"Nice" People- How Do You Do It?

In My Humble Opinion
41

I have a firey temper and actually enjoy a good fight.
What I have learned over the years is to raise the bar of what it takes to really get me riled up. I used friends of mine that appeared to be well springs of patience and understanding as role models. I avoid socializing with perpetually negative people because I find such attitudes contagious.
The result is that 95% of the time I’m more laid back and relaxed than most people around me. The remaining 5% of the time, look out. I have shocked people when they realize that “quiet, polite, friendly Solfy” can be a real badger when cornered. The key is I only unleash that when it’s something truly important that I can change. Most things aren’t that important in the grand scheme of things, or they are things which I am powerless to change, so getting angry is not going to help.

I DO have regrets over being too nice to some people (only a couple). You can only be a doormat if you lie down and let people walk over you.

42

I’ve had people tell me that I’m one of the nicest people they’ve ever met, a genuinely good guy, and am occasionaly told that I’m just a flat out better person than they are for my attitude in life. I am nice (Read: not wimpy or whiny) and very, very, very rarely angry. But I am assertive and do stand up for myself.

It helps to think about why you’re angry, and more importantly, what anger actually contributes to your situation. I did, and these are the conclusions I arrived to and then internalized:

43

Me, I go home and take out my frustrations in computer games. They’re especially good for murderous rage and need for revenge. I conquer the world in games like Civ and the EU series of games to take out my aggressions.

44

Ask anyone IRL who knows me and they’ll tell you I’m the nicest person they’ve ever met.

I fake it.

45

And when I’m feeling really murderous, I go to this site and wipe out humanity by throwing a 10-kilometer asteroid or comet at the Earth. MWAHAHAHAHAHAHAAA!

46

If you have any doubts about where all that anger comes from try this little exercise;

In a quiet, calm and serene moment, take a second and think of something that makes your blood boil, ill treatment, unfairness, your ex, it doesn’t matter what it is. Now, notice how angry you are, your heart is beating faster, you’re breathing more shallow, your mind is racing.

This exercise is an object lesson in where anger comes from. It comes from within. But we live in a society that looks to always blame the external for that which we do not want to own. Whenever you hear your internal dialogue saying things like, ‘he’s makes me so, that behaviour makes me, etc,’ recognize that it’s a lie. You allow it, nothing ‘makes’ you do anything. If the external was ‘making’ you angry you wouldn’t be able to reproduce the effect with just your thoughts.

The truth is we have some ownership in every event in our lives, ignoring that permits us to blame others for everything distasteful we experience. I’m sure you understand the connection between anger and blame so I’ll leave it there.

The other thing I would point out is that change happens, not in one fell swoop, that leads to failure almost always. No, change happens in tiny little baby steps. Your goal should be trying to be just a little less angry and sucky today than you were yesterday. A much, much more achievable goal. When you go to bed at night take a moment and give yourself credit (cause the universe won’t, if that’s what you’re expecting!) for even one small moment where you chose to be nice instead of bitter and angry.

If you do this small exercise for even 2-3 wks, every night when you get into bed, you will see a remarkable change. In yourself, in your attitude, and in your prospects for becoming the person you wish you were. And I can promise you will also see a radical change in how the world treats you.

Someone once told me that inside of every person are two beings. One is gentle, forgiving and full of lovingkindness. The other is filled with anger, bitterness and displeasure. He said they were always battling for dominance. When I asked which would win he told me it was the one you feed. The muscle you exercise is the one that grows ever stronger. I never forgot this conversation, as you can see, and it had huge impact for me, as I was righteously angry at the whole world at the time.
Good luck to you and ‘Yeah’ for you for wanting to be nicer and less angry and bitter.

(Also, angry and bitter Moms create angry and bitter children, but I’m sure you’re aware of that!)

47

I think this is key, seriously. I don’t think most people just let stress or anger or insults or conflict roll off them like water off a duck’s back. It’s probably self-centered of me, but I can’t do that so I assume most people can’t do that. I can get so mad that I can feel the waves of rage coming off of me. For me, it is an on-going process to not “be” that person, but even if I can’t be a good person in the darkest corner of my black and tiny heart, I can be pretend to be a good person to the people I interact with. (Most of the time.) And I remind myself that for everyone except God, that’s good enough. So here’s what semi- sorta sometimes works for me:

  1. I twist my vengefulness and hatred into not giving the fuckers the satisfaction. Anger and thoughts or revenge gives other people power over you, since they are by their actions dictating your actions. The opposite of love is not hatred, but indifference. So I consciously refuse to give my personal power over myself to people I don’t like or respect. The neighbor is aggressively in your face bitching about your son: Sure, you could respond in kind, but then you are letting HER dictate how you respond instead of deciding for YOURSELF how to respond.

