The Slow Demise of People Pleasing
Being nice isn’t kind.
The past couple of months, I’ve been obsessing over what it means to be a good person.
So for a month or so, I began navigating my days with the intention of making every person I encountered feel as good as possible.
And then I turned around one day and found myself in an intense state of agitation, exhaustion, and utter confusion.
So I turned to our modern-day guru, that bearer of knowledge that is Google, to figure out what I was getting wrong.
I came across a fabulously clear article on the difference between niceness and kindness that totally hit the nail on the head for me. (Side note: it’s written by a Canadian, which I find to be especially relevant lol.)
In short, it explains that niceness is a result of seeking acceptance and affirmation, whereas kindness is a product of holding oneself at positive self-regard (a phrase I picked up during my “research” that I now love). Essentially, niceness stems from insecurity and kindness stems from self-confidence.
Upon reflecting, I found this to totally ring true. My life of being a nice person wasn’t motivated by giving of myself selflessly; it was motivated by a deep desire to be liked and accepted.
As I began to dig deeper into how this differentiation between niceness and kindness translated into treating others, I continued to develop clarity on how wonky I had things.
Niceness made me a social chameleon, which I once (and still at times) prided myself on. It’s the willingness to say what the other person wants to hear in order to create a smooth, fluid social interaction. Whereas kindness is the willingness to stray from expectations in the name of honesty and integrity. It’s telling my friend that I don’t agree with how she handled things or that something someone said bothered me.
It’s the difference between the parent who lets their kid stay out late on a weekday to please them in the short-term versus the parent who endures their kid not liking them for a night in the name of building discipline and responsibility.
In order to be kind, I have to be willing to endure unpleasant and uncomfortable situations, which I tend to avoid at all costs. But I realize with deeper clarity that an honest, genuine existence cannot be nurtured without them.
Kindness begins with me, with how I treat myself. I cannot successfully be kind to others if I can’t even be kind to myself (I guess this goes hand-in-hand with self-love). If I’m unable to accept my own flawed humanity, which means making mistakes, saying the wrong thing, acting out of confusion or fear, I become less and less tolerant of others’ doing the same. If I repress my own needs in the name of others’, I eventually become resentful.
When I was wrapped up in that month of manic niceness, I was also living in a state of denial. In order to be super receptive and positive all the time, I had to deny myself the right to at times feel funky, weird, awkward, tired, dissatisfied, offended, or simply not into this whole life thing. And let me tell you, that continual denial is quite draining (hence the exhaustion and agitation that followed).
If I’m kind to myself, if I allow myself the space to feel like crap when I feel like crap, I can then work through it and develop a deeper understanding of myself and the world. If I snap at someone because I’m in a bad mood, I don’t have to get wrapped up in beating myself up over it, which is ultimately a self-absorbed act; instead, I can offer myself kindness and understanding and accept the ways in which being human will sometimes lead me to not treating people perfectly, which allows me the detachment from ego to return to that person to offer an explanation and apology.
Here’s the thing that really got me as I went down this black hole of kindness: in allowing myself to feel all my emotions, not suppressing them in the name of being pleasant to be around, I’m ultimately giving others permission to do the same. And from my perspective, nothing is kinder than providing someone the space to be fully and rawly human.
So when I get caught up in questioning my intentions, asking myself, “Is this niceness or kindness at play?”, I ask: is it the act itself I’m focusing on, stemming from an internal desire to help, or is it the product of the act I seek, the approval and affirmation that follows? If I have expectations on the results of helping someone, that’s niceness at play.
If I feel good about who I am, I’ve got my head on straight, I’ve allowed myself the space to be fully human, nothing feels better than getting to be of service to another human being, and there are zero expectations on how it’ll benefit me.
So all of this analyzing has pushed me to a clear conclusion:
The kindest thing I can do for the world is take good care of myself.
Because my ability to sustain taking care of others is directly correlated to how well I take care of myself. It’s like when you’re on an airplane and they tell you to put the oxygen mask over yourself before doing it for your child.
Being nice is like continuing to offer a slice of myself until I look down and all that’s left are crumbs. And then I have to dedicate ample time and energy towards baking a whole new pie (I’m going to make this metaphor work), taking me out of commission from being helpful for an inordinate period of time. Because now I’m the one who needs help.
If I’m being kind, when I give away a slice of pie, I receive a brownie or piece of cake in return (if you’re cringing right now, don’t worry, so am I), and then suddenly I’m no longer this one-note berry pie but a dessert sample platter, and honestly, what’s better than a dessert platter??
Let me be clear: I’m not saying the only time I help people is when I can get something in return from them; in being kind, it’s the simple act of being able to help someone that’s the gift in return. This aligns with that saying about how giving to someone is like giving a gift to yourself. Which is totally true, but only if I truly have the capacity to give. Because giving away what I don’t have is a dangerous position to be in.
If I waste my resources playing the hero in everyone else’s life but my own, I’ll lose the ability to see clearly who actually deeply needs help and who’s simply being lazy, not taking full responsibility for his/her life, or simply taking advantage of my niceness. And on top of this, I won’t be able to see clearly when I need help. I’ll live blinded by a false sense of being a good person until I hit a wall, fall apart, and have to pick up the pieces.
Look, we all have our own struggle; some of us give too much of ourselves, some of us give too little, and then there’s that enigma of a human being who seems to understand the precise balance between the two without obsessively Googling articles about it. So I don’t want to present this as a universal antidote to how we should all relate to each other.
But maybe you’re reading this and suffering from my same condition of niceness and have been waiting for permission to take care of yourself, so let me state clearly, YOU HAVE PERMISSION. Because if you don’t take care of yourself, you won’t be able to sustainably take care of anyone else.
One more note in relation to self-care — despite the current social connotation of luxury associated with it, self-care is predominantly work. It’s eating right, being active, finding a creative outlet, setting aside time for introspection and reflection, finding a community and giving back to it. It’s not just bubble baths and massages (although that’s a lovely part of it as well).
So when someone tries to guilt me for taking care of myself, I respond to this with an emphasis of my desire for them to do the same. Because if we all took care of ourselves well, advocated for our needs, we could empower those who (like myself) are confused about what being a good person truly means and share the weight of helping those who actually need us.
For more seemingly preachy rambling, check out more of my writing.
