The story of being Nice...

Once there was a boy called Patrick. One day when he was returning from school, his new friend Ted asked him to spend Sunday together by watching a sci-fi movie.

Patrick said “yes”, as he has learnt over the years that being a nice person, he should put other feelings prior to his own and not upsetting people.

On Sunday both watched the movie, and later it became a routine over the holidays in coming months. However, the reality was that Patrick didn’t like watching movies at all but he never shared his own feelings. Slowly, Patrick was not much involved with his new friend and stayed aloof, and Ted had no idea in Patrick’s changed behaviour. Soon their friendship broke. When Ted asked about this behavior, Patrick became dismissive.

Later, during graduation days, when Patrick was now a grown up person, more free, more mature and having a large social circle- for the first time, he was facing difficulty to manage schedules between people and his own priorities.

Whenever somebody asked him to do something, such as an outing or a favour or help someone with studies, with money or anything, Patrick always said yes, just not to upset the other person.

Slowly, he started feeling used, and spending his time disproportionately for others, made him resentful. Slowly he moved away from the groups and disappeared from public life.

Soon after graduation, Patrick landed into the corporate job at a fairly large company. He always kept a happy face, and happily agreed to everything asked for even when it was outside his scope of work, in order not to upset his superiors.

However, in reality, he got in situation of over promise and under delivery. Secretly, he disliked the behaviour of his superiors – he used to think as to why others don’t feel like doing injustice to him, why they always take advantage of him, why his juniors take him on a ride, until one fine day when he switched for another job to overcome such people.

Patrick was one of the nicest people, one can ever meet but he was not happy and contended. He was puzzled by seeing the selfishness of the world, still he always tried that people around him must always be happy.

But all along, Patrick was becoming more lonely and feeling isolated as he was hardly left with any friends.

One day at a coffee shop, he met with a girl , who was extrovert, unique, spontaneous and good natured, named Sabrina.

An organic conversation started between them, and they talked at length on various topics for hours, including their personal emotions and past life.

He shared that people have taken advantage of him, of his being nice, repeatedly. ?

Sabrina agreed and said “yes, people are selfish” and promptly asked Patrick “Have you ever asked others, not to do something that you didn’t like. Did you ever told other people what was wrong and how you had felt” It seems that you always expected people to be just and treat you kindly because you are nice person.

“I just don’t like to argue or offend people” Patrick replied. I don’t want to confront people for no reason, especially when people know what is right.

Yeah- but why the people want to solve the problem if it benefits them, and the other person doesn’t seem to care.

Niceness is not always kind, because niceness doesn’t mean self-surrender. One must perhaps confront fairly and have difficult conversations to resolve. -Sabrina said.

I agree – to a larger extent. Replied Patrick with a dip in his tone.

I have dealt with many selfish people in life , so I resonate with you. I must say that agreeing with all, is not always a sign of niceness, because you care what others think about you. You must be more vocal for your thoughts and feelings and must say upfront for any injustice happening to you. I am just sharing my thoughts sorry if that is carried too far – replied Sabrina.

No, its fine – Patrick replied.

Let’s talk something other – what are you doing on this weekend – Can we go to watch a movie?

?Patrick took a pause.

?Then he replied –

“I do not like movies. Let’s take the things a bit slower, actually”.?