You know, I learned sometime around January 2010 a really awful truth.
'Nice' is not a good thing.
Which is funny. Not like 'ha-ha' funny, but more like, 'Am I on the Twilight Zone' sort of funny or 'Did that really just happen' sort of funny. Odd, I suppose, is the right word. It's strange how horrible nice can be.
There are a lot of nice people in the world. Nice means smiling, seeming to care, feigning interest, and generally remaining neutral to your cause, feelings, problems, and mistakes.
Some people like having nice people around. It's nice when people seem not to judge you, seem not to mind what you do, seem to like you.
But 'nice' isn't a picture of reality. And nice people aren't your friends.
Some of the worst things people have done to me have been while they had a smile on their faces. They were trying to be nice. You know, that thing that seemed so alright at the time? But then all those nice people who were feigning interest about things you care about are still feigning interest while they watch your life collapse around you.
Here's the difference between a friend and a nice person. A nice person will walk by you in a burning building and comment, "That's really such a shame." A real friend will pull you out of that burning building.
We all have something in this world to give. And some of the best people in the world I know, love and respect are not 'nice' people. (Heck, most people wouldn't call my mother a 'nice' person, but she's the first to give her shirt off her back for people she absolutely despises.) The people I love are: cranky, miserable, awkward, generally flawed people with eccentricities and foibles. And I love them anyways. And I hope they love me back the same.
It's hard not to want to be surrounded by 'nice'. Everything's pleasant. no one judges your actions, you feel so safe.
But, that's not real. Good friendship to me requires a certain level of respect for a person, but also respect for their feelings, thoughts and actions. Not to mention the ability to criticize those thoughts and actions when a person gets to close to the fire. I think Nietzsche said it best when he said, "Go up close to your friend, but do not go over to him! We should also respect the enemy in our friend."
In life, we are surrounded by enemies...inside ourselves and without. But the best victories against these enemies come from a true friend. Nice people just don't cut it in real life.
Sunday, May 29, 2011
Monday, May 23, 2011
TOW: Personal Value
I have been talking a lot lately with friends and family about people not being good with commitments. It seems to me that there are a lot of people in the world (and I include myself in this, guilty as charged, absolutely) that take advantage our your time and seem to consistenly fail to help you when you need it, or at least spend time with you when you need it.
In some ways, it's always our own fault when we rely on acquaintances and false friends. We're only setting ourselves up for failure when we rely on people we know can't be relied upon. And usually we have a pretty good sense if someone is a commitment-phobe, reliable, or comes-and-goes-with-the-weather.
Everyone in this world deserves respect, but not everyone in the world deserves your time. The most precious thing in the world we have is time. And no one should waste their time on people who don't even know the value of spending time with you.
In some ways, it's always our own fault when we rely on acquaintances and false friends. We're only setting ourselves up for failure when we rely on people we know can't be relied upon. And usually we have a pretty good sense if someone is a commitment-phobe, reliable, or comes-and-goes-with-the-weather.
Everyone in this world deserves respect, but not everyone in the world deserves your time. The most precious thing in the world we have is time. And no one should waste their time on people who don't even know the value of spending time with you.
Tuesday, May 17, 2011
TOW: Good or Great
In the book The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz, there comes a point where Duddy must choose. He has his family, his girlfriend, and everyone on his side, they worked together, lived together, laughed together, and life was very good. There was nothing else he could want. He had everything a good life had.
Except for the very dream that had lead him to this point.
Kravitz worked, gambled, begged, borrowed and stolen to get him to the penultimate place in his life. He wants land. He sees a plot of land he wants, and he wants it more than anything else in the world. Problem is, so does the other richest person in town. And in one moment, Duddy throws away everything, tumbles from grace rather than falls, and puts all his bridges into flames for the deed to one scrap of land. Because Kravitz didn't want to be anybody--he wanted to be somebody.
This was the point in the book I was horrified.
In life, we are faced with a duality, and a Duddy Kravitz dilemma. Do we choose the plot of land, or do we choose 'the good life?'
No easy answer.
