nice people finish last

it's probably my mom in me (that vinamese-tell-it-like-it-is sensibility when you ask "how are you doing" you get a real thorough rundown of the person's health, not a typical glib american answer.), and my own forthright tendencies and aversion to pretension (though i've gotten more mellow and judicious in verbiage in my old age, honestly), and really, being the oddball in school not odd like edward scissorhands, but odd like i didn't fit into any neat social categories and status symbols that are the hallmarks of american schools--nerd, drama dork, ASB geek, D&D freak, filipino mexican, etc, but had friends all across the spectrum; probably all those reasons why i have never cared much for nice people. i'm not saying i like mean people, what i mean is that people whose identity is bound up in pleasing other people and in being perceived as "nice" are engaging in the self-effacing social theater of nice martyrdom with sublimated unhappiness and low self esteem whispering cues from the wings. of course there's also the kind of fake-nice people who use their niceness to manipulate other people but nobody likes those kind of nice people. goes without saying. i'm talking about the really nice people. even when they are being genuinely nice and not fake-nice, there is a hollowness about their actions/words because their is no self, no self sufficiency, no valuing of their own self. being nice may satisfy their (parental upbringing-created) neuroses but it does not fulfill their soul. why should i esteem them when they don't even value themselves?

my realtor was a good man, very nice guy, people pleaser, cheerful. absolutely no ability to prioritize while with his clients. would be wretchedly late for appointments with us because he was still showing another client and in trying to please them, wasn't taking calls, couldn't give us a call to let us know he was running late. would run around with us all over town looking at properties way past the time we had alloted. that kind of nice guy. always putting others before himself. a lifetime lived as a nice guy wasn't fulfilling. he suffered inside. quietly. without bothering anyone. as nice people should (they think of other's feelings before their own). the real estate market tanked while his wife was finishing school for nurse midwifery, and his two children in school. his family lost the house to foreclosure. no one knew that they were in crisis. he didn't want to burden other people with his problems. he committed suicide. i dont bring this up to make light. nice has its price. that patriarchy is hard on the menfolk too, but that's a whole nuther blog for anuther time.

last year, when i was interviewing former staff for my work's thirtieth anniversary, one of the formers mentioned how much it pained him when the leader of the organization, a really genuinely nice guy, just about the nicest guy i have ever met, didn't stand up for him, when other staff decided to cut his program. nice people don't like conflict; nice people value maintaining the peace at any cost; nice people don't take sides and so, nice people betray.

i like honesty. as much as there are things about our current guvernator i don't like, i respect that he doesn't take a taxpayer-paid salary because he is a billionaire.

anyways, all this to say, i'm not trying to raise a nice girl. girls are pressured by way too much society to be nice.

so i really appreciated this article about the unhappy consequences of trying to raise a happy child. sometimes parenting makes my brain hurt too.

http://theparentingpit.com/alternative-parenting/solutions-are-not-the-solution/