Why Are You So Nice?
Sometimes I wonder about nice people
Do they know just how delightful they are?
Do they make an effort to be that pleasant?
If they’re conscious of their niceness, why do they choose to be so?
But then I wonder, are they actually nice?
Or do they just want to be known as someone who is warm and benign on the outside,
so that they’ll be more liked?
And then I ask myself whether or not it’s bad to make an effort to be such a pleasant person
Purposely saying nice things for the sake of being nice
Is it because they figure there’s already so much hatred in the world,
Or because they were taught that that was the correct thing to do?
But no one can be 100% nice.
Sadness and frustration always chips away at the shell of politeness and happiness
Do they deal with stress very well?
Do they just really appreciate life?
What if they only want good things to happen to people?
What if they just like you? Maybe they like me.
Sometimes I wonder about anti-nice people.
Horrible, nasty, pessimistic human beings.
Are they just permanently not nice?
Except, what if they just had a bad day? What if they didn’t sleep well?
Has something in their past caught up to their present?
What if they don’t think it’s necessary to be nice?
What if they think that no one deserves their niceness
Or maybe it’s just me – and the way I measure niceness
Not in how many words or good deeds
But by the intentions behind the words and deeds
Because we’re all different
And we all see the world differently.
What if they just don’t like you? Maybe they don’t like me.
Catherine Zhang 
Wow! Great to find a post with such a clear meessga!
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I’ve thought about this issue of ‘nice’ many times before – what a pleasant surprise to see it expressed on your blog! – and perhaps this quote expresses my feelings about the duality present in every person.
“I respect you (she addressed him silently) in every atom; you are not vain; you are entirely impersonal; you are finer than Mr Ramsay; you are the finest human being that I know; (…) generous, pure-hearted, heroic man! But simultaneously, she remembered how he had brought a valet all the way up here; objected to dogs on chairs; would prose for hours (until Mr Ramsay slammed out of the room) about salt in vegetables and the iniquity of English cooks.
How then did it work out, all this? How did one judge people, think of them? How did one add up this and that and conclude that it was liking that one felt, or disliking?”
To The Lighthouse, by Virginia Woolf
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Reblogged this on The Voice Of My Conscience… and commented:
Liked it! :)
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It’s refreshing to read a post that makes you think. :) it’s great!
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