It's not a matter of creature comforts versus our pride--it's much more sincere than that. It's a question of our most intrinsic desire--to be happy--cut against the grain of our ability to imagine what is possible. In other words, it is our dreams versus our happiness. Our desire to change versus our desire to stay the same and love what we have. It is the difference between good and great.
I have been thinking a lot about this lately, and perhaps it's because I come from a family of people who generally overachieve in some way or another that I often struggle with this problem, and probably I struggle because I want to lead a good life. And it is simply my desire to be great, to imagine what I could be, that keeps me in so much pain as I strive to create my own income, fund my own dreams, and heck, pay my own rent. And I think sometimes my problem is that I focus so hard on trying to get ahead I lose sight of the goal. A plot of land does no one any good if you sacrifice your life and the life of your family for it.
But still, the desire to be great is in each one of us, and it takes a massive amount of self-understanding to achieve anything valid or valuable in life. For some of us, we struggle with being good, with self-discipline, with well-ordered desires. For others, we have lost sight of the possible. We fail to embrace the goodness and wonder in the universe, the very things that make us wake and sleep. The whispers in our hearts that say 'keep breathing,' there is hope farther yet. Breathe in, breathe out. Breathe in.
Every person's life will foreshadow the mistakes and triumphs of choosing between good and great. That choice is a harsh reality that takes us down to either good decisions or bad, great decisions or mediocre ones, happy lives or one's without happiness.
In my life, the choice has never been a problem of being good. It was always easy for me. I can easily be contented if I feel I am living as a 'good' person.
But the struggle for me is always to reach out beyond what I am used to, and be afraid to fail, and there are plenty of things that scare me, and failure most of all. I hate failing.
In my life, where everything seems to change, day in, day out, as I search for my plot of land, the point is to know greatness comes in many shapes and sizes, as does goodness. And being a person of value means not being destroyed by your own desire to be wealthy, or a winnner by societal standards. I have been thinking about what I feel makes me different. And I have decided that there is very little that makes one person different from one another besides their actions, and their reasons for those actions. But we don't all have to be a Duddy Kravitz.
Instead, choose integrity. Because when we die, or when other people have things to say about us, we can only ever be sure of our own moral integrity, whatever worth that has for us.
Except for the very dream that had lead him to this point.
Kravitz worked, gambled, begged, borrowed and stolen to get him to the penultimate place in his life. He wants land. He sees a plot of land he wants, and he wants it more than anything else in the world. Problem is, so does the other richest person in town. And in one moment, Duddy throws away everything, tumbles from grace rather than falls, and puts all his bridges into flames for the deed to one scrap of land. Because Kravitz didn't want to be anybody--he wanted to be somebody.
This was the point in the book I was horrified.
In life, we are faced with a duality, and a Duddy Kravitz dilemma. Do we choose the plot of land, or do we choose 'the good life?'
No easy answer.
It's not a matter of creature comforts versus our pride--it's much more sincere than that. It's a question of our most intrinsic desire--to be happy--cut against the grain of our ability to imagine what is possible. In other words, it is our dreams versus our happiness. Our desire to change versus our desire to stay the same and love what we have. It is the difference between good and great.
I have been thinking a lot about this lately, and perhaps it's because I come from a family of people who generally overachieve in some way or another that I often struggle with this problem, and probably I struggle because I want to lead a good life. And it is simply my desire to be great, to imagine what I could be, that keeps me in so much pain as I strive to create my own income, fund my own dreams, and heck, pay my own rent. And I think sometimes my problem is that I focus so hard on trying to get ahead I lose sight of the goal. A plot of land does no one any good if you sacrifice your life and the life of your family for it.
But still, the desire to be great is in each one of us, and it takes a massive amount of self-understanding to achieve anything valid or valuable in life. For some of us, we struggle with being good, with self-discipline, with well-ordered desires. For others, we have lost sight of the possible. We fail to embrace the goodness and wonder in the universe, the very things that make us wake and sleep. The whispers in our hearts that say 'keep breathing,' there is hope farther yet. Breathe in, breathe out. Breathe in.
Every person's life will foreshadow the mistakes and triumphs of choosing between good and great. That choice is a harsh reality that takes us down to either good decisions or bad, great decisions or mediocre ones, happy lives or one's without happiness.