  2. I require myself to apologize for bad behavior. I may not be able to prevent myself from losing my temper, but I can require myself to apologize after the fact. You’d be surprised how effective a curb on your temper it is to know that if you lose your shit you will have to eat your words later. Even if I am fundamentally right in the point I was making, I still am required to apologize for being hostile or rude in how I made it. Key to this, though, is to be hard-assed in holding yourself to this. No matter how big a bitch the other person is, no matter how right you really were, no matter how much you are going to hate having to trudge over and choke out “I’m sorry,” you MUST make yourself do it. Otherwise, this won’t work as a curb on your behavior.

  3. Exercise is hugely important for me. I may be able to restrain the verbal assault that being pissed off makes me want to unleash, but I still have those pent-up feelings of rage, I’ve just sort of surpressed them. When I’ve become seriously pissed with someone or something, I find that an hour’s worth of sweat will help me discharge a bit. Things rarely seem so bad afterwards. I can’t tell you how many brisk walks I’ve taken with my dogs, with me waving my finger and waggling my head as I talk to no one present, but addressing the person I’m pissed at. Sometimes I think people driving by must think I’m a crazy lady. But it’s better for me to tell them to kiss my ass in the open air, just me and the dogs, then to actually tell them to kiss my ass. Because that, I know I’d have to crawl back and apologize for (see No. 2, above).

  4. If I had a child, I think I would also remind myself that I am always a role-model for that child. If I don’t want to raise a child who believes that it is okay (much less effective) to lose your temper, curse people, throw things, have a fit, then I have to model good behavior. Your kid is watching you, always.

Like some much else, I think you fake it 'til you make it, and it takes practice. No one becomes “nice” overnight, you have to consciously practice the behavior you want, until it becomes second nature and you don’t have to try anymore.

I’ll let you know when that happens. :wink:

48

I would say that I am consistently nice at work, because I feel like it’s part of my job. I decided a while ago that I wouldn’t have a career, but I would work on being someone people were happy to see going about the job each day. So I’ve trained myself to say things nonconfrontationally and in a helpful way and always put on a happy face. It’s not completely fake, it is how I feel, but I do have to remember to do it.

I know a woman who is so nice all the time, nonjudgemental, patient, kind. I think she’s the person you mean, and I always thought she was just made that way. And at some point she told me even she has to really work at it too. That burst my bubble and gave me hope at the same time.

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Shit happens, get used to it.
The world will go on with or without you.
You are the only person that can make you happy, don’t depend on others to do so.
Live by the golden rule (treat others like you would like to be treated.)
Look at the bright side of things. Just about everything has a bright side.
Don’t expect too much and you won’t be disappointed.

50

This is an excellent point. A huge part of my job is to be welcoming and helpful to the various constituencies that my office works with. If I were not nice at work, I would be failing to do my job. Fortunately, it usually comes easy to me, which is part of why I’m so good at what I do. And like Missy2U, I’m a huge believer in “fake it til you make it.”

51

This is exactly what I was going to say. Faking it is the way to go. The two people that sit on either side of me at work I despise to the very core of my being. They are both rude, hateful, awful, base people. Neither of them has any idea I feel this way. I smile to their faces and laugh at their jokes, etc. My sitting there, between them, is by design. My boss put me there on purpose (she told me), I am a peace keeper by nature and my presence between them seems to keep them from trying to kill each other or fight with others.

That said, while I am smiling and joking on the outside, inside I am thinking awful, terrible thoughts about them (I cannot help it. You do not know the extent of the vileness of these two). But, I just take it all in and I get it out later in several ways.

  1. I complain and bitch and moan to my best friend. She works with me so she knows these two personally, so she’s very sympathetic about it.
  2. I run off my frustration on my treadmill (or other exercise).
  3. Never underestimate the healing power of video games. After an hour of killing mobs and naming each and every one after the disgusting duo (or anyone else on your nerves that day) you feel really really good :slight_smile:

So, don’t be fooled. Not all “nice” people are really all that nice. We are just really good fakers :wink:

52

I get annoyed by stuff. I find that if I just think, “stupid fucker” or quietly mention to Mr. K that I think someone is being a “stupid fucker”, it’s enough of a vent for me and I’m over it and move on. No need to come off as a shrieking maniac (not to say that I’ve never slipped up in that department!).

Regarding having a hard life…

There is always someone whose life is harder. ALWAYS. And they don’t have to be in a third world country. They don’t even have to be poor. Life is simply better for some people than it is for others. That’s the roll of the dice.

Here’s the deal. For the most part, no one “deserves” anything more than basic human respect. You don’t deserve a nicer home, your neighbor doesn’t deserve a big-ass TV and your co-worker doesn’t deserve a new pair of shoes.

We earn some things in life, we get lucky in some aspects of life, and other stuff sucks. That’s life. But if you keep in mind that people *deserve * human respect, it’s easier to see how your being mean or outwardly pissed off or cranky can cut in on someone’s deserved civil environment. The rest is gravy, really.

