Definition of Nice:
Pleasant, Agreeable, Satisfactory
Definition of Kindness:
The quality of being friendly, generous, and considerate of others.
*Oxford Dictionary was used to define these words above.
I don't know about you, but I cringe when someone describes me as "nice." It's so thin like a watered down sodium free vegetable broth. Nobody wants to be broth.
If you'll look carefully at these two definitions listed above what do you see? Here, I'll show my work for you...
One is passive and one is active.
So let us jump straight down the rabbit hole of deeper philosophical thought without a tether to the accepted or "nice" way of speaking of such things.
Nice people are passive people who typically do not want to act on the behalf of others nor themselves. Nice people are consumed with resentment and have passive aggressive tendencies that they have cultivated in order to release the nagging feeling that they shouldn't have been put in the position of having to be "nice." Since most people who are labeled "nice" are lacking an entire backbone, they will not under any circumstance step in as the hero of anyone's story. I've seen "nice" people actually pretend to not know what is going on around them just to retain the comfortable non-action they prefer.
Do you ever see those crime shows and think, "come on, someone had to have noticed that Bill was behaving strangely? Come on! You mean he went to all these social and community functions and nobody thought something was off about that guy? Look at him! Clearly he's a freakin' creep!"
Let me school you on why nobody suspected "Bill was a creep." They were nice people. Nice people do not want to be involved in any way no matter what the stakes are for not speaking up about something. They want life to continue as it is FOR THEM. They don't want any curve balls thrown into the mix and especially ones that they may see as having zilch to do with the happiness of their life.
Their motto or mantra they repeat in their head to justify their lack of courage is, "it's none of my business." The Super Nice people who have religious leanings will use God as a mascot they can pin all their non-action onto. "Who am I to step into someone's life. It may be God's will that they are going through this."
That is the most cowardice excuse there is, and in my humble opinion, it's the antithesis of what every story in all religions was trying to teach. It is especially ignorant to think that being "nice" is related to being Christlike.
Do you think Jeshua Ben Joseph/Jesus who became the Christ, was "nice?" No. He was a revolutionary, a rebel, stood up for the poor, broke the rules, told the masses that they were also sons of God, and faced the ultimate trial to prove to generations far in the future the significance and difficult path of choosing to be "in the world, but not OF the world." He did nothing out of being nice or satisfying the status quo. He came to break the chains of the repressive laws that had enslaved the minds of regular hard working people for eons. That isn't being "nice." It's being a wrecking ball so that society can rebuild with higher ideals that aren't rooted in the base level laws meant to repress 99% of the inhabitants of the Earth. Of course there is the whole table throwing episode at the temple too. I could have referenced that but it's low hanging fruit and you already know that story anyway.
One thing about the table tossing ass whoopin' Jesus is when he had enough, he had enough. How many "nice" people saw the beginnings of the temple being used as a low budget Hebrew casino and said nothing about it? Answer: All of them. A repressed society is not likely to stand up straight with their shoulders back and demand a damn thing. They have come to believe that they are happy with "getting by" and just making sure they stay out of jail and provide for their family.
"I don't want any trouble officer so no, I'm not pressing charges on that group of ramped up violent young people who destroyed my business with bricks. I'm sure they are in enough trouble as it is." -Said the "nice guy."
Meanwhile, the real message sent to the people who are not "nice" is "everyone is afraid of us and we can do whatever we want with zero repercussions." That is how the crime rate rises and also how and why nobody will call police in neighborhoods where gangs are running the show. Do you think anyone wants to live in a neighborhood run by thugs? No. They don't. They have rolled over and played nice so long that they forgot they have any power at all to change their environment.
This "nice" mind virus is also infecting most businesses as well. I've personally witnessed it in hospitals, retail chains, corporations that are "too big to fail," banks, credit card companies, school districts, and even families. If someone with narcissistic or sociopathic tendencies is in power, most of the people under them will be "nice people."
