What's So Wrong With Being Nice?
A recent final of the TV talent show X Factor, featured a young duo - a
brother and sister known as Same Difference. Most people loved them
because they were so nice. Yet a few others loathed them for the same
reason. So I'm wondering - what's so awful about being nice?
You might think that nice people are appreciated. But nice, it seems, is
an underrated concept. Abhorred rather than applauded, nice people are
uncool. If they're so nice and happy, there must be something wrong with them, right?
Of course, that's not the case - these lucky people just happen to see
the positive side of life more clearly than the negative one. Some
people even think that all this likeability is some sort of deliberate
facade, hiding an almost Machiavellian heart. But while we avidly listen
to the latest bulletins from the gossips,
wouldn't we rather it were only the nice people who talked about us?
I remember at school being told never to use the word nice because it
was too vanilla, too non-specific.As if it weren't a description in
itself, and yet it is. It encapsulates something that no other single
word does. So why does nice go hand-in-hand with bland? Why does
something, or someone, have to have a dark edge to be taken
seriously? How often do we hear someone say they don't like a person
simply because they're too nice? What's that all about? How can someone
be too nice? Can it really be that we are all so cynical that we simply
can't trust
anyone else to be genuinely pleasant? Have we so lost touch with the
kindness within us that we can't bear to witness it in someone else?
I don't think either is true, and neither do I think that happy, nice
people are born that way - I think they make a choice to be nice and to
see the good in others, and I think it's a choice we could all stand to
make.
The advantages of encountering such a person were brought home to me the
day I ruptured my ankle ligaments. Having been told by the friendly A
& E doctor that what I had done was probably worse than breaking my
ankle, I was astonished to be told by the nurse who strapped my injury
that I wouldn't be getting any of her NHS crutches because the best
thing for me was to walk on it straight away. If only I could have. Now,
I understand that such things are in short supply because many
people don't bother to return their loaned hospital equipment, but
surely a woman who needs a wheelchair to take her to the car is entitled
to some sort of sticks or something? Apparently not.
After several abortive attempts to get into the house unaided, I sank to
the floor and shuffled over the front step and up the hall on my
derriere. Clearly, I was going to need help, whether that nurse thought
it necessary or not, and a family member was dispatched to purchase for
me my very own set of elbow-crutches.
Several days' enforced house confinement eventually left me in serious
need of some retail therapy, so I set off for town. Now, admittedly
testing out my new hobbling-with-elbow-crutches skills on a Saturday
afternoon was probably not the most sensible plan, but amid the
thousands of people flocking into Derby that day, you might have
imagined that one or two of them would have noticed my predicament and
made some allowances. Not a chance. Sympathy? You must be kidding! I was
bustled, nudged and shoved. I had doors dropped back into my face
while I tottered about on my sticks. I had car drivers tooting their
horns because I wasn't fast enough across the road. I couldn't even get
into one store because I got caught between two sets of heavy doors,
unable to push my way in or out, and only released from my glass prison
when another customer needed to use the doorway. And no, even they
weren't sympathetic, but tutted at my dithering. Did they think I was
wobbling around for fun?
It was a sudden and shocking realisation of how someone with a permanent
mobility problem must find life - I don't know how they have the
patience, or the will.
I was on my way home before I encountered my first Good Samaritan and
the restoration of my faith in humanity. A fellow bus passenger took
pity on me and offered me her seat at the front. She must have been well
into her 80s, and none too steady on her own feet. I think she must
have been one of those nice people.
(Originally blogged December 07)