Play...nice?

"OMG she's like the nicest person on earth!" "He's a really nice guy..." "She's so nice she couldn't hurt a fly,"--these are a few of my least favourite things. A personal pet peeve of mine is when people mistake meekness and a lack of assertiveness for "niceness". Cmon, here, lets not give credit where it is not due.

What does it mean to be nice? To be honest, I can only speculate since I, myself, am not a nice person. Being polite is one thing, but what does it REALLY mean?

Speculation: No one is truly "nice". Humans will always seek to satiate the innate goal of self-preservation. Depending on what kind of personality traits you are given, people express themselves differently and seek self-satisfaction through different means. Nice people take pleasure in making others happy, and by pursuing this goal they achieve a sense of pride and satisfaction. As for the unfortunate rest, why force yourself to be something you're not? Forced niceties give off a worse impression than if you were to just be yourself.

In elementary school, I actually tried to be nice to everyone around grade 5. This didn't turn out so well. I ended up betraying friends, becoming the teacher's pet, and I was disloyal to my puppy-love "boyfriend" at the time--all because I wanted to be nice and loved by all. At least after these experiences, I learned that being nice wasn't everything. You have to be practical about what you want, realistic of how your actions will affect others, and weigh the alternatives to come up with the best plan of action.

STORY TIME:

From a very young age, I should have realized that I never was (going to be) a nice person. In nursery school, my friend wanted to come down the slide just after I had gone down, As some twisted sarcastic joke, I was blocking the way at the bottom with an angry face and an obviously empty threat, "You can't come down!"

Btw, don't ask how I remember this story; it's strange how this is my only memory of nursery school, and it's all so clear to me--even my exact feelings at the time!

For some reason, it never occurred to her that she could go down the slide anyway, and I would obviously jump out of the way to avoid getting hit. Instead she just started whining and crying. In my mind, I intended to let her go down the slide if she stopped complaining, sucked up her tears, and realized I was being sarcastic. My frustration further led me to tell her "You can't come down! You'll never see your Mommy again!" Honestly, if she just quit her whining, I would have moved right out of the way and we would have gone on playing like the best friends we were (yes, I did this to my best friend--yes, I know I'm a horrible kid). Unfortunately, the teacher cut my little scheme to a short close, and I must have gotten some kind of time-out, as was the fashionable consequence of the time.

This memory of mine is rather interesting, but I can definitely see that I haven't changed much since then. I often still make really mean jokes about other people, pretty much insulting them with only a minor twinge of sarcasm. I just can't help it; that's just the twisted, sick person I am. Sorry to all my past, present, and future victims!

Anyways, consider this...

Like the serial killer can't help but take pleasure from taking other lives, the "nice person" can't help but take pleasure in doing things for others. Is it really fair to only condemn "mean people" (just like the serial killer) simply because the "nice" people were lucky enough to be born with natural tendencies that happen to fall into socially accepted standards? I think nice is an overrated trend--instead, I think we should be striving to exhibit other more veritable traits such as sincerity, tact, consideration, etc.

Just a thought.

P.S. Short posts are SOOOO in.