Nice is Overrated
I've spent most of my life in the South, where "nice" is a point of pride. Our niceness is one of the first things non-Southerners notice when they visit. Mothers teach their children to "be nice" before they teach them basic human skills like using the toilet and brushing their teeth.
I'd go so far as to say many Southerners are a little prejudiced against non-Southerners when it comes to niceness. Some of us act as though we've cornered the market on being nice. And there is one place we consistently point to that seems to prove this point:
New York City.
I've visited New York a number of times over the past 20 years. At first glance, this Southern girl concluded the rumors were true: New Yorkers aren't nice.
But then again, they aren't mean, either. This puzzled me, because in the South if you aren't nice, you must be mean. After a couple of visits, I concluded that - at least in New York - the opposite of "nice" isn't "mean." "Busy" is the opposite of nice.
I usually visit New York City at least twice a year now, with the most recent visit being last week. Maybe it was because this was my husband's first visit to the city and I was seeing it through his eyes, or maybe it was because I've become more curious about human behavior in the past couple of years, but I noticed something new during this visit.
New Yorkers aren't nice, but they are effortlessly kind.
Many people think nice and kind are synonymous, but I disagree. After all, the South - the world capital of niceness - coined the term "bless your heart," which can mean anything from "you poor thing" to "you're a moron." Not exactly kind. And there is plenty of niceness in the South that isn't accompanied by any sort of service to your fellow man.
But in New York, I witnessed a number of people giving up their seats on the subway so others who looked tired could sit down. One man helped another get a cart up onto the sidewalk, without even making eye contact with him. A lady - who was nice as well as kind - noticed my husband and me consulting my phone for walking directions, asked where we were wanting to go, and provided better directions than Google.
This was all done without fanfare or even any apparent thought. It just...happened. No one looked around to see if anyone had noticed their good deed. They just helped each other.
I even saw kindness displayed during a near knife fight on the subway. Two teenage girls were embroiled in an argument that escalated to near-violence. Some on the train just stood back and watched, others took out their phones and started recording, but at least three people were trying to de-escalate the situation. There was no niceness in their words, but there was a ton of kindness. "You're all of what? 16? Don't do something you'll regret for the rest of your lives. Put away the effing knives."
New York hasn't cornered the market on kindness. There are plenty of kind people in the South, too. And there is something uplifting about being surrounded by niceness. But I think New Yorkers have discovered something the rest of us could learn:
Things go more smoothly when we are kind to each other. The train ride is more pleasant. The sidewalks are less congested. Kids make it home instead of going to the hospital or to jail.
Nice is overrated. Kindness is better.
I'd go so far as to say many Southerners are a little prejudiced against non-Southerners when it comes to niceness. Some of us act as though we've cornered the market on being nice. And there is one place we consistently point to that seems to prove this point:
New York City.
I've visited New York a number of times over the past 20 years. At first glance, this Southern girl concluded the rumors were true: New Yorkers aren't nice.
But then again, they aren't mean, either. This puzzled me, because in the South if you aren't nice, you must be mean. After a couple of visits, I concluded that - at least in New York - the opposite of "nice" isn't "mean." "Busy" is the opposite of nice.
I usually visit New York City at least twice a year now, with the most recent visit being last week. Maybe it was because this was my husband's first visit to the city and I was seeing it through his eyes, or maybe it was because I've become more curious about human behavior in the past couple of years, but I noticed something new during this visit.
New Yorkers aren't nice, but they are effortlessly kind.
Many people think nice and kind are synonymous, but I disagree. After all, the South - the world capital of niceness - coined the term "bless your heart," which can mean anything from "you poor thing" to "you're a moron." Not exactly kind. And there is plenty of niceness in the South that isn't accompanied by any sort of service to your fellow man.
But in New York, I witnessed a number of people giving up their seats on the subway so others who looked tired could sit down. One man helped another get a cart up onto the sidewalk, without even making eye contact with him. A lady - who was nice as well as kind - noticed my husband and me consulting my phone for walking directions, asked where we were wanting to go, and provided better directions than Google.
This was all done without fanfare or even any apparent thought. It just...happened. No one looked around to see if anyone had noticed their good deed. They just helped each other.
I even saw kindness displayed during a near knife fight on the subway. Two teenage girls were embroiled in an argument that escalated to near-violence. Some on the train just stood back and watched, others took out their phones and started recording, but at least three people were trying to de-escalate the situation. There was no niceness in their words, but there was a ton of kindness. "You're all of what? 16? Don't do something you'll regret for the rest of your lives. Put away the effing knives."
New York hasn't cornered the market on kindness. There are plenty of kind people in the South, too. And there is something uplifting about being surrounded by niceness. But I think New Yorkers have discovered something the rest of us could learn:
Things go more smoothly when we are kind to each other. The train ride is more pleasant. The sidewalks are less congested. Kids make it home instead of going to the hospital or to jail.
Nice is overrated. Kindness is better.
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