One Lesson A Day Challenge #3— Don’t Be Such A Nice Person

By nice, I mean putting others before yourself all the time.

I’m not saying we should strive to be selfish. I’m not saying to never be a nice person.

I encourage us to think about how our actions and words will affect others.

I encourage us to think from different perspectives and refrain from saying deliberately malicious and offensive comments about others.

I encourage us to respect and to try and understand the beliefs of others.

We’ve all been hurt before by the actions and words of others. “Nice” people know how painful it is to be hurt by others’ behaviors. I believe they are also very sympathetic, which means they can also feel the pain of other people when they put themselves in their positions.

So they take it upon themselves to twist and bend their own behavior to never say or do anything that might offend anyone else — consciously or accidentally.

This, I believe, comes from a desire to be liked by all.

This, I believe, because this is how I have been living.

It’s been hard for me to be happy because I’ve been too hyper-aware of everyone’s emotions. It’s been hard for me to be myself because I was always walking on eggshells, thinking hard about what to say and how to behave to be universally liked.

I morphed myself into an identity that I believed could appease everyone. In that process, I lost myself and became formless. I did not have a personality that defined who I was because I was afraid. Afraid to offend and afraid to be disliked. Afraid to say “no”, to say what I truly believed and state what I wanted. Afraid to stand up for myself. Afraid to fight back when I felt that I was being disrespected.

I was afraid that if I stated my opinion, it might make others uncomfortable and it might lead to them disliking me. So I stopped having opinions, stopped having preferences and stopped making my own decisions. It’s easier that way — when you don’t have anything that you truly believe, you can contort yourself to fit every expectation of everyone around you.

When you live your life for the sake of others, when you live your life thinking about how to be liked by everyone, you never really live it. Why should you shoulder the burden of satisfying everyone’s expectations of you?

Most of the people that you meet in this world will not like you in one way or another.

No matter how hard you try and no matter how likable you try to portray yourself as, there will always be people who, for whatever reason, will never like you.

And it is not in your power to control how they see you. It never was and never will be.

I tried to reconstruct myself as a “nice” person. That’s what everyone sees me as right now. I tried to make friends with everyone and take interest in everyone. I read books on being liked by everyone and watched countless hours of videos on influencing others and creating great first impressions. I talked about things that might interest the other person instead of what might interest me.

Do I have people who like me? I think so. I’m surrounded by great people and they all see me as “nice”.

But am I happy? That’s the question I am asking myself every day.

I don’t believe that the point of life is to be happy all the time. But I think it’s a very important aspect of my life that needs to be addressed.

I am who I am. I am not here to fulfill anyone’s expectations. I should, at the end of the day, hold my values and standards at a high priority. I should be able to say what I want to say and do what I want to do without caring what other people think. (Obviously in moderation)

“It’s that you are disliked by someone. It is proof that you are exercising your freedom and living in freedom, and a sign that you are living in accordance with your own principles.”
― Ichiro Kishimi, The Courage to Be Disliked:

Each and every one of us can and have the right to live as ourselves unapologetically.

I want to have the courage to be disliked. I want to live with more freedom, and live without feeling like I need to hide who I really am.

I want to say and do things without constantly thinking about what other people will think or say about me. I want to live life as I see fit and pursue my passion without thinking about other people’s judgments.

I want to be me, not just a nice guy.