Tuesday, August 13, 2013

Be Nice To Others... And Appreciate When Others Are Nice To You...

Recently, I’ve seen posts on social media which caught my attention as I did not agree with them. Then I decided to dedicate this month’s blog post to this topic. A few of them were about “Being nice to others makes you weaker”, and “To make others happy, you have to sacrifice your happiness”. These are not the exact words but the quotes were very similar to the ones I listed. I don’t know in which direction my post will go but I wanted to share with you why it is important to be nice to others according to me. Being nice to others doesn’t mean you have to think about others all the time and put yourself last. Instead, being nice to others can not only make them feel better but can also make you valuable and unique. Let’s admit one thing: we all have struggles in life which may put us down at times and this applies to the rest of the world too. We don’t know what others may be going through, so being nice to them doesn’t hurt and doesn’t cost anything. At least, this way, we will try to make some peace around the world. If you can’t do anything good, then just don’t do or say anything!

Nobody would want to live in a perfect world because life would be indeed boring. Similarly, nobody is born perfect. This means that being kind to others is something that requires a good heart and good thoughts in the mind. It’s not something easy to do. For instance, I happen to be in a bad mood sometimes. If I have to help someone in that situation and I have what I need to help that person, I usually do it but with no expressions on my face. That’s how I deal with the situation in real life and I avoid speaking more than I need to because I know that I might unintentionally be rude to someone for nothing. On the other hand, when I’m in a much happier mood, I tend to express myself more when helping someone. Regardless of your personal mood, what will matter at the end is that you’ve helped someone and you’ve made someone’s day.

We all say that no human is less than one another but your behavior towards others is really what determines whether you respect others as much as you respect yourself. I was able to come up with three categories of people when it comes to their attitude towards others. My perspective could be wrong but these are just some personal observations I’ve made so far.

The best people in your life should be your supporters (for the good steps you take in life, not the bad ones). Being a supporter isn’t easy as it’s never easy to deal with others and their limits. As of today, I still wonder how my supporters managed to stay by my side despite me having an unusual path of life from the majority of people in this world. What I noticed in them is that they are happy with what they have and when they helped others (including me), it’s because they were strong and wanted to grow stronger. They are confident in not only taking care of themselves but to give a hand to others when they need it. They believe in lifting others and they go much far in life because victory for them doesn’t mean to leave others behind them but to take them with them. In short, supporters are the real winners in the world. Of course, you can’t play the role of supporter in everyone’s life but being there in the times of need of a few people close to your heart is a big thing. Supporting others doesn’t mean to do things for them, it could mean to help them fight their struggles or even encourage them to pursue their small or big dreams.

The second interesting set of people are your sympathizers, those who share good thoughts about you to be successful. They may know very little about you and yet they will have good advice to share with you when you are struggling in life. Take a minute to think about this. How do you feel when someone who has barely known you in a short time shares a few wise words? Don’t you feel like you’ve just got more motivation to continue what you’re doing in life? Of course, you are the one to judge if those who spread good and soft words are indeed true to you or not. It’s also up to you to believe their words and feel better about yourself. Bringing my personal experiences here, I must say that I was very fortunate to meet people who’ve seen me dealing with my life’s issues on my own and they let me know that if ever I need anything, they would be there for me. What mattered to me in those times is that they weren’t even that close to my heart and yet they had a good heart to think good for me. The moral of this story is that sometimes you may just tell someone that you’re ready to help them anytime and just saying this can give so much strength to that someone.

I consider the third set of people are those who don’t know what it means to be nice to others and who feel pity over someone who’s going through a bad phase. I could be wrong or maybe people who say “I feel pity for this person” just don’t know the meaning of the word pity. When you feel pity for someone, it’s because you sort of need to feel superior about yourself over others especially the ones who are suffering. This is definitely not right because lifting yourself by belittling others doesn’t make you a winner at all. I personally feel that those who feel pity for others are the ones weaker from inside.  Think about it. The reason they don’t want to help others is because either they have no way to help or they are just not happy from inside but are pretending to be happy from the outside. Some people just have no compassion for others unfortunately. There’s really nothing we can do beside ignoring them and leaving them on their own. Fortunately, someone who goes through a lot of struggles doesn’t end up spending the rest of his or her life living unhappily. And I guess this is one way for people who feel pity to get a lesson. Nobody will stay happy for long if he or she feels superior by putting others down.


I don’t know how you will react to this post but if I was able to make you think, then I feel like I’ve done my job. I started by saying that it’s important to be nice to others and then I mentioned how we should feel about people being nice to us. I did this on purpose because I think human beings learn more by observation. When somebody is nice around you, try to appreciate and value that kindness. I think I am nice to people in real life because I know I feel very special when people are kind to me. Of course I doubted some people’s good attitude but I’ve met many real angels so it didn’t bother me for having met some that haven’t been genuine with me. After reading this, take the time to think about how you feel when others are nice and how you feel about yourself being nice to others. I also believe in you get what you give, therefore if you want good things to happen to you or have good people in your life, do good and be good. It’s really that simple!