Letting go…of the expectation of being nice

A good chunk of my life has been spent in being “nice” to people around me. Unfortunately (or fortunately) it is now mostly a thing of the past. For my current “nice-value” is rather dubious.

As a child and young adult, I made an attempt to be pleasant to people around me. Somewhat bright eyed and bushy tailed, it was important for me to be liked by people around me. I was probably myself around kids my age. But I was always polite, pleasant and helpful around adults. Hearing praises was not uncommon. I would often watch my mother’s face beam when she heard praises about me. Now if that is the reason I was nice may be a topic for the therapist’s office, but that was what I grew up with and that was the expectation I set for myself.

So to my surprise, my eight-year old daughter seems to be diametrically opposite. She is not quick to smile at you simply to be pleasant. When asked “how are you?” she will most likely mutter a barely intelligible “good” ending the conversation right there with never a thought of asking the other person how they might be.

She will talk to you – nineteen to a dozen, but only when she feels like it. When she thinks she has something to say. You will never find her engaged in a conversation that may seem insipid to her. This behavior seems baffling and even rude to someone like me accustomed to being pleasant to people.

I look at all the “polite” children around me and wonder what I’m doing wrong. I wonder too how despite being a chip of the same block; we could be so different.  

But I realize it is silly of me to try to change her. She has friends and seems to get along with other kids. What then am I trying to achieve by trying to make her “nicer”? She is honest and genuine and doesn’t like frills of any kind. Her straightforwardness and lack of guile prevent her from trying to be superficially pleasant. Why then should I try to make her a people pleaser like I? And that is an alarming thought.

Things have to be meaningful to her and I should be so proud. I can see her as an adult doing something that means something to her. Whether she will save the world, by discovering the wonder drug she talks about to make all illness disappear…well that remains to be seen. But whatever she does, my guess is that it will mean something to her.

And hopefully the next time I get irritated on getting a bored look when I oh-so-cheerfully ask her how her day was, I shall let it slide and remember the words above.