There is actually a pretty good case for being a nice person
Not talking doormat here. Kindness is still free.
I believe in being a nice person. I believe in the adage, “Nice guys finish last,” but not in the way that most people think. I believe that nice people tend to live longer. They tend to die in peace. They don’t spend a lot of time looking over their shoulder. They take the high road with offensive people.
I grew up in the age of the tough guy. Clint Eastwood movies were a recurring theme in my life. The Good, the Bad and The Ugly. Dirty Harry. Escape from Alcatraz. Yes, I grew up in the 70s. I saw the way tough guys won in the end in the movies, but that’s not how it works in real life. I had to grow up to figure that out.
I know there was a time when people were mean to me. I was teased in school. My dad was often mean to me, and he was kind of scary at times. I had friends that broke my things when I invited them to my house. I had friends that blew me off for a movie. I did not return their favors for I did not want to know what they would do.
I suppose there might have been a time when I was mean, but generally, I avoided it. I didn’t want that kind of reputation to precede me. I didn’t want to be a mean person because I wanted to sleep at night knowing I did the right thing. I know this because I can vaguely recall being mean to someone and not being able to sleep that night.
I just don’t like the way that I feel if I’ve been mean to someone. Someone I know. Someone I love. Someone I will have to see again. Someone I will greet the next day with “Good morning”, “Hello” or “I’m sorry”.
I operate on a simple principle. If I don’t like the way that I feel after I do something, I cut back or stop it completely. I adapted this from food and drink because I found that I had a moral compass with food, too.
With food and drink, I had physical discomfort. When I was a kid, I ate candy and fruit. I noticed the way I felt after I ate them. I paid attention to how I felt hours later. I liked the way that I felt after eating an apple, a banana or an orange better than a box of chocolate covered raisins.
Alcohol was particularly instructive. I have been so drunk the room spun while I was lying on a bed. I threw up the next day. I did not like the way I felt so I avoided drinking for most of my life. I just didn’t think the pleasure was worth the pain.
“You know you’re not drunk if you can lie on the floor without holding on.” —Dean Martin, actor, comedian, teetotaler
With people, I have a different story to tell. A different experience. As someone who is hearing and sight impaired, not completely deaf, not completely blind, I was prone to error. I was not confident.
I tried being mean, tried justifying it, but could not. And I could not sleep on it, so I reeled it in. I erred on the side of caution. I would rather err on the side of being nice to others than to be mean.
A couple nights ago, I went out for a walk. On the way, I passed by a woman watering her front yard. She lived there with her husband and her young child. I stopped to talk with her.
I told her that her yard looks beautiful. i told her that I remembered when her yard was dirt. “Good job”, I said, with a thumbs up, and I went on my way.
She smiled while I was talking with her. For about 15 minutes after, I could not stop smiling as i continued my walk. I chuckled a little bit. I didn’t have to say anything, I could have just mentally acknowledged her front yard, but I saw the results and understood the work they put into it. I was just being nice.
I’m the same way with helping someone at work. I’m there to serve. There are no inconvenient customers. I’m paid to be inconvenienced, so I err on the side of being nice. When customers are unhappy, I have empathy for them. I let them know that I own this problem and that I will solve it.
At work, I know the person I’m talking with in a Zoom meeting has a manager. He wants to look good to his manager. My job is to make him look good to his manager. To do that, I must be kind.
Kindness makes people receptive to solutions. My job is to solve a problem with software made by the company I work for and that is used by the customer.
If there is a conflict, I never escalate with the customer. I’m still a nice person with the customer. He can say whatever he wants, he doesn’t know me, who I am, what I like to do when I’m not on shift, how I think, or what I want. He only knows that he needs help from me. So I help him.
When I’m out, I live and let live. If someone cuts in front of me while I’m driving, I let them. I watch them. I don’t mind. I’m still on the way to my destination. I don’t have to be ahead of anybody. I use my attitude to prevent accidents while driving.
I open doors for people when their hands are full. I yield to other baskets in the market. I’m not in a hurry. I’m kind to the cashier. I’m kind to the waiter. I’m kind to the docent at the museum. I’m kind to my neighbors. I’m kind to my coworkers.
The cost of kindness is nominal. it’s trivial. it might as well be free.
Kindness is a skill. Kindness is a habit. Kindness is cumulative and progressive.
People remember your kindness. The amygdala is the part of the brain that registers pleasure and pain. I would rather be the stimulus that registers pleasure than pain.
No one owes me anything for kindness. i give kindness because I’ve tried the other way of being, and I found it wanting. I give kindness because it’s easier for me. I don’t worry about making mistakes with kindness.
I’m going to make mistakes in life, so I err on the side of kindness. There is no pretense here. I’m not being kind because I want you to like me. I’m being kind to you because I like the way I feel when I’m kind to you.
Our brains are wired for kindness. I know this because after I’ve been kind to someone, I feel better, I get the juice from my brain. That’s genetics talking. That’s millions of years of trial and error. That’s an eon of experience encoded into our genes that says we’re more likely to replicate our genes when we’re kind to each other.
We live to replicate genes. Everything else is a bonus.
So I think of kindness as a survival skill. I think of kindness as a savings account, not because I’m expecting anything in return. I’ve just noticed that kindness always comes back. Maybe not in the way that I expect it to, but it just comes back. The universe is a reflection of everything that I think and feel right now, and that includes kindness.
Kindness is a skill that I learned from someone else. Someone taught me to be kind. Someone knew that kindness is a skill that must be taught. Someone knew that kindness is learned through imitation, like a smile. If I smile at you, your reflexes smile back at me. Kindness is like that.
Kindness is so important to our survival, it’s genetically encoded in each of us to be automatic, easy to learn, easy to teach, easy to be.
It’s easy to err on the side of kindness.
Write on.