I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the difference between being nice and being kind.
I was having a conversation with a friend of mine who also used to be a people pleaser. (There are few things more encouraging than finding and talking to people who used to be people pleasers and now are completely not that way at all.) He told me how he felt that in some ways, in order to change who he was and stop being a people pleaser, he had to swing to the other extreme for a time. But now he was at the place where he was hoping to become kinder and more generous.
A few days later Justine Musk posted her brilliant piece on nice vs. kind that does a great job defining terms, and everything clicked together for me.
Since I know not all of you are going to read her essay, I’ll quickly define the difference. Nice is doing things because you’re supposed to, because you feel you have to, because it’s expected, because you’re being pressured into it in some way, because you don’t feel you have the option to say no. Kind is doing things because you want to: you want to help, you want to be there for someone, you want to give of yourself.
Photo by Martina K
When you’re a people pleaser, when you’re nice all the time, you have trouble telling the difference between nice and kind. And forcing yourself into constant niceness erodes the capacity to be kind. Why? Because you are tired. Because you have nothing left to give.
In order to stop being a people pleaser, you have to start saying no. You have to pay conscious attention to the difference between nice and kind, and it’s difficult, and it takes a lot more energy than it would usually take. And my friend was correct. You swing over to the other side, because you’re saying no to being nice, but you haven’t yet built up your reserves to the point that you can be kind as often as you’d like.
I know because this is where I am right now. I want to be kind. But sometimes I can’t. And sometimes I’m accidentally nice, and sometimes I don’t have the energy NOT to be nice. Because as exhausting as it can be, nice is what I’m used to. Nice is my default setting, and as such, it’s what I tend to fall back on when I’m stressed or tired or in any way not one hundred percent.
Resetting a default, I’m finding, takes a lot of time and patience and mistakes and experimentation.
But I’m making progress. Understanding how kind is different than nice is a part of that progress. I am a lot less nice than I used to be. I say things that people don’t want to hear. I allow people to be uncomfortable instead of automatically smoothing things over. I say no and take care of myself instead.
Nice is something I’m happy to leave behind. Kindness is what I have to look forward to.
What about you? Do you have trouble telling the difference between nice and kind? What kind of balance do you try to strike between kindness and taking care of yourself?
The Practical Free Spirit 
this is a very interesting subject Amy… and yes i agree that kindness is what we should be striving for… at times though it’s hard for me to be nice or kind… i have lost so much respect for this World… for Humanity… i have on numerous occasions tried to cut myself off from “Popular Sociaty”… it is not as easy as it seems… some time back i shocked a group of friends when i declared in a conversation that i had more respect for dolphins than humans… needless to say im not invited to many Social “do’s”… however i do not appologise for my Social Behaviour, or even lack of Social skills…(they are man made anyway) i know in my heart who i am… i am kind and compassionate without openlly showing it… i enjoy my weekly e-mails with my Priest who is more my Friend than a Catholic Priest… he is gay and although i am hetrosexual i can relate to his lonliness… who am i to deny anybody their happiness… i enjoy your blog… it gives me inspiration… knowing that there are so many “complex” individuals like myself …lol …
I remember one of the first times I said ‘no’ and stopped being a people pleaser, near the beginning of when I found the road to who I am today.
About 6 or 7 years ago, I had just broken up with a girlfriend a few months or a year before that, but we stayed in touch and still saw each other somewhat regularly. She was seeing someone new now, and I had also been in another relationship, though that one had come and gone.
Anyway, when the former ex and I had broken up, we divided up things that we bought together in a way we thought was fair for both of us. We agreed then, and nothing was said about it until this time, almost a year later. She suggested I give her back whatever thing it was that we had shared that was now mine.
I looked at her, somewhat surprised that she had the nerve, and told her no. I actually offered her a semi-compromise that I would’ve been happy with (that was a lot more one-sided on my side, anyway), but she declined that as well.
I think that she was surprised by my reaction. When we were dating, I was a ‘nice guy’ and the word ‘no’ wasn’t a huge part of my vocabulary. I thought that trying to say ‘yes’ to things was being nice, and that was what people liked.
She pressed the issue a bit more, to see if I would give it to her. I just got angry with her – how dare she try to take advantage of me, of the old me who would be nice and just say yes to ‘make her happy.’ She was even more surprised by this reaction. She let it drop, after I’d made it clear that it wasn’t going to happen. I felt a little proud afterwards – I wasn’t the ‘nice guy’ anymore.
