In my last post, I wrote about being “not nice”, but real.
Here, I want to say that while I’m ambivalent about being “nice”, I’m all for being kind. In my book, “Where There’s Smoke”, I write:
Pg 217
“Nice is good, but kind is better. Personally, I’m not impressed with “niceâ€. Let’s face it, how many times have you heard a guy say some girl is nice, and you know she’s anything but?
My response is “Okay, but how kind is she?â€
Kindness is niceness with backbone and substance, where sugar and spice is niceness with fluff. Sugar and spice is also opaque. You can’t see through it to the hidden agendas. Kindness is crystal clear with nothing to hide.
Kindness is limitless while respecting boundaries. It’s honest, and like life, seeks balance. Kindness knows, sometimes, the kindest thing to do is tell someone to back off. Kindness sees the whole picture, and is more concerned about the greater good and the higher good, than a good performance.
Niceness is often self-sacrificing. It’s why a lot of people like “nice†girls. They’re easy to take advantage of, often compliant and easier to control with threats of disapproval.
Kindness is self-respecting. It remembers to give to itself, as well as to others. How easy it is to sacrifice being kind to yourself out of attempting to be nice to someone else.
Kindness is universal and not incident and situation specific. It’s a way of being, a way of interacting with and relating to your world. Kindness is out of principle. Niceness is out of need.”
I received a book today from my “girlfriend for ages”, Sue, called “the power of kindness” by Piero Ferrucci. I never really saw kindness as being a power, but I’m beginning to appreciate it that way. I made a post about kindness from a sentence that kind of jumped out at me from the book – what it reveals to us about who we are on my Keeping the Dream blog.
But for this post, I want to address the things that make up kindness. Ferrucci describes kindness as being comprised of different components, a synergy of sorts – of honesty, empathy, warmth, trust and other traits. I would say kindness, also, carries within its heart integrity…which is an honesty with ones self that one can then share with others.
The bottomline is kindness has substance, where niceness, as I write in my book, is fluff. This gives us something we can work with.
Women and girls need to feel more comfortable with this. Perhaps if we stop trying so hard to be nice, and focus on developing and strengthening these components – starting wherever is right for us – we will find ourselves not being concerned with whether we are being “nice girls” or not, because we will be too busy tapping into our realness and authentically blessing those around us with the power of genuine kindness.
And that’s the way it should be – for both sexes.
Demian,
~DreamSinger
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