Just Be Nice
Jan 23, 2023
You didn’t sleep well. Rent is due and the car is making funny noises. You haven’t even started on that paper or you’re pretty sure you aren’t getting that promotion even after you worked your ass off all year or your parents are getting old and you haven’t talked to them in a while.
Or maybe all of the above.
You can’t just lay in bed all day; you have to deal with a sullen pre-teen or a burned-out nurse. Your boss is incompetent and is only your boss because your company treats nepotism like a religion. Your employees are lazy, malingering or worse. The barista got your order wrong and didn’t care and your server at the lunch place never refilled your coffee.
Now you have to deal with that person who has really, actually wronged you; the rest of these irritating peccadilloes be damned.
The very sight of that person’s face, the sound of that voice rips the scab off of wounds that still fester with betrayal; that hurt like lies no matter how long you rub them. But right now you have to muster your independent face and suck it up. You just have to deal, man.
Just be nice.
Not passive-aggressive, rueful smile under dagger eyes, “I’m just great, thanks for asking” nice. Not failing-at-narcissistic checkout my cool car and my cool watch my life is so much better now braggadocio nice. Just real, authentic, no-bullshit nice.
Let the depth of your amiability exceed the depth of the cuts that brought you to this place. Be genuinely, ego-syntonic nice.
Pain is past tense and revenge is a game that ensures everybody loses. Anger is a beat-to-hell cliché about holding a hot coal and hoping it burns someone else. Why get worked up over a situation that should no longer be allowed to influence your life? It’s your life and you get to decide how to react. Move past it if you can and ignore it if you can’t but “eyes forward, soldier.” The future is just that and won’t bear the weight of the past.
The older we get, the more crap we accumulate. Learn to throw it out. Cool down. Smile. Maybe the world gets better as we travel lighter.
Just be nice.
As always, I welcome your thoughts. You can reach me through the comments section on my Substack or Medium accounts or the blog section on my website. If this article as of value to you, please follow my Instagram and Twitter accounts. And be sure to subscribe to my River Of Creation podcast – The Podcast for Creators! – coming later this year.
Be well; do good!
- JWW
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