Validation of Niceness

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Of late, I have been criticizing people more than I ever have throughout my life. I don’t know the exact reason, though. Maybe I want to change myself to become a person who speaks his mind out rather than the one ignoring the truth and trying to be polite and nice.


Previously, I thought that being nice gave me an advantage over other people just because there are only a few nice ones but I have come to realize that that’s not the case. I mean only a few people are nice but being nice doesn’t necessarily give you a moral victory. In fact, the more you try to be nice, the more you are trying to seek validation of your niceness and ultimately hiding your own self from other people. What happens is that people try to take advantage of your niceness by neglecting your opinions and thoughts.


Sometimes in life (or rather many a times), you have to be absolutely selfish in order to achieve what you want. If you have high dreams and aspirations, you got to have the attitude and ruthlessness. In order to lead the pack, you got to be rude but not in a way that it harms anybody else mentally or physically.
Similar thoughts ran in my mind when I decided that I won’t be the person people want me to be anymore. Of course, I won’t forget my morals and ethics that I have imbibed from my surroundings. A small change I have had is saying someone “No” when they expected “Yes” just because I wasn’t up for it. I still value the importance of helping someone and being kind to people but then expecting the same in return is like bargaining.


Also, it is not always important to lend a hand to someone at your own cost. An example which can justify my point is by imagining  yourself as an employee working in a big MNC. On a given day, you are about to leave the workplace because you called it off for the day. You have plans with your friends for the night and suddenly your boss calls you as you are about to leave. He says he needs your help in something and without you, he won’t be able to do it. It is the third time your boss has done something like this albeit you didn’t have plans in the first two instances but now that you have plans, it is a bit trickier. What do you do?
In a more realistic sense, I would definitely have to cancel my plan with my friends but don’t you think it would be better to tell a “No” to your boss. It is already up for the day and besides pulling off those favors is not going to help you anyway. Once in a while, you did lend a helping hand but then you can’t keep on doing it just because you can’t say NO. Also, it is at the cost of your own happiness.
On a more personal level, being nice just for the sake of being nice is good but expecting praises and validation for your niceness is cowardly. In order to be more alpha, we have got to give up on being the NICE guy. You see it's one thing to be nice and polite to people and an entirely different thing to expect someone to like us just because we are nice to them.


In this world, we have got to find a balance between being a fox and being a goat. Maybe being a lion would suffice.

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