I was in class, and was tasked to do groupwork.
We’re about a month into the course, but there’s still some students who haven’t purchased the textbook necessary for exams and written assignments.
One of the members of my group nominated himself as de facto leader, and we set to work on the assignment. He had purchased the aforementioned textbook; one of the other members of our group did not. As the group leader was talking, the member without a book casually lifted up the leader’s book and proceeded to copy notes. This exchange went a bit as follows:
Group Leader: Oh. Okay. You’re just going to take the book.
Other Member: Oh, yeah. I still don’t have the book.
Group Leader: Yeah, but you could have asked before you took it like that, I was still reading that.
Other Member: Oh. Sorry.
The other member returned the book and we continued to brainstorm, but that exchange stuck in my head for the remainder of the class.
Person A did something that Person B didn’t appreciate, and communicated it clearly and assertively to to get results. The important point was that Person A wasn’t interested in being NICE, they were interested in reaching the desired action of retrieving their book.
I’ve gotten a lot of value from the audiobook version of Not Nice by Dr. Aziz Gazipura. In it, Dr. Gazipura proposes the radical notion that striving to be nice isn’t a positive character trait, but rather a mask; a negative character flaw, an anathema of falsehood preventing people from expressing their true selves.
Consider this: what thoughts are conjured by the bland, rote statement: “He/she is nice”?
Chances are you struggle to think of any other redeemable qualities. She’s nice. He’s inoffensive. She’s….boring.
People who are nice are usually defined that way because they give nothing else of their personality, just this pleasing façade used so as not to rock to boat or to get under others’ skin.
Nice sounds good on paper. But being nice won’t get you where you want to be in life.
I was a life-long chronic nice person. I strived to do everything I was told; as a result, I was a model child and a teacher’s pet.
As a consequence, I had very few friends. How could I, when I didn’t allow myself to relate with other people? Instead I hid behind a mask of “niceness”, and assumed that my agreeable, easygoing nature would be enough.
I’m older now, no longer a goody-good teenager. As an adult, “nice” no longer sounds like a badge of honor; it’s more of a copout, a safe but apt description when we know little else about a person.
For the second year in a row, I was described as “nice” in my performance review at work.
Truthfully? I don’t trust nice. When a new hire starts on the job, they are usually “nice”, sometimes overtly so. They are the first to volunteer with tasks, liberal with compliments and pleasantries. And that’s to be expected, I guess. They are trying to impress while on the job.
But I never really KNOW these people. I realize now that that must be how people perceive me; a nice, helpful employee. And if I’m like that in person, is that how I come across in my writing?
A lot of famous authors are not where they are today because they are nice. It’s because they have a talent for writing but also the personality and ability to get stuff done.
Did J.K. Rowling stop submitting her manuscript because she was afraid to annoy publishers? Was Hemingway revered for being a nice old, soul that didn’t step on any toes? Did Tiger Mom Amy Chua make headlines because she was overly careful not to offend or upset certain groups?
Niceness is a plague in our society. It’s perfectly acceptable to be fair and civil towards individuals, but to be nice robs others of knowing what you’re truly like, and being nice won’t allow you to reap the benefits of an authentic existence you deserve.
An incident occurred at work that forced me to really question the merit of nice. I could have smiled and nodded, and let the matter slide off my back. I chose against it; I chose the not-nice alternative and decided to take action.
I have to stand for what I believe in, whether it be my desire to write outside of the workplace or how I expect to be treated within it.
Decades of programming to be nice will not go away overnight. Those worries sprout up, those fears that I am being selfish, insensitive, or a straight-up b!tch.
I have to leverage those thoughts with the knowledge that there will ALWAYS be people who will think that of me, no matter how nice I attempt to be. I only have one life to live, I might as well use it to work on what I truly want out of my time on Earth.
Staying quiet and agreeable may garner the tacit approval of my work colleagues, but in the end it means less than the priority I must place on my own development as a writer.
Going forward, I’ve decided to make every action based on how likely it will end with achieving my goals. If it means I have to not be nice, then so be it. Nice means nothing to me if it means I can be a published author without it.
What about you? Are you a person that has been labeled as nice? How has it held you back? What are you doing to free yourself fro the shackles of nicedom? Write your comments below!