So yes, I’m happy that I left behind the nice guy. Kindness is a struggle sometimes – I feel like it’s difficult to be kind sometimes without feeling like someone is taking advantage of my kindness, and I also worry about falling into the ‘nice’ trap again.
But then I look around and I think of many of my friends who are kind without being ‘nice,’ who really are excellent examples of how to treat others. And I think it helps to see examples like this, because it constantly inspires me to be a kind person.
Thanks, Mark. I know you inspire me!
Great stuff.
I disagree with the part about anger in that essay:
“Nice’ is afraid of her own anger. So she represses it.”
Now, of course, we shouldn’t repress it but I think we should learn not to react in anger. We can choose how to react.
I think another valuable essay would be Anger vs Powerful. Anger isn’t power. It strikes out in high emotion and does things we later, sometimes even the next instant, regret. Power is thoughtful. It says no too, but it doesn’t tear ourselves and other people down in the process. Power may punish, but it’s logical about it. Anger just lashes out.
Anger is challenging…and therefore very interesting to think about.
I like what Justine says about anger below. I’ll echo her using different words. Anger has this bad reputation, but the emotion itself isn’t inherently good or bad. It’s an emotion like any other. But actions that arise from anger can often be problematic. (But not always! Sometimes we need that anger to push ourselves into doing what is necessary.)
One of the problems is that anger tends to be difficult to work with, and we don’t want to act with anger, so instead we repress it…which in my experience usually ends badly, one way or another. Justine’s example of the anger that continually builds up (sometimes for years) and then suddenly explodes outwards is a good example. When that much anger has been repressed for so long, it’s even more difficult to manage it well.
The goal, I think, is to find a way to acknowledge and express our anger in healthy ways instead of harmful ones. Which is, I’m guessing, what you’re saying by talking about how we can choose to react. 🙂
Amy — really lovely post! Delighted to be a part of it.
Ami — I get what you’re saying about being powerful, which to me sounds like self-control. There’s a difference between anger and how you choose to manage your anger. I want to point out that anger, like any emotion, is information (a form of nonverbal intelligence), and what anger communicates is that you have been hurt or violated or pushed to the edge in some way. That’s important to know.
Because we’re girls + women we’re taught to disconnect from our anger because it’s ’negative’ — in a way that men aren’t. (If a man loses his temper, he’s upset. A woman loses her temper, she’s crazy.)
But if we disconnect or repress that emotion, we also lose what that emotion is telling us, and we’re more liable to be gullible and manipulated.
Anger is also very catalyzing — it can motivate you to take action, to wake up and get out of victimhood, to crusade for change. It ’lashes out’ when the person in question shows no self-control, or is being abusive, or finally just loses it over something seemingly small but that taps into an underground boiling. If you’re mindful and present — as with any emotion — you can experience it, recognize it for what it is, let it go, and do what you need to. But we’re not taught how to do that. We’re taught that it’s dark and ugly and unfeminine and must be avoided at all costs.
Thanks, Justine, and beautiful essay.
I agree that we aren’t generally taught how to deal with anger well, or how to deal with anger at all except through repression. It’s definitely something we as a society need to be talking about more.
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Amy,
I like your post. I believe that compared to 10 – 15 years ago, I am now less nicer, but still someof my colleagues said that I am nice and sometime too nice. At the end, how much struggle I have been trying to be less nice, more firm and straight, I would say that I have to be who I am. There are lot more things in live that your energy has to be used wisely, I am more productive by using the best talent, skills and ability that I have to live, work and contribute, rather than to be worry about being nice person and continue struggle to be less nice. 🙂
Amy, thank you for this. I am at this point in my life — realized that I’m nice. And it doesn’t benefit me whatsoever. You are right. Being nice is also my default that I’d rather just let things slip because it’s tiring to NOT be nice.
Thank you, I learned from your post a lot.
From now on, I’ll allow people to be uncomfortable. I won’t be nice anymore so that I could freely choose kindness. Kindness is better, always.
I find it tiring not to be nice as well. But I’m finding the energy spent to be well worth it. Kindness leaves me with a more lasting energy over the long term.
[…] this article last week on The Problem of Being Too Nice (an issue I’ve written a little about myself). And I realized why receiving permission from that James Altucher article to call a spade a spade […]
I started from the other end…I am not a naturally nice person at all (I grew up speaking my mind without hesitation almost all the time), and have only learned in the past few years about other people’s feelings and reactions to my words. I have swung too far over into niceness, and now I am seeking to recalibrate my settings to kindness. So this distinction is very helpful for me too. Thank you!
You’re very welcome! It can be really tricky to calibrate to the balance that feels right.
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