Richard Collison

Do you hate being nice all the time?

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angry portrait of a man

Nice.

I hate that word, and good too.

Isn’t Richard nice.

Nice, nice, nice.

He’s a good boy.

Modest, unassuming, impeccable manners.

He’s very nice.

I hate being nice all the time.

Sometimes I just want to be a rude, crude, arrogant, condescending, narcissistic, brutish, know it all, vulgar, pain in the ass!!!

I want to go full hulk on that asshole who didn’t give a shit about how I felt.

Those people who don’t shut up for five minutes so I can think. I just want to shout them.

Boneheaded managers, I would love to tell them what I thought of them.

Have you ever wanted to go up to someone and shout at them for making your life more difficult than I should be?

Why all the nastiness?

Because I hate trying to live up to an impossible ideal of perfection. Mild mannered and most of the time.

Sometimes I want to vent the other side of me. The mean, nasty, selfish individual. Because that’s at part of who I am, just as much as the noble side is to. I want to feel complete and honour all the parts of me.

So that I can feel whole again.

But it’s more than that, if you want to make an impact on this world it means running the risk of upsetting others.

Perhaps by not being nice.

Sometimes it’s the only way to get people to pay attention.

Courting controversy, speaking the unspeakable.

That the emperor had no clothes.

Bringing up taboos, breaking boundaries.

Some might argue that you don’t have to be rude to do this, but consider.

The world places a burden of niceness upon us all. It’s a way if getting us to conform, cooperate and be part of the herd. But I feel caged having to be nice all the time. What can happen is we become ashamed of these parts of ourselves that society considered unacceptable, but remember You are not divisible.

I don’t believe we are all as nice as we appear to be. There is a part of us all that wants to say what we feel, and that includes things which are not nice. I don’t want to care so much about other people’s feelings that I don’t honour who I am and take care of my own needs. Something I feel has happened most of my life.

The pressure to fit in leaves many of us I feel I in this conundrum. Wanting to be ourselves, yet still respecting others.

It’s about taking care of yourself by being yourself. Accepting more of what Jung calls your Shadow side.

I don’t want to be this nice.

Please don’t make me be this nice.

Wait a minute, I’m doing it again!

F$%k!

Image Credit: / 123RF Stock Photo

Comments

2 responses

  1. Rob

    Excellent post Richard. I hear exatcly where you’re coming from. Being too nice can be a curse. Sometimes I just like to be in a mood, it’s a releif not to smile that fake smile. What a chore it becomes. A smile should be reserved for a genuine instance of happiness. I listened to something the Dalai Lama said, he said many smiles show fear or mistrust rather than happiness. And he’s quite right. Too much niceness is not healthy. Over smiling is also a condition of the of those with low self esteem, low social status etc, whether that is the status perceived in their head, or what others think of them. I smile A LOT, far too much and it needs to change. I like smiling, dont get more wrong, I am a ‘nice’ person on the whole, as are most people. I long for the day when I can just not give a crap and let me true emotion surface. i.e. someone says something I dont find in the least bit funny and I smile anyway out of politeness, instead I will just look at them and not smile at all – ensue awkwardness. I have attempted to completely detach myself from my emotions before, it was quite interesting to see how people react. Usually on the phone I am ‘nice’, far too ‘nice’ and people dont respect that. One time, over a period of days I switched off my niceness and people were then more ‘nice’ to me, it was weird, but an interesting experiment. People became agitated when I didn’t react in the way I normally do, I was detached, there emotions passed through me, which is how it should be. Sensitivity can attract both positive and negative emotions, to live in the now we must let these pass through – I’m reading a very good book at the moment entitled The Untetherd Soul by M. SInger, a very good read for anyone looking to transcend there current existence.
    unkind regards 😐
    Rob

    (Note non smiley face, just a bland thin lipped upyours to the fake smile and its best friend Mr. Niceness!) Crap, I feel like grinning now, but as that’s a genuine emotion I’ll let it off … for now.

    Reply
    1. Richard

      I feel the same way Rob, it becomes work you do, being nice. the low self esteem idea, i feel is right too. Being to nice can come across as wanting to please others too much because you value their opinion too much.
      I long for moments when i can let my true emotions surface. To be free is what we all desire at times. To be just as we are, like when we were children. We would cry, laugh, throw a tantrum just as we felt it, not regard for others feelings.
      I tend not to smile just to be polite, i find the banality of existence tiresome, so I don’t really show my emotions unless I have them.
      I too have that book on my ‘to read’ list.

      Reply

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