I've always been 'The Nice Girl'. In fact, it's a label I've taken pride in for most of my life; a label I always tried to live up to. But recently, I've realised that 'niceness' isn't really all it's cracked up to be. Niceness was how I ended up feeling so broken and bruised so often. I hid behind my niceness, rather than asking for what I really wanted. I would let people take, take, take what they needed from me in the name of niceness, and even when they realised that they were taking too much, I would convince them (and myself) that it was OK.
Hiding behind niceness meant telling myself that I was content with being second best, or the girl that boys kept around until someone better came along, or the friend who was understanding when she was stood up time and time again because a better offer had come up. I spent a long time secretly being really sad and resentful about how much I would give to people and how little I sometimes felt like they would give in return.
But recently, I've become aware that my 'niceness' has generally resulted in an allowance for these things. If I let people keep taking, do I really have the right to be upset when they do? If I am too scared to ask for what I really want from people, can I really get upset when I don't get it?
I tried to fall back on niceness instead of really looking at these questions. I tried to justify things by convincing myself that nice girls just have to make sacrifices sometimes, because nice girls always put other people first. Nice girls are happy to just see other people happy... even when their own hearts are breaking, even when their own hopes and dreams are put on the backburner, even when their own happiness suffers as a direct consequence of being nice.
Niceness is overrated. So, I've decided that I'm not a nice girl anymore. Instead, I'm choosing to be a kind girl. Did you know there's actually a huge difference between niceness and kindness? Kindness doesn't involve sacrifice - mine, or anyone elses. Being kind creates so much more room for happiness and love and joy because it's not tainted by sadness and resentment. Being kind is what I'm good at.
