wanted from baseball to football. It was incredible, especially since there were only 300 kids in the school, so there was plenty of space for us to have normal sized teams.
Tip: A great way to help kids be nice is to give them time and space to burn off their energy.
Even though I was so competitive and other kids could get angry at me because of this, when it came to picking teams, I was always one of the first picked. When you’re a kid, you could be a bit of a jerk as long as it made you better to have on the team. That’s definitely not the case as an adult. If you seem too competitive, people often want to avoid you because it can create unnecessary conflict.
When I was kid, being nice meant people complimented your parents, and when parents feel good, they’re good to you. I see kids nowadays not being nice, and I’m left thinking how foolish they’re being. They’re making life harder for everyone including themselves. Unfortunately, their parents are usually the first to stand up for the rude child by being rude themselves, which leaves me wondering whether the kids are rude more because of the role modeling or the enabling. What’s crazy is if this kid is rude at school, it’s guaranteed they’re rude at home and then that same once protective parent is now losing it on their kid – the parent is setting themselves up for failure. The unhappy home will likely leave the kid wanting to be rude at school. It’s like a crazy wheel of rudeness. This doesn’t make any sense to me because if you’re nice as a kid, life is so much easier for you, and if you’re a parent, why wouldn’t you want to encourage your kids to be nice when it makes your life easier and improves your own relationship with them. Plus, having nice kids makes it easier for you to be nicer to your spouse because you’re not as agitated giving you a better marriage and family experience. Having nice kids is a win-win.
This is especially baffling because as an adult, being nice isn’t the same. There’s no one complimenting your parents for how nice you are, which means there’s no indirect benefit. There’s also no one praising you for being nice, which means there’s no direct benefit. Besides setting you up for being taken advantage of, being nice as an adult in our current culture will likely cause others to not like you because you make them feel bad. This can be from jealousy that you’re nicer than they are or the fact that they’re so worn out, anything positive is annoying. After all, misery loves company unless it’s a nice person because they’re positivity is annoying. In these cases the nice person becomes a target: (miserable person) “If I’m hurt, you’re going to be hurt.” Even worse, it seems people are guarded against niceness because we’ve been taught niceness is usually associated to an angle or a sales pitch coming. I recently booked a hotel stay over the phone for the Fallsview pool in Niagara Falls (it was actually $30 cheaper over the phone than online, which was a pleasant surprise for this old guy who prefers booking with a real person). At the end of the call, the person on the other end with a slight Spanish accent asked me if my email address started with “rev” because I was a pastor. I told him I was ordained, but had a different day job. He then went on this very impressive compliment train saying it was rare to have someone so nice on the phone with him when booking for the hotel. He said it made sense I was a Christian because of how kind I sounded. I will admit; it felt really good to have this person who seemingly had no reason to be this complimentary share his praise. It was like going back in time and having an adult tired of rotten kids be so grateful to have me in their group. Several minutes after the phone call… I received the email survey about my experience. Now I was faced with the question: Was he being genuine or had he found the key to scoring really high on his survey after the call? He seemed genuine on the phone, but it could easily go either way. His compliments definitely left me more likely to respond to the survey (something I rarely do) and giving him higher marks. If his niceness was genuine, it’s a shame the survey tainted it, but if I want to be nice to myself, I need to believe it was genuine.
I should point out that for this lesson, when I say “nice”, I mean actually being nice. I’ll hear someone say a person is nice, but what they mean is in public they’re not a jerk even though they might be at home with their family. Here’s the important distinction: The absence of meanness or rudeness is not being nice. Being shy doesn’t make you nice. Being quiet or not causing problems doesn’t make you nice. Letting people get away with bad choices isn’t being nice; that’s enabling. Enabling is being overly nice and is ultimately mean because you allow the other person to be a turd. Letting people take you for granted also isn’t being nice. Letting someone be mean to you is being mean to both them and you.
Nice is something different. Nice is helping others know with gentleness how to better connect with you. Nice is offering to help others. Nice is smiling at people and using please and thank you, which also means waving a thank you when you’re driving and someone lets you in. Nice is going out of your way to say hi to someone to help them feel welcome. Nice is not thinking about yourself and letting fear hold you back from being friendly. Nice is knowing when to say goodbye and not drawing out an awkward conversation. Nice is helping people feel valued. Nice is actively working at making where you are better. Nice is disciplining your children, so they aren’t annoying people in the present and directing them to be good people in the future. Nice is not beating yourself up for making a mistake or beating someone else up emotionally for their mistake. It’s recognizing there was a problem and considers ways to prevent it from happening in the future because nice people don’t set themselves up for failure.
The truth is being nice is work. In a world that’s rarely genuinely caring of others, being nice is exhausting. When you’re nice, there’s a risk of burning out, especially if you can’t see the benefits of being nice. I typically find people are mirrors of what you offer them: If I’m nice, you’ll be nice back, and if I’m rude, you’ll be rude back. Unfortunately, I’ve recently also started seeing: If I’m nice, you’ll take me granted and if I’m rude, you’ll give into my demands, which means nice people get screwed over.
What does Jesus say about being nice? “For [God] gives his sunlight to both the evil and the good, and he sends rain on the just and the unjust alike.” (Mat 5:45) This is part of Jesus’ explanation for why we should be kind to our enemies – God’s good to everyone, so we should be, too. He calls followers the light of the world and urges them to be the salt of the earth (Mat 5:13) and maintain their saltiness, which is interesting because “Salt is essential for life.” (Google) It helps daily function like with muscles; it preserves, adds flavor, and heals. It also needs to be limited. Too much salt is bad for us just like being overly nice is bad. In a speech called the Beatitudes, Jesus even gives promises: “God blesses those whose hearts are pure, for they will see God. God blesses those who work for peace, for they will be called the children of God. God blesses those who are persecuted for doing right, for the kingdom of Heaven is theirs.” (Mat 5:8-10)
And why am I sharing this lesson? Because I needed it. It’s discouraging trying to be nice, and once in awhile we need to be reminded that there’s a reason to keep pushing ourselves to be the light to the world and to not lose our saltiness no matter how discouraged we become with the darkness of the world. After all, Jesus also preached that some people love the darkness and hate the light because their actions are evil (para John 3:19), so there will be some people who hate niceness. Fortunately, we are also given this promise: “God blesses you when people [hurt] you because you are my followers [even if it’s because we’re being nice]. Be happy about it! Be very glad! For a great reward awaits you in heaven.” (Mat 5:11) When we’re nice, there will be rewards whether in this life of the next, which means we need a little patience and then we’ll see the benefits.
This week may you continue to work at being nice and making the world a better place.
Rev. Chad David, ChadDavid.ca, learning to love dumb people (like me)
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