Nice

Recently I’ve been thinking a lot about how I define being nice, and the issues my definition holds.

When I was growing up, most adults—and other kids—would describe me as nice. Now, this isn’t a bad thing at all, but at a certain point I started basing my entire personality on this one trait. I was the nice one. However, I was also extremely passive. I still am, but much less so than I was even five years ago. When I think about how much of a pushover I was back then, I think of when John Mulaney said that he was the kind of person who would apologize to you after you poured a bowl of soup in his lap. I had never related to anything more in my life.

I never spoke up about anything. Things that were bothering me, things other people did that annoyed me. I stayed quiet until someone else spoke up first. Then, and only then, would I maybe add my two cents.

But here’s the thing I’ve been learning lately: Being nice does not equal being a doormat. It just doesn’t. You can be a nice person and disagree with people. You can be a nice person and have issues with people. You can be nice and speak up when you see something wrong, even if the person doing it sees you as a friend.

So, what made me come to this realization? Over the past couple of months, I’ve been dealing with some difficult situations at work. Without going into too much detail, there’s been gossip, rumors, and more flying around—not to mention people who just simply refuse to be mature in a workplace, or even do their work at all.

I’m going to stop there before I get too worked up, it’s a very frustrating thing.

Anyway, a few weeks ago I started noticing how I felt while dealing with and, admittedly, participating in, some very not fun situations, and it worried me. I felt angry and annoyed, frustrated, exhausted. I felt…mean. Did speaking up about issues at work make me a mean person? Did standing up and deciding that some people’s behavior wasn’t okay make me mean? The obvious answer (obvious to me in hindsight, anyway) is no, of course not!

Standing up for myself is something I have never been good at—remember, I’m the type of person to apologize after having hot soup poured on me—but I have realized now that I have to get comfortable with it, and fast. I’m lucky that I have great coworkers and friends who will defend me, but I may not always have that. I have a voice, too, and I’m going to use it.

If you deal with something similar, or feel like you aren’t being yourself when you stand up for yourself or others, don’t panic. You’re being the person you’ve always needed, and that is not necessarily a bad thing.

Stay safe out there, and be nice to yourself for a change.

—Abbie