53

There are a few things worth your anger, very few. It’s hard to learn, but anger is a choice you make. I’m a results-oriented guy, and most things are not helped by growling, snapping and throwing stuff. People are much more likely to cooperate with you if you respect their feelings. Being nice WORKS.

I learned from Studs Terkel about tiny expressions of caring. You meet a cashier, customer, stranger, whoever. If he says “how are you,” you say, “great” even if you feel like crap, and you ask, “and you?” Those two words make a huge difference. If I meet somebody who’s going to do something for me (sales clerk, repairman, call-center techie, etc.) I ask, “are you having a good day?” I’m probably the first person that day to ask that. Things go smoothly from there.

You have a choice. As Calvin Trillin’s father said, “you might as well be a mensch.”

That, and anti-depressants.

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SO much good advice here, I wish I could reply to every single post. But it has helped tremendously. I’ve always thought that being so emotional, I could never hide from anyone how I truly feel, they’d see it in my face. But all you fakers are teaching me that it’s possible! Like I said, I don’t think that I’m mean, I’m just not very good at being “nice” automatically. I will practice at every opportunity, and I will remember those moments every night before I go to sleep.

55

I would say that niceness is pretty much reflex for me. Partly this is persistent habit from my days as a doormat, but it also stems from the fact that diplomacy and tact have generally served me in far better stead than anger. I guess sometimes you could call it faking, in that I may end up back at my desk silently cursing a co-worker’s name after doing the sweetness and light thing to their face–but at the same time, the outward niceness isn’t really a conscious decision on my part.

For me, the most helpful tool in curtailing anger has been an understanding of the general insignificance of most of life’s irritations and pitfalls. And the realization that, aside from a few real asswipes, most people really don’t mean any harm and are doing their best to muddle through just like I am.

(Oddly, the better I know a person, the more likely I am to overlook the whole kindness and consideration thing. Sometimes I feel like I am to friends what a pitcher plant is to flies. It’s really not good.)

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Try my method.

Sqeeeeeze all that anger into a tight little ball and stuff it away very deep inside yourself, where it will never ever ever come out again.

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A sense of humor helps, and mine comes out pretty often, I’m told - never when I’m trying to be funny, of course. Yes, things can be funny and tragic at the same time. As others have (probably) said, people laugh at the clown tripping over his feet, not at the pretty dance girl. Life is funny, so go ahead and laugh.

(And oh yeah, I had a pretty rough childhood. No, I don’t really care to talk about it.)

What others have said. Some Motivational Sayings that I think are pretty good:

“Holding a grudge is like letting someone live rent-free in your head. And they’re not even anyone you like.”

“Pick your battles small enough to win, and big enough to matter.”

58

I went to a dinner for work tonight, and the speaker was a lady named Tena Brown- a longtime psoriasis-sufferer turned patient advocate. Wow- this woman is one of those really, really nice people. She talked a lot about having compassion and being kind and caring. She gave us all little silver boxes, as a reminder that people are more than their package. I’m going to put my little silver box where I can see it often and be reminded to be kind. The whole thing was very touching. (Could have done without the god references but what can you do.)

Isn’t it weird how when you are starting to think about something and work on it, the universe trips all over itself to give you the tools to do so, and all of a sudden the info is there for you everywhere you look?

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People tell me all the time that I’m too nice, and I argue that I am not. I may be friendly with everyone but I’m also very assertive when I need to be. And I could be fired from my job and served divorce papers on the same day, but there’s no reason to take my anger out on the cashier or waiter, or the bartender (who is the person I’d most likely be around in this instance).

Also, I think having a sense of humor helps. No matter how crappy my situation is, I’m always the first person to make a joke about it. I think most people just need to lighten up a little. Fucking dickheads.

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Corny as it seems, this is a gem of cognitive-behavioral therapy that can be used independently of or as a supplement to CBT itself to help you change your behavior. I’m having a lot of success with it, myself. It has a lot of helpful exercises that ask you to (for example) analyze your negative thoughts to see how much truth there really is to them (which varies from thought to thought, of course). And it has weekly self-administered tests you can take to monitor your progress.

Of course, I can’t recommend seeing an actual cognitive-behavioral therapist in the flesh enough.

My mom is like that. She’s so calm and collected at all times, and so cool under fire, that when she’s pissed, man, you fucked something up bad. She’s a high-ranking and well-respected Naval officer, too, so it works in different areas of life.

I had a drill sergeant who roamed the base during the mornings and scream at a flight of trainees, “Is it a good day today?” Rather strange question, so he’d get an uneasy “…yes…sir?” back. Then: “Are you breathing American air today?” “YES, SIR!” “Are you speaking English today?” “YES, SIR!” “Then it’s a damn good day, isn’t it?” “YES, SIR!”

Bit of an oddball, but he left the trainees with smiles on their faces (which, of course, they had to wipe right off since there was always another sergeant around the corner ready to make them “push Texas into hell”).

Or a fire, if she happened to live about five hours’ drive west of where she lives now.