In my life, the choice has never been a problem of being good. It was always easy for me. I can easily be contented if I feel I am living as a 'good' person.
But the struggle for me is always to reach out beyond what I am used to, and be afraid to fail, and there are plenty of things that scare me, and failure most of all. I hate failing.
In my life, where everything seems to change, day in, day out, as I search for my plot of land, the point is to know greatness comes in many shapes and sizes, as does goodness. And being a person of value means not being destroyed by your own desire to be wealthy, or a winnner by societal standards. I have been thinking about what I feel makes me different. And I have decided that there is very little that makes one person different from one another besides their actions, and their reasons for those actions. But we don't all have to be a Duddy Kravitz.
Instead, choose integrity. Because when we die, or when other people have things to say about us, we can only ever be sure of our own moral integrity, whatever worth that has for us.
Sunday, May 01, 2011
TOW: Pride Versus Prejudice
I have spent a lot of this week thinking about what it means to be proud of what you do. And more than that, when you screw up, and say something you didn't mean, or do something you didn't meant to do, how much pride do you have before you apologize?
I recently have come to the conclusion in my life that people, even if they're wrong, expect me to apologize for any fight that I start/am involved in. And I'm not talking about an isolated incident, I'm talking about a general trend I'm noticing. Part of me wonders if I'm just surrounded by hard-headed people (partially true) or whether I am just always wrong whenever I get into a fight/tiff/argument with someone. (Probably partially true, maybe even 100% true?!!)
I wonder why I like hard-headed people so much? Maybe I just like people who see things in black and white. Or maybe I'm even more stubborn and hard-headed than everyone else around me. (Probably also more than a little truth in that.)
Very recently, there have been several incidents where I've been accused of fault. Or rather, I have no idea what I'm at fault for and I'm not sure what is going on. And it's weird, because I feel like I'm more than willing to apologize if I think I'm in the wrong...is this not true???? (Someone might have to tell me this...) I'm being pulled into drama that I don't understand...and frankly, I just want my life to be back to normal...whatever that means.
When it comes to our own pride, do our own principles matter more, or would we be happier for swallowing our pride and giving in to making peace, or when does keeping a conflict alive matter to us, matter to our principles?
I guess for me, I just need to know that I'm not compromising my morals....which sometimes I think people expect me to do, to keep peace. But peace isn't only social...it's internal. And I'd rather have internal peace than social peace.
Does that make me pig-headed? Maybe...but I have a right to my own feelings, opinions, and thoughts. And sometimes I say the wrong thing, it's true, but I guess I feel like I always try and stand by whatever I say and do, even if I can't always do that as eloquently as I like.
I recently have come to the conclusion in my life that people, even if they're wrong, expect me to apologize for any fight that I start/am involved in. And I'm not talking about an isolated incident, I'm talking about a general trend I'm noticing. Part of me wonders if I'm just surrounded by hard-headed people (partially true) or whether I am just always wrong whenever I get into a fight/tiff/argument with someone. (Probably partially true, maybe even 100% true?!!)
I wonder why I like hard-headed people so much? Maybe I just like people who see things in black and white. Or maybe I'm even more stubborn and hard-headed than everyone else around me. (Probably also more than a little truth in that.)
Very recently, there have been several incidents where I've been accused of fault. Or rather, I have no idea what I'm at fault for and I'm not sure what is going on. And it's weird, because I feel like I'm more than willing to apologize if I think I'm in the wrong...is this not true???? (Someone might have to tell me this...) I'm being pulled into drama that I don't understand...and frankly, I just want my life to be back to normal...whatever that means.
When it comes to our own pride, do our own principles matter more, or would we be happier for swallowing our pride and giving in to making peace, or when does keeping a conflict alive matter to us, matter to our principles?
I guess for me, I just need to know that I'm not compromising my morals....which sometimes I think people expect me to do, to keep peace. But peace isn't only social...it's internal. And I'd rather have internal peace than social peace.
Does that make me pig-headed? Maybe...but I have a right to my own feelings, opinions, and thoughts. And sometimes I say the wrong thing, it's true, but I guess I feel like I always try and stand by whatever I say and do, even if I can't always do that as eloquently as I like.
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