Saturday, July 16, 2005

lesson #208: i'm not... nice.

Recently, I've been bugged by the feeling that the people around me seem to be so... nice. Jess will go out of her way to be friendly and smiley to everyone. Mich doesn't wanna make anyone feel bad. Gary refused his extremely rich uncle's help in paying for his laptop repair which costs $1100. Kunz will make friends in a boring party if that'll make her (hypothetical) boyfriend happy.


Why is everyone so... noble?


The worse thing is, I know for sure that I'm not nearly as nice as these people. In fact, I totally am super far from that level of niceness. And sometimes when nice people impose their level of niceness to me, it feels like I'm being chastised for not being as nice as them. Someone will suggests doing something for the benefit of others, and then I'll think that I'm unwilling to do it because I don't wanna suffer to make others happy, but then one look at these nice people and they'll give you this patronizing aura. They're silently saying, "What, you can't even sacrifice a little bit and be selfless for once? I really thought better of you!" so then if you say you don't want to, you'll be the most selfish bitch in the whole wide world. And for my case, I find it really hard to say 'no'. These nice people are my friends, and I don't want my friends to think bad of me.


But sometimes being out-of-the-way nice is just not my thing. I'm not going to succumb to social pressure anymore. Other people can go about saving the world if they want to, it's up to them. I certainly won't impose my (evil, selfish) views on them. Just don't drag me into it, because sometimes I just want to be my shallow self. I think I'm too old for such insecurities as wanting as many people as possible to like and accept me. I'm not saying it's wrong to want to be liked. Heck, who wouldn't wanna be liked by people? I'm just saying that if in the process of impressing people I have to do something which I fundamentally am not prepared to do, then I'm not going to do it. Which doesn't mean I won't feel guilty for not doing it, but I've long felt that guilt shouldn't be the main drive for doing acts of charity because then you'll be doing nice things for the wrong reasons.


Then I can honestly say that even though niceness isn't one of the shining qualities I possess, I at least have enough mettle to stand from being moulded into someone that I am not, by other people.