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.

I think there's a critical distinction between "good" and "nice". They're not the same thing, in fact they are often diametrically opposed.

"Good" is your moral compass, your trustworthiness, your loyalty, your spine, your ability to deliver on promises etc. That's a quality which in my experience people really do value long term (although it may not be something which will make you shine in the moment).

"Nice" is very different. Nice is often just a social front which people put on to enable them to get along or to stop themselves being disliked.

I'm always a bit sceptical of people who are overly "nice": very often they fall into one of two categories: either they are weak and want to be liked above all else (that doesn't make them bad, just weak and needy and hard to be around) or they are cynical.

So, if "niceness" isn't rewarded by society, I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing.

Hmmm. People please send to have different meanings for different people. I have described myself as such and it means that I am thoughtful of how my words and actions can affect others and I will try to amend them if they might cause hurt or upset. It doesn’t mean I am disingenuous or fake.

People pleasers are disingenuous and fake though.

The definition of a people pleaser is A “people pleaser” personality means a person feels a strong urge to please others, even at their own expense. They may feel that their wants and needs do not matter or alter their personality around others.

This is exactly why people dont tend to want to be friends with people pleasers - leading them to cry "but why dont people want to be my friend??? I am always so helpful and kind- I dont get it" and it's exactly because they dont come across as authentic.

I don’t suppose these nasty not nice people would say

“oh me? Oh I’m not nice and kind”

Being nice, honest and a decent person does not mean being a doormat.

You can have good boundaries and stand up to people who want to take advantage of your kindness.

I don't want to spend time around drama queen, selfish and narcissistic individuals, bullies and users. I don't care about whatever talent, money or success they might have, life lis too short to spend it around assholes...

I try to be a decent person because I want to be able to look at myself in the mirror and know that I have done the best I can to be a worthy human being.

Frankly those bullies might look like they are successful but they are just empty and miserable in themselves.

Happy and fulfilled people don't feel the need to behave like dicks, they are too busy enjoying their life.

Do you think the likes of Elon Musk or Trump are genuinely happy? they seem to me to be some of the most miserable, soulless people on earth who always want more power and more money to try to fill the void inside and fail miserably so they take it out on the rest of the world...

In defence of people pleasers, a lot seem to end up that way due to a childhood which was abusive or unpredictable in some way. Their needs were not met and standing up for themselves could be met with really serious consequences. So they avoid confrontation and “freeze or fawn” if it does occur.

Being a people pleaser doesn’t work of course as a strategy in adult life, but I understand how people get there.