Nice vs real, or ?????

NINE: REAL VS NICE

Or something like that.


To be nice. Ah, we all like “nice” people, and then again, most of us who live in the world of reality, have noticed the tendency of some, if not all, “nice” people to have an undercurrent of “something” not so nice. This undercurrent might come out when they have their period, or a “bad” day, or get “tired,” or …. You name it.

And the “something” could be rage, or gossip, or self-righteousness, or getting really sick.

Whatever.

That’s almost beside the point.

The point is to wake up in our lives to the moment.

Tons of “being nice” has to do with pleasing other people, which has a lot of do with socially arranged parameters of what other people “require” to keep their comfortable “sleep” going.

All this is conceptual frameworking on my part. Search around and see if there’s any truth in there for you.



For starters, though, let’s try some distinctions: Nice vs. Kind. Kind means of “kin,” which means treating people like family, assuming the family is a good one. Sometimes being “kind” isn’t so nice, means saying, “I love you and no.” No, you can’t borrow the car. No, you can’t have the money. No, you can’t keep trashing the living room.

And again, the point is to be present, paying awareness to ourselves in the present while we have awaring on the person outside of us.

This might bring us to “nice” behavior. It might bring us to noticing, “This person is really acting weird,” and asking, “What’s going on? Something seems to be really bothering you?”

Being “nice,” might mean hiding this. Being kind might mean trying to find what’s bothering them.

And being present might be just being curious: what’s going on here? Is my guess about outer reality right.

Being present might be looking at the person and seeing an unhappiness.

Being present might be realizing that when we are present, we are relatively happy.
We don’t have to drown, or to feel like drowning, or to even “feel bad” about another person drowning, to save them, to be of use.

This is a sweetness to being present: we might find ourselves being useful, even in ways that are new to us, that aren’t “nice,” in the keeping everything as it always was way.


What would life be like if we were present and “real” (whatever “real” means) instead of “nice?”


This is the question today.

Just be present and let it be in the background and see what happens.
Enjoy