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Are you too nice or are you real?

Are you too nice or are you real?


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Are you too nice or are you real?

People can be jerks. We can just accept that and live with it. Or maybe a better scenario would be to find a balance between accepting their behavior, which could be considered you being too nice, and then balancing that with helping others to grow. Which in turn helps you find your own peace or happiness. Do you have that balance in your life? Is there a balance of courage and being too nice? Do we try to be nice in public then explode at home? We say yes to everyone's requests and in reality we don't want to do it or we really don't have the time or energy.

This paradigm of being too nice is also being destructive to our relationships and ourselves. It can hurt the very thing we are striving for.

In reality we need to be in balance where we can find happiness, and peace, and still give understanding and concern to others, or in other words to be healthy.

Finding what our balance should be between being nice and being healthy will bring us to our true selves and our purpose in life. We can do healthy or real and still have the concern and love for others. This peace in life can be obtained in this balance between being nice and having courage. So how do we accomplish this when we are over scheduled and are being pulled in so many directions?

Some days it seems that there is no time at all just to breathe. Like for example, we find ourselves running all the carpools. It was Stacie's turn today and she felt that she was behind in all of her housework. So, she asked me to fill in for her. There was no request to change days with her; she just wanted me to take her day. I do understand that we have days when we need some down time. I had to do some writing for my book; I had appointments with several clients and one of my kids was sick; so my wife asked me to help out. I had a speech later in the day and I kept thinking that somehow I could just take a few more minutes to pick up the neighbor kids too. Now, does any of that sound familiar? We end up being frustrated, angry and even feeling guilty. Is that who we are? Is that what we want to feel?

Here are some signs that just maybe we are being too nice: 1- If we feel we are being taken advantage of. 2- Our negative emotions are going up. 3- Do we feel fake? 4- Notice, our relationships aren't deepening.

We're only as healthy as our ability to be real. Our ability to say what we feel consistently increases the likely hood of being happy. A lot of us live lives of quiet desperation.

The key to balancing nice vs. healthy:

1- If it doesn't feel right, don't do it. Is it connected to our principles? 2- Constructive feedback is important. 3- Don't dichotomize. We can be nice and be healthy. 4- Respect others and respect ourselves. 5- Niceties are interpretive. 6- Have courage to state our feelings and the consideration to listen to their needs. 7- Try to understand what they are feeling.

Consideration without courage is flat or unprogressive. We find our peace from living our principles not from our current situation. Living our principles will create deeper relationships. Only being nice without courage makes a shallow relationship. Some of our best growing moments are when we are real, raw, considerate and courageous. That is making these deeper connections. Now ask the question, "What is it like to be in a relationship with me?"

Dr. Matt Townsend

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