Are people born nice or mean?

This was the question I answered on Quora. Read below what I wrote.

Oh, this is a tough question, but I love this question because it is relevant these days.

These days with all the digital world and technology, we are more focused on ourselves. As I said earlier in one of my blog posts, it is difficult to get focused and not being distracted. Each Instagram post must be perfect for likes. At least, most of us want that. I don’t care about that.

Is that a bad thing? I don’t think so. But the focus is different than when there was no digital world. People started reading a book, talked with each other during tea time, children were playing more outside. No phones, no other devices to be distracted. And so we have to find new ways to be rood focused.

It could be that this digital world is more focused on being you or think more often to ourselves, but does it mean we are mean? One person says yes, the other person says no. It is more like where to be focused on and where we lay our focus on.

Then there is what we called being raised by our parents. They have their interests, values and norms to lay focus on how they will raise you and if you have them, your siblings. This all together makes who you are. Those values and norms will be different by each parent. One parent could lay the focus on being well behaved raised, the other could lay the focus on always have great marks in school. And another could lay the focus on keep things by yourself. There are more aspects of raiding children.

It is no good and there is no wrong when raising children, I think.

But when you have to be with a narcist then there is a different aspect. Because this person is always thinking of themselves and not about other people. And then there is this question too: is a narcist always been taught to think about itself? Or was there a narcissistic parent who thought about itself? Or was there a lack of empathy in the child’s home? Can we answer those question and has this been proven by the scientist?

Following the dictionary of Cambridge ‘mean’ means:

unkind or unpleasant

Following the dictionary of Cambridge ‘nice’ means:

kind, friendly, or polite

There are circumstances for sure when we only or partially think about ourselves.

Unkind or unpleasant is different for each person. It’s also your values and norms you have in your life. And what I could think is unkind or unpleasant, it won’t be for someone else.

There are certain ways we can be nice and this is how I think this will be my definition:

• be kind to yourself
• be kind to others
• open doors for others
• help each other where and when you can, especially those in needs
• share things
• give things away when not needed anymore
• compliment each other more often for boosting our self-esteem (it’s good for you too, you know…)
• eat healthily and take care of yourself first before you do for others

Think about what kind of norms and values you have!

Originally published at http://quora.com.