This week: You Don't Have To (Always) Be Nice Edited by: NaNoKit  
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What's the nicest thing that anyone has ever done for you? What's the nicest thing you have ever done for someone else?
We're taught that it's nice to be nice. Which is true, right up to the point when it isn't...
This week's Spiritual Newsletter is all about being nice... and looking after yourself.
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It’s nice to be nice. Isn’t it? I think that, mostly, it is. It feels good to make people happy. To help where we can, to spread love and joy through the world. I believe that we’re on this planet for a reason. That we’re meant to look after it, and must care for every living being that we share it with. It’s nice to be nice, then. Right up until it isn’t.
From our earliest days we are socialised to be nice. Girls, especially, are taught that we must always be pleasant, always be kind, always be agreeable. It’s not as bad as it once was. We are no longer expected to be submissive and obedient, thank goodness. Still, a stern woman will be seen as severe, unpleasant even, whereas a man will be seen as strong and authoritative. Women are expected to be softer. Gentler. More pliant. That does not mean that people won’t raise an eyebrow if a man is being ‘not nice’. A woman, though? She will hear about it!
Society will try to put you in your place if you don’t meet its expectations. I have seen plenty of examples of this and have experienced some myself. Some years ago I did some political comment pieces for a newspaper and discovered that there are people out there who really do not like for a woman to have political opinions. I received all manner of threats, including some gender-specific ones. A friend of mine had it worse. She, too, wrote a few pieces and did some videos on politics and institutional safeguarding and when the threats against her didn’t work, some people stalked her, threatened her child, they hounded her and ridiculed her and made her day-to-day life a misery just because she stood by her views, unapologetically. You may be wondering what it was that she wrote. It must have been terrible, right? There must be more to this story for people to respond so severely to my friend’s content. You’d think so, but she didn’t actually say anything bad. She was a social worker and spoke of the need for better safeguarding measures for children in care, and for other vulnerable people such as patients with mental health problems who need to spend time in a locked ward. A good thing, I figure. Apparently, however, some see any constructive criticism as ‘not nice’ and feel that it is on them to put the person speaking up right back in their place. Or where they imagine that person’s place to be.
You don’t even have to be a person with an opinion on the Internet to fall foul of such people. There are too many people who will be utterly baffled when you dare say ‘no’ to their requests. You may well be reminded that you’re not being nice. It’s seen as a serious accusation! Because you must want to be nice, right? It doesn’t do to be seen as not nice. Which means you’d better change your mind and do as they asked. Things can get ugly if you’re not nice...
There are all manner of pressures on us each and every day. All manner of expectations. We try to meet them, but those pressures and expectations can get in the way of our self-care. We have to look after ourselves. We’re entitled to our own boundaries, and must be free to uphold those boundaries. It may well be that in order to look after ourselves we have to do something or say something that others consider to be ‘not nice’. And that’s okay! Honestly, it is. You don’t have to be nice all the time.
Not being nice doesn’t mean being nasty. It doesn’t mean that you’re a bad person, doing bad things. Not being nice can mean something very simple. Like saying no when you’re too busy to fulfil someone’s request (it’s also okay to simply not feel like it). Or not humouring some random guy when he tells you to, “Smile, love! You’d look prettier when you smile!” It really is okay. It’s okay to ask for a raise even if your employer keeps telling you that the small company you work for is ‘like a family’ – that does not mean that you don’t deserve to be properly compensated. It’s okay to tell that overly-nosy co-worker that you prefer to keep some aspects of your life private. It’s okay to do whatever you want on your birthday even if some family members want to hold a party. It’s okay to ask that superfast person at the checkout to slow down a little bit because you’re struggling to keep up. I wish I had. I did my back a mischief by trying to be nice and packing my bags like I was hoping to qualify for some kind of Olympic event.
Sometimes the nicest thing you can do is to be nice to yourself. If people frown, or try to scold you, perhaps remind them that you are entitled to boundaries, and self-care. If they cannot respect that, well, they’re not being nice, are they?
Stay true to yourself. You’ll be just fine.
I wish you a very nice week.
NaNoKit
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Spiritual: February 16, 2022 Issue [#11219]
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