Nice-ism - A weakness in today's times?

Let’s start by defining Nice-ism first – Being polite, kind and respectful towards others and behaving cordially are various facets of being nice to fellow living creatures. Nice-ism as a philosophy is the backbone of all religions and spiritual endeavors and probably the first lesson imparted by a mother to her children in most societies. By all logical means, this should mean that a majority of the human population would be nice but practically speaking, this isn’t true. And no the façade of appearing nice doesn’t count as the real thing – Indians seem to be masters at that!

However, I don’t want to explore whether people are nice or not. I just want to delve deeper into the consequences of being nice. Let’s put it straight - I have concluded that nice-ism is a weakness these days. Even when I am a proponent of positive thinking and have tried my best to find reasons to believe otherwise but experience and observation have a different story to tell. Also, maybe my observations are valid in India only – I would love to believe that but they seem more universal and not just specific to a particular geography/culture. Yes, this conclusion has negative connotations. So let’s figure out how does a behavioral attribute which was always considered a strength suddenly become a weakness in today’s times?

Some observations from daily life – The nicer you are,
·          the more people take you for granted
·         The less importance you are given in social circles
·         Not-so-nice people are given higher priority

This happens for a simple mathematical reason – Statistically speaking, not-so-nice people create more noise and ruckus for similar levels of services rendered and are more likely to provide negative feedback. This means that they have higher expectations in general which need to be met to avoid any backlash. Hence, the nice people suffer as they are expected to be more understanding and over a period of time, this differentiation is ingrained into everyday habits.

Now, this pushes the nice people to not be nice anymore (which actually works in the above context - personal experience) or continue being nice and not expect the same from the outside world. The latter option isn’t sustainable as it’s only human to expect reciprocation of your own feelings and thoughts. It causes undue stress levels which might lead to a sudden outburst and damaged relationships (most of the decisions took when you are angry end up badly) or complete alienation from people who don’t meet your definitions and standards. Basically, you join the not-so-nice category in the eyes of others even though you never wanted to and then don’t give a fuck about what others think/feel because you have been on the other side and it didn’t work for you.

However, sometimes you don’t like what you have become anymore. But you remember the stress and heartbreak which comes along with being nice and you don’t feel like going back to being nice. You might try to achieve a balance where you can be nice and people take you seriously but that’s an extremely complicated task, if not totally idealistic. It’s a weird world, isn’t it? And the question remains – what do you do to protect your inner peace?

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