Nice Guys Finish Last
Illustrated by Sara Moana
We’re all familiar with kindness as ‘the good trait’; and one that no one really has much of an issue with.
Through sharing happy moments of laughter to helping a friend out, as cliché as it is, kindness is one crucial trait in this world, now more than ever before.
However, the piece of hope we may have for the world is honestly a bit overrated.
Anyone who suffers from kindness could make a list of reasons why it’s inconvenient, but a symptom of this trait happens to be the inability to complain about it.
The problem with kindness, for the most part, is something we’ve all experienced before. You go above and beyond for the sake of being kind, and fail to meet your own needs.
Maddy is someone who has always put spreading joy at the core of her values as a person.
“I just love putting a smile on people's faces. I mean, it’s not like there aren’t other things I care about, but I guess that [is] always number one.”
As a public servant, Maddy spends her time working five days a week. Sunday is her chores’ day, and Saturday is to relax. Except this routine hasn’t stuck, every time that weekend rolls around and her friends ask to do something, she always says yes.
“It’s not like I don’t know my own boundaries, most [of] the time, as I say yes, I can feel my insides regretting it,” she sighed with a smirk. “But every time, I say yes. I’ll say yes to more than I can ever actually do and I feel like I’m just permanently catching up on life, God, even work.”
“One time, I was picking up some kai for a group of us friends while at a mate's house. It was fucking freezing and no one else wanted to go, they ask me, as per usual, I say yes, as per usual. I was on my bike, and as I’m getting closer and closer to the store, I remember I didn’t even order anything [for] myself. This is back when I was studying, so I’d had uni all morning, work in evening and had just gotten back from the gym. What was I doing hanging out with friends, let alone picking up food for them and not even me? I just drove off, turned off my phone and ate their food in the rain. I remember the weather was gross and I felt gross as hell but also mostly just free? Does that make sense?”
This anecdote, I think, is a really good way of explaining the phenomenon of kindness. You never really know how deep you are into pleasing people until one evening you end up like Maddy, wondering if anything you’re doing actually is for you.
No matter how patient or understanding you might be, resentment will always grow if it isn’t communicated. ‘People-pleasing’ tends to do the opposite of its name and ruin relationships.
Being too kind can lead to distorted expectations of others (essentially, you’re setting yourself up to be disappointed), mental burnout, flaky nature, over promising, acceptance of abuse and distrust. This is why it’s so important to be kind to yourself before you can be kind to anyone else.
It’s especially hard when kindness tends to come with a cheerful act, an inherent desire to lift the mood and keep everyone happy. So those around kindness adjust to it, it’s a part of someone like Maddy’s character.
Maddy continued, “Then the second you start feeling kinda shit, everyone will remind you of it, every two minutes. You know, ‘What’s wrong?’ ‘Are you okay?’ ‘Why are you grumpy?’. In reality, you’re just acting like everyone else around you has been this whole time. And every time it throws you into a spiral of ‘I’m ruining the mood’, to ‘nothing I ever do is good enough’ to ‘oh my god, I’m so dramatic these emotions never even happened’.”
It’s not a black and white case of ‘do be kind’ or ‘don’t be kind’, because really a lack of kindness is what is causing all of our world’s issues. At the end of the day, you should never aim to be unkind, but what you can aim for is to be kind to yourself before anyone else. When you do that it’s so much easier to spread happiness, something about genuine excitement and content is so much more effective than an act.