Stop Being Nice, Start Being Kind

There is a big difference between being nice and being kind. In a nutshell, being nice makes you feel good, but being kind is an act of doing good.

“Nice” and “Kind” are two words that are often used interchangeably, but they have very different meanings both in the actions they inspire, and how we think about our place in society.

There is a big difference between being nice and being kind. In a nutshell, being nice makes you feel good, but being kind is an act of doing good. Some of the worst people you will encounter in life act “nice,” but the best people in this world are truly “kind.”

Being “Nice” is an Act

The hard truth about human nature is that we all want to look good far more than we want to be good. Being nice is almost exclusively an act of trying to look good. The art of being nice is basically a set of external social behaviors that require little-to-no effort, but of which we can pat ourselves on the back for with great self-gratification.

When we tell the waiter the food is “great” even though we hate it, we feel nice. When we tell our friend we love their haircut even though it looks terrible, we think we are being nice. When we say, “oh, wherever” when someone asks us where we want to eat, we think we are being nice. In reality, these things are often just passive-aggressive, conflict-avoiding, and frankly unhealthy behaviors.

The practice of “being nice” is a social survival and status tactic. It is a behavior we adopt to deflect confrontation, hide our feelings, and try to control the perceptions of others.

Being kind, on the other hand, means that the only thing on your mind is another person’s well-being when you act. Kindness means that you do something for the benefit of another, without needing a return or payback.

Niceness is how we try to climb the social ladder, but kindness is how we lift up others.

The easiest way to know if you are being nice or being kind is if you are expecting something in return. Do you wave, “good morning” to someone walking by and then get mad when they don’t wave back? Do you hold the door open for someone and get upset when they don’t say, “thanks” as they pass? If you get offended when people don’t offer you praise for being “nice” then you can be certain you aren’t being kind.

Being Kind Doesn’t Always Feel Good

If your friend’s breath stinks today, and you don’t tell them, you may feel like you are being nice. However, at some point, they will find out and wonder why you, someone they feel safe with, didn’t tell them. They will feel embarrassed, and even more, they will not trust you with feedback moving forward.

And yes, saying something like “Dang Julie, your breath is terrible!” is probably outright mean. However, saying, “Hey Julie, I want to warn you that your breath is a bit ‘off’ today” is genuinely a kind service. It feels scary, you worry you might offend them, but it is most helpful. Doing this also means she will continue to rely on you for honest feedback.

How often have we gone all day with our fly down, or something in our teeth, only to wonder “why didn’t anyone tell me?” It adds to our collective social anxiety when it seems like no one actually tells you the truth, it leaves us in a constant state of uncertainty about what people actually think about our behavior or our relationship with them.

For those of you old enough to remember, two of the most notorious judges in the original “American Idol” was Paula Abdul and Simon Cowell. Paula Abdul was always “nice” to contestants, letting them down easy or pretending to like terrible performances. Simon Cowell, on the other hand, was seen almost as a villain for letting people know just how bad they actually were.

But here’s the thing… If Paula Abdul said you were a great singer, you still didn’t know if you were a great singer. But if Simon says you’re a great singer, then you know, without a doubt, that you’re a great singer. Paula is “nice” but Simon is…. well, I’m not going to say kind, but let’s just say he was performing a valuable service to some diluted individuals.

For a personal example, I like to sing. Once, I asked my wife, “Do you think I am a good singer.” And she said, “I think you are really good at whistling.” That kind of blunt honesty alone saved countless lives from needless suffering.

People often think that “kindess” is weak. Being nice is weak, it’s about avoiding confrontation and the realities of life. Being a “nice” person avoids the serious and necessary unpleasantness that is often required for real relationships. Kindness, on the other hand, often takes actual courage and conviction.

Real Life “Nice” Villains and “Kind” Heroes

While we seem to get confused with “nice” people vs “kind” people in real life, it seems we have a pretty good instinct for the difference in our stories. We LOVE characters that are subversively kind but eschew any pretense at being “nice.”

There is something absolutely refreshing about someone who is completely free of all social pretense and just… frankly… actually cares about the well-being of others.

Being Nice and Being Kind Can Effect Your Health

Being nice can wear you out and make you a cynical jerk. It takes so much effort to suppress your feelings and thoughts in the hopes of saying just the right thing to get people to like you. So when you are tired and frustrated at the end of the day, all you can do is think about how no one gave you enough credit for all the nice things you did or kept yourself from doing.

Kindness is liberating. Instead of worrying about what people think of you, you look for ways you can be genuinely helpful, and no more. It may feel bad at the moment, but after a while, you learn that people come to trust you and everyone starts letting their guard down. You don’t have to live every day putting on a show; you can just live and do your best. In the end, that’s all most of us want to do anyway.

If you are someone who likes to think of yourself as a “nice person” — yet find that you don’t get much for all your generous behavior, then your “nice” behavior comes from an unspoken expectation that society owes you reciprocity for good behavior. Not only does that not do anyone any good, but it also actively poisons your heart into a victim mindset.

Kindness, on the other hand, brings joy into your life because you learn how much power you have to make the lives of others a little better. You don’t compliment people because you want them to like you, you compliment them to make their day a little better. You aren’t polite because you want people to think well of you, you are polite because you actually care about the feelings and needs of others. Kindness is an amazing power in this world, in no small part because there is so little of it.

Driving in the Nail

Look…

Nice people want to think they are good people. And in thinking they are good people, they are often the most dangerous people of all, because when they do harmful and hateful things, they think they are doing them for good reasons.

Kind people don’t assume they are good, they just want to do good. They look at the consequences and results of their actions to judge them, not how they felt doing them. Kind people become very effective at doing good because they actually practice it, learning from their mistakes and acknowledging when they messed up.

You know who is really good at being nice? Sociopaths. Politicians. Used Car Salesmen… I realize that is all redundant, but you get my point.

Nice people spend their time reading books like “How to Fool Enemies and Manipulate People” — I’m sorry, the title is actually, “How to win friends and influence people.”

Kind people on the other hand read books like “Crucial Conversations” so they can handle tough conversations better and improve their relationships as opposed to just “manage” them.

The only thing being “nice” and being “kind” really have in common is that they can both be intentionally practiced. The more you try to act “nice” or “kind,” the better you will get at it. We like to think that our behavior comes from who we are, but the reality is that who we are comes from our behavior.

Conclusion

Words really do matter. The conflation of “kind” and “nice” isn’t just a matter of semantics, it is a crack in our thinking that allows terrible people to look good and kind people to be overlooked.

By knowing the difference, you will see the signs that expose a wolf in sheep’s clothing from a diamond in the rough. Or perhaps, it will help see through the traps in your own thinking about how you process your own behavior.

Our world has an overstock of “nice” people, but we really need more of is kind people.