To think in life being a nice, good person rarely counts for much?

[Autumncalm]

I’ve noticed in life that being nice, helpful, honest, reliable, trustworthy rarely count for much.

For example when I was at school (and I still see the same thing happening now at my children’s school), horrible bully type kids can be the most popular and rarely get any kind of consequences for being nasty. It seems as though no one wants to get on the wrong side of the bullies.

My children play in football teams and one of the coaches always goes on about turning up to training, being a good team player, listening, trying your best. But the truth is they only want the best players. There are players that rarely turn up to training, are nasty to other kids, but because they are naturally talented players they still get to play a full game every week, get man of the match and so on

I see it happen at work. One of my colleagues got really badly bullied by another colleague she even had email proof and it went to HR but nothing happened to the bully colleague because she is admittedly good at her job and has experiences that others don’t.

It’s not always like that, one of my children never got picked for anything at primary school even though he tried his best, behaved etc but once he got to secondary his good nature paid off and they started actually rewarding effort and good behaviour but I do believe that often in life that the values we are told to have don’t really get you anywhere.

Excuse me??

I'm done with these people, there's so many of them and I'm not making any effort to be a good person anymore unless I come across someone who I can see is good first.

So, how does this work in practice?- you wont be helping an elderly lady in the street if she falls over until you know she is "good"- will she have to fill out a questionnaire first?

Sorry...why are you being so arsy and argumentative? OP has already asked you but you didn't answer?

Yes that's exactly my plan, I'll be taking a tick box survey and pencils with me for them to fill out.

And yet it could and should be within the remit of a coach to pick them up on bullying behaviour and penalise them for it. That way, they learn to be kind and respectful of fellow players while still bringing honour to the team. Doesn't have to be one or the other. But the coaches have to care about both.

I said that it depends on age of kids how teams are selected

But being a people-pleaser IS being a coward. It's not doing things freely for the benefit of others from a place of choice, it's saying yes to every request because you're afraid to deal with the discomfort of saying no, or because you fear other people will dislike you if you say no. It's cowardly. A kind, generous but also assertive person, who says no when something doesn't suit them and doesn't bustle about offering services to people they neither like nor respect will never be 'treated like shit'.

And people-pleasing is in no one's DNA. Many of us, especially women, were brought up to people-please, but we recognised that it's an inauthentic and unhappy way to live and stopped. With effort. Like many things, it's a choice.

You don’t sound at all happy in life @KookyFish

That was your latest post, generally your posts have been pretty argumentative.

It was clear what OP was trying to say and she's right, being good doesn't amount to much these days.

I don’t think calling kids not nice, kind, good or trustworthy people

is all that ”nice”

Sounds great- that'll teach em!

The trouble with dividing the world into arseholes and nice people is that everyone puts themselves on the Nice side.

Person A is seen as a bully by Person B, but just sees themselves as 'having boundaries'. Person C is aggressive in one perspective and direct and clear in another perspective. Almost no one thinks of themselves as a bully or an arsehole.

I find this interesting, but I also find it interesting that they rarely speak of this vengeful god smiting murderers or rapists. It's usually cheaters and people who piss you off at work.

I literally spat my tea out laughing at this. Well played.

Exactly! Sorry, but I’m eye-rolling so hard at all this binary “everyone is either Hitler or Mother Teresa” thinking. It’s such a reductive and frankly quite naive view of human psychology. And isn’t it strangely coincidental that the people dividing everyone into these categories always just happen to put themselves firmly in the “nice” category? 😂

Humans are complex. Very few people are entirely kind and pure, or entirely evil. Most of us are a mixture of good and bad traits, and we’re capable of behaving brilliantly in some situations and badly in others.

It’s really quite childish to see people as either “good” or “bad”, with absolutely nothing in between.

Because what you mean by karma is a force that gives good things to "good people" and vice versa, but the concept of good and bad people is rarely so simple. You do seem to have something of a simplistic view of this. You think you're "good" because you're polite to a cashier and the cashier is "bad" because they're a bit abrupt, but these are hardly serious moral issues.

If you're watching people who pissed you off in the hope of "karma" striking them, that's a personal vengeful god. And arguably not the sign of a person at inner peace.

I agree and actually - perhaps that cashier has just had something awful happen to them in their personal life that you dont know about- not everything is about us. Wouldnt showing that person a bit of grace be the "kind" thing to do rather than becoming furious about it and vowing that next time you will treat them poorly as some kind of just "punishment"?

I've started being a little less polite as people seem to see it as a weakness. I had it instilled in me as a child to be polite at all times, and so I have been overly nice all my life. I also like being nice to people, but I have noticed people seem to respect you more if you're aloof and bit rude.

I really could not agree more. People are extremely complex and people who don’t see their own bad traits have that as one of their bad traits 😂

In the situations you describe, team games and competitive work environments, then those qualities alone won't be enough, admittedly. Because the thing valued most is the skills to help the team win or to make the employer money. However if you have the skill set needed for the context and you bring those qualities in addition, they will take you further than you'd go without them.
If your nice personality isn't taking you as far as your horrible colleagues, then you're in the wrong job. There will be places that are a better fit where you'll be valued for your skills, and your personality will be a bonus.

Yes

I have enjoyed reading posts from those describing themselves as genuinely really good kind people

and then going on to describe others in such terms as “bitch”

There's a surprising number of people who think they're owed career success for being "nice" or "good" rather than being competent at the job. Or whatever it is they want success in.

And people pleasers are insincere, inauthentic people who can't stand not being liked, even by people they don't like themselves.

Oh yes the self proclaimed “I’m a people pleaser”… I always think, I wonder whether anyone else in life would describe you as such!

Yes, I'd almost argue you have to be assertive to be kind.

Being a people pleaser is cowardly and leads to poor life outcomes.

I'm also confused by the logic that because kids don't turn up to practice they're not kind kids? How does that work?

I might, but it wouldn't be a compliment.

I can never warm to these people or trust their opinion on anything. They're saying what they think I want to hear. I don't know who they are.

@Emuplswell my general philosophy is to treat people as you would like to be treated by others. I’d like to be treated kindly so, yes. I think I’m a kind person. I kind of wish I wasn’t though.