Please Be Nice....Or Else!

 

It doesn't take much. To be nice. To be kind. To be respectful of others. It feels like it should be expected. 

Why be nice? Good question. Why are we asking that question in the first place? 

Attempting to be nice when you aren't genuinely nice will suffice. If you have to use effort or exertion of will to be nice, then so be it. Put on that mask. See what happens. How many times have we actually benefitted from putting on a smile even if we didn't want to smile in the first place? It's the act and the awareness around the act that counts. The intentionality and the willingness to do something as a means to keep the peace and present yourself in a jovial and inviting manner. 

You see, faking being nice and actually being nice can be virtually the same if you know how to do it. We all can see the passive aggression in people when they are trying to be too nice. Our minds are quite clever and efficient at reading these signals. It's over the top for good reason. 

--Can you tell when someone is genuinely being nice? How do they act it out with their body? How do they act it out with their attention? --

Pay attention to the non verbal and the body language. Most mysteries and answers are revealed through the posture and positioning of the body. 

There tends to be a lot of heavy truth in "Fake it till you make it." You can try out being nice like it's a shirt. It may be uncomfortable at first, but soon enough it will feel more fitting and not hard to do.

We all play characters. Fragmentations of the Self. We wear masks in public desperately attempting to stay under the radar or get noticed in certain circumstances. The warm bodies of crowds make us feel like we are a part of something bigger. A unity of sorts reliant on the cooperation of a wide diversity of individuals. There is a performative aspect of life that we tend to overlook. Not only do we wear many masks, but we wear infinite masks depending on so many mental and environmental factors. We can be swayed within seconds to put on a totally different mask. One moment content. The other angry, annoyed or obtuse. 

There are mirrors all around us. They are other people. We may not actually see our faces reflected in them, but they(You) are there. More symbolic than anything. More real than you may think.

We see what we want to see and it shows in people. If by chance we see people as stupid then we tend to see more "stupid" people. This concept of stupidity is widely variant and deranged. We all have different ideas on what stupid can mean. Different images and different feelings. We may all have a hazy idea on the broad sense on what it means to be stupid, but we can not know what people think stupid is in totality. What's on the other side of stupid? Smart? Well there go. There is an infinite amount of definitions on what people can think is smart. 

Of course we wouldn't really know what nice is if we didn't understand what defines its opposite. We know what rude and mean is. We can sense it. We can feel it. Feel it out. Don't resist.

If we are pressured to be nice then we may feel resistant to even attempt to be nice in the first place. Who is to say that we should be nice? Obviously attempting to put on the nice mask at all times can be draining and exhausting. This however is not an excuse to withdraw or be mean. What has being rude done for anyone and who does it hurt more? We are all guilty of the sin of being mean. It's a deep plunge into unconsciousness. To think that we always have full control of our moods is a fallacy. There are so many factors at play. We can never know someone's full story to the point that they have become rude. If a person is being a dick, are they really trying to be a dick or have they sunk into the realm of unconsciousness?

If we all had a choice, then we most likely would take the route of being nice. Being rude causes harm to all parties involved. It increases and even magnifies suffering to an almost exponential degree. Do you see? That rudeness can spread from one person to another like a virus. It doesn't even matter if the intention is not there. There are consequences to rudeness as there are consequences for being nice or kind. You can't escape it. Once you act out from a certain mood, you cannot take it back. It is a ripple effect. Sure, you can apologize or acknowledge, but that only goes so far. 

Why not spread something good that will come back to you ten fold in many glorious ways?

There's a great wave of progress when you can sit with the tides of your emotions. A wave of anger or a wave of joy can both be felt in its totality. It doesn't mean that we have to act on these feelings, but we can simply breathe and move with them. They are calls for us to recognize what is going on. Wake up calls for the variety and dance of life. Are we open to answering the calls or resisting the ring of what is to come?

You know what. 

Be nice or don't be nice. The art of persuasion does not include bullying or lecturing. If you think that being nice over all has its benefits then by all means go for it. If you think being a curmudgeon is a decent way of life, then YOU do YOU. Either one comes from a place of self interest, which is actually not such a bad thing. A person looking out for his or her own interest most likely has the idea of others in mind. One cannot function without the cooperation and help of others. If a person is self interested to the point of using people then why does it make it wrong if they are not hurting others? The intentions may appear suspect, but if both parties get something out of an interaction then there is no harm and no foul. Cooperation of individuals with different intentions is what makes the world go round. We can never truly look into the minds of other people. We can only speculate and imagine what we think they might be up to. 

What good has telling someone to be more nice ever done? Exactly. 

Radical Self Interest would certainly work best with the idea of being nice. Just the idea of being nice can be enough for someone to change their course. Some people may have different ideas on what "nice" actually means and that's perfectly fine. We can all share some similarities in what we think is nice and what is certainly not nice. Moving forward and cooperation requires the recognition of opposites and paradigms. Happiness and sadness. Pleasure and pain. etc. The simple idea of being nice only can work wonders. It can only inspire more niceties and possible action derived from those niceties. There is already so much rude people and suffering in the world. So why add more to that?

Why force yourself to be nice if you didn't have any interest in being nice in the first place?

That doesn't mean you have free range to be "reactive" or "impulsive". Feel that discomfort in its totality. Let it dance and transmute. At the end of the day it is all energy. How we use it speaks wonders.

~DG