Stop being nice. Start being kind
I was walking home past a playground yesterday when I heard a father talking to his little girl, “now Jennifer, you have to play nice”. I have no idea what had happened, but it made me stop and think. Do we really need to be ‘nice’, or should we work on being ‘kind’ instead?
Honestly? Nice doesn’t always equal kind. In fact, sometimes “nice” is the opposite of kind.
Nice is a social construct. It’s what we agree on, as a society, as the way we should interact with each other. It’s like the lubrication that makes the wheels of interaction run smoother. It runs along with having manners. It makes things easier between people, but it’s not strictly necessary. We know this because what qualifies as ‘nice’ differs between cultures. It’s not something absolutely evident in all humans.
“Nice” is about comfort, both for you and for the other person. It’s smiling when you disagree. It’s staying silent when something wrong is happening. It’s avoiding conflict because you don’t want to ‘rock the boat’. It can easily fall into the ‘people pleasing’ category, which doesn’t work out well for the person doing it.
Kind, on the other hand, is all about courage. Sometimes it’s telling someone you love an ugly truth they don’t want to hear but will greatly change their life for the better. Sometimes it’s giving hard feedback in the short term so someone can flourish in the long run. It’s taking a stand for someone who’s being abused or mistreated.
Often kindness makes everyone uncomfortable, because it isn’t always very ‘nice’. But it’s so much more powerful.
Imagine the shift if instead of ignoring confrontation, we addressed it with empathy. If instead of smiling through harm, we’d protect those that need our protection. And if instead of keeping peace at all costs, we’d create peace with integrity.
Maybe that little girl needed to be nice, or maybe not. But I’d rather hear someone telling her to be kind. Niceness makes us agreeable, but kindness makes us authentic. The world doesn’t need more ‘nice’. But it needs a lot more ‘kind’.
Nice is polite, but kind is powerful. Choose kind.
