There’s this meme making the rounds that says: “Being nice gets you disrespected and stressed out. Being a good person is different.” And, it stopped me mid-scroll. Because, well. Yes. And also… hmm.
See, “nice” is one of those slippery words. Nice is smiling when you don’t want to. Nice is saying yes when your gut says no. Nice is holding the elevator for the person you know is going to make you late. Nice is often about being palatable, agreeable, and, let’s be honest, sometimes a little spineless. And yes, niceness can leave you stressed, depleted, and wondering why you feel like a doormat with lipstick.
Being a good person, though, has a different weight. Good doesn’t always look like nice. Good might be saying no to someone who’s pushing boundaries. Good might be telling the truth even when it’s uncomfortable. Good is about fairness, decency, integrity. Good leaves you able to look yourself in the mirror without wincing.
I try to be fair. Is that the same as being good? I think fairness is one of the building blocks of goodness. Being good doesn’t mean rolling over. It means doing right by people, even when it’s hard, even when it’s messy. The world doesn’t actually need more “nice.” It needs more good. It needs people who can set boundaries, tell the truth, and still extend kindness where it matters.
The funny thing is, when you’re nice, people sometimes like you less they sense the falseness. But when you’re good, even if people don’t always like your decisions, they often respect them. And respect beats empty approval any day.
So, yes, I’ll smile at strangers, I’ll hold open a door, I’ll try not to grumble too loudly in line at CVS. But my deeper goal is to be good. Because good is sustainable. Good keeps me grounded. Good doesn’t leave me muttering under my breath at night wondering why I agreed to something I never wanted in the first place.
Nice runs out fast. Good? Good sticks.
And if a meme can make me understand or state out loud my underlying life philosophy before my morning coffee, well, maybe that’s the good kind of stress.
Plus, here’s another thing to consider. Being nice gets you invited to boring parties. Being good gets you home at a decent hour with your dignity intact.
Categories: Coffee, identity, Leadership, mental health, Psychology, social media, society, workplace
psychologistmimi 
No one wants an invite to a boring party!
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SMiLes Oh Goodness ‘Good’ is Surely Relative to Both
Cultures and Sub-Cultures too as of Course All Words
Are Metaphors With Endless Potential Uses depending
On What the Group Think Feel and Sense Mutually and
Consensually Agrees Upon
True Nice includes Ice
As Nice Will Break the Ice
Or Nice May Break the Human Spirit
Who Doesn’t Have the Ability to Say No
in All the ways No Comes and Goes and True
So Many Examples of Nice As Capitulation these days
Hehe Not even Funny Anymore As Double Speak becomes the way
Yes the
Orwellian
Modern way
For Real Dear Miriam
Perhaps Civility is the Word
Our World Needs Most to Come
To Fruition No Longer in Double Speak ways
And Perhaps What the World Needs Very Most is
More Attention Focused on Raising Humans With Emotional
Intelligence the Ability to Regulate Our Feelings and Integrate
Our Senses in Synergy that Comprises Our Emotional Energy
(Let’s All Go on a ‘Vision Quest’ Yes And Share Some Blood
Sweat and Tears finally initiating Our Selves More Fully Human)
For Change for the
Better no Matter if it
is Fear Angering Hate
Or Hope Caring Love
Key as always finding
Ways to Lift Others UP
Yet that ability does wear thin
If We Do Not Have the Emotional
Intelligence to Generate Our own Happiness Within
Naked Enough Whole Complete Has Much More Room to Do that
Than Being Strangled by all the Various Clothes of Culture that Leave
Us Less
than Really
Fully Human
Whether it may be termed
Kind Or Nice or Civil Lifting Others
(Kind Includes Kin what a Kindling Word)
Up is what Emotionally Healthy Humans Do
As It Naturally Feels Good to Be A Full Blooded
Altruistic Human
LoVE in Peace
Can’t imagine
A better place to live
Particularly when it isn’t
Dependent on what i Get Back From Others
Science Shows that One Altruistic Act of Kindness
That Normally Includes a Pleasant Disposition AKA Niceness
All Genuine And Sincere As Such without Expectation of Return Yes
In Other Words
Again Altruistic
Can Measurably Increase
Human Feelings of Well Being for Months
It’s Just a Way to Keep Our Christmas Tree lit up
Year Around Always Adding New Colors for Joy to
The
World
As Science
Shows Our
Christmas
Tree ThiS WaY Is Real
And True again considering
All the Road Blocks Modernity
Brings It’s Only A Platitude until it becomes Real
i See Brown Trees everywhere i Go Yet i have endless
New
Colors
of my Greening
Tree Still Generating
New to Give Away For Free
For It’s True i used to be the
Saddest ‘Charlie Brown Christmas
Tree’ oF All
Yep Literally
Assessed As Such
By the ‘Profession’…
They Offered me the
Red, Blue, and Most Every Other
Pill in ‘The Book’ i Created my
Own Christmas
Tree Ever
Greening
Coloring
New
Instead
Just to
Give away for Free..:)
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I am a little good and a little nice. No wonder I feel worn out when I probably shouldn’t be.
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I work on being good – nice is a concept my mother used to try to make me do. Somehow, however, nice never meant other people having to be NICE TO ME.
So I pretended a lot, passed in polite society in the Mexico City of the 1960s (so as not to make my mother a pariah, more or less), and KNOW how to behave when I have to.
Nice is FULL of societal expectations; good is on your conscience, and says all people are equal.
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Yes!!! Absolutely get it
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Nice is a slippery word, yes i like that descriptor. I am very nice, but being kind and ultimately, good, is my main desire. It’s my number one goal; the most important thing about me.
Things to think about, here. Thank you.
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Indeed it is a slippery word!
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