The story of Ebeneezer Scrooge is a classic example of this. Bob Krachit was "so nice," that he was thanking the sociopath employer Scrooge for the tiny morsels he took home for his family. The "nice" Bob Krachit was allowing his son Tiny Tim to be malnourished to the point of near fatality just to keep the peace and not make any waves with his tyrannical boss. Krachit was a spineless piece of shit actually.
There's no dignity in allowing anyone in any situation to walk on you and clean the shit off their shoes on your back. You are not getting extra special glowing halos in Heaven for being a spineless coward. All of the stories from all of mythology, from all of the ancient religious texts, from all historical documents dating back to the time of the Romans, none of these stories are retold and reinvented because of the "nice people" who rolled over and allowed evil to flourish. That is not what we are made up of. We are not meant to be corporate hotel wall art, just adding subtle pastels and abstract formless shapes to a beige backdrop. All of those paintings end up at the thrift store marked as merely having worth due to the frame.
Being "nice" is akin to elevator smooth jazz, corporate hotel wall art, bank waiting areas, and that store where your Grandma gets those taupe elastic pants from.
PARADOX TIME:
Being Nice is why we can't have nice things.
A journey from being nice to being kind begins...
Kindess is active. Kindness notices the situations that could affect others and makes active attempts to help in any way they can to manage a crisis. Kindness stops and rescues the animal injured or scared on the side of the road. Kindness perceives injustice and even if the injustice isn't directed to him/her personally, it is personal to them because of an inbuilt sense of right and wrong. What hurts another, also hurts me. When another living being is suffering unnecessarily, I say, "What must I do here and now to help in the way I can to ease this suffering."
Kindness stands on the front lines so that people who are weaker won't have too. Kindness gives strength and rejuvenates society by being unafraid of changing what is broken.
Kindness is willing to martyr itself for the sake of the future people who may not have to go through what they have. Kindness is forward thinking, present acting, and gives no tip of the hat to the past systems if they were not functioning in a beneficial way for others. Kindness faces the huge academic paradigms and says, "I think this system is not of benefit. I think it is cruel to experiment on animals and it is a senseless thing to do when there are other ways that will not bring suffering upon an innocent living thing." Kindness gets ridiculed, smeared, mocked, and sometimes is killed so that the old ways may be preserved and the "nice" people will continue to keep their head down and press on not making waves or drawing attention to the rot going on at the expense of others.
Kindness is moral courage.
Being Nice is moral cowardice.
Know the difference.
A nice person is not your friend if you are the type that might go against the grain and speak out about something. They will ghost you pretty quick when you become the louder voice saying what everyone knows but is afraid to say. Nice people do not have the drive to tell you why they ghosted you, they will simply disappear and if you see them or run into them in the future, they will be very "nice" and ask all the surface level things that imitate the emotion of caring. They don't care. I promise you they are frantically looking around to see if anyone else that is more of a dominate person in their life happened to see them speaking to you. They worry about appearances more than substance, every. single. time.
Nice people are not adding to the tapestry of our world's bigger picture. They have their own thread but it's not forming the beautiful image of that tapestry. It is happy to be weaving in and out near the edges and where it is of no consequence to the bigger scene. This is not humility by the way. This is timidity of spirit, fear as a rudder that navigates their decisions, and cowardly non-action as the destination.
If you have a list of New Year Resolutions, add to that list the cultivation of active Kindness and eliminate passive niceness in at least one situation that is brought to your awareness and gives you pause. This will change your life.
You will no longer be a prisoner to your resentments, you will walk with your head held higher, and you will inspire people to also act with courage when they are faced with a situation that they could actually do something about.
If you keep being dragged into situations where you are supposed to see something you have willfully ignored out of being "nice" as defined in this post, maybe this time test yourself and see what you are made of. Maybe you have more power because you have observed for so long and now are ready to speak up and take action. Maybe it would speak volumes if the "spineless nice person' found this situation so important that they made themselves uncomfortable and faced their fears just to be a voice of truth. Maybe you can be a hero in someone's story just by doing that one simple thing.
