a compliment.
While growing up, we are often told to 'Be Nice'. So, no matter how we feel, or how we react to a certain person, we have to 'Be Nice'. Okay, so when we are very young we have our parents or older people in the family to shield us from hurt. But as we grow older and along the way meet people and find ourselves in situations that we instinctively react to negatively, then sometimes an ugly conflict can happen. There is this 'Be Nice' behaviour, ingrained into us from as way back as we can remember, which kicks in, and there is this need to just turn our back or walk away or have nothing to do with someone who we - in our present state of growth - don't want to have anything to do with. When I say present state of growth, I mean our thinking, and the beliefs that we have built up along the way...there are things that we agree with and things we don't. There are people we would like to befriend, but we may want to break off that friendship when we see it is not going the way we would like it to go - we find ourselves compromising on what we think and believe for the sake of this friendship....and as the days go on, we find ourselves compromising on a whole lot of issues. These start with the big life issues, but soon filter down to the teeny issues that are still necessary for our well-being. And so we get rattled and our well-being is pushed to the back as we go about pleasing everyone for, being nice means just that - pleasing everyone and pushing our own selves to the back.
My meditation in 'Tiny Buddha' says: Nice is sweet and accommodating and agreeable. Nice is polite. But nice does not describe what we believe in. It does not indicate where our boundaries are.
I'll go one step further. Often we are 'Nice' in order to avoid criticism....just cannot bear to be criticized for the way we talk, or think, or dress, or behave. And so we cut somersaults in our hearts and minds and bodies in order to be what others want so that we can be labelled 'Nice'. Fact is that it is only through criticism that we can refine ourselves - our thinking - and grow in a manner that resonates with us...that IS what deep down we are.
Native American wisdom says: "No one likes to be criticized, but criticism can be something like the desert wind that, in whipping the tender stalks, forces them to strike their roots down deeper for security."
-- Polingaysi Qoyawayma, HOPI
Since we become what we think about, if we think only about 'being nice' at every point, then we become someone with no special, distinct, characteristic features and our lives will also become indistinct, characterless and featureless. Worse, we become nothing other than what others want to see us as...our own individuality gets eroded and lost in this whole thing of wanting to 'Be Nice' at all times to all people. Mark, I'm not saying we should be impolite. No, Never. But nice means accommodation of everyone and everything with no boundaries....and getting our own self lost in the process.
Life is all about growth. Change and growth. Being nice is all about someone else taking precedence over us while we shape ourselves to their change and growth. This can only breed resentment in the end.
Just let go of the need to please....to 'Be Nice'. Be polite, be kind, but there is no need to just 'Be Nice'.
If people cannot accept you as you are (not advocating rudeness here) then it is better to alone...till you find someone who really respects your own individuality and your own personality. Walk away from those who don't...