How can some people be so genuinely nice? :(

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I can't understand how it is possible. No matter how much I want to be incredibly nice (I have so many perfect idealizations of self) I will always be stuck with my cynical husk of a personality. I want to care about things like the deaths of animals but I can't. I want to be able to control my absolute need to correct others (which I see as arrogant but hey, my brain decides to blind itself, WOW!)

I'm sick of compulsively editing everything I do over and over just so that it looks perfect or so it seems right or suits the situation. Not just posts, emails or work, but everything. In real life too. I don't even know what I mean by that.

I have over-the-top levels of cognitive dissonance and again, compulsively question everything I do, see, hear etc. and as a result feel like I am in a constant state of stress that I can't even detect because it is now my normal state. I have an extremely low effort threshold for most things due to the hidden stress. I can't even be bothered using proper words to express myself well in this post. It is too taxing to think of a bigger word to use to replace the annoying spam of conjunctions that you (if reading) witness now.

The annoying thing is I don't feel insecure. I have a good life. I won the lottery with my life.

I have an obscenely frustrating need to memory hoard - that may involve going to every corner of an office on my last day there and touching/smelling it. Compulsive typing. I don't know! - Happy face because I felt like it... ooOooOoh...

..and of course feta cheese. I f*cken love that stuff.

Plarx help me if thou canneth relateth to thiseth situation hereth. <- I had to compulsively punctuate that as best I could. Initially the p in plarx had a lower case, but narp, stupid brain decides it is the start of a sentence and decides to butcher itself.

I have a friend with high-functioning autism and he's far better at any of this than me. So if you can, tips are very, mega, super, uber appreciated. I want to go into hibernation and take a break from life, but BAM IT HITS LIKE A HOME RUN - I HAVE A REALLY DAMNED EASY LIFE but I find the smallest of ways to convince myself that something is wrong.

Le thanks.

Do animals hibernate in Australia? I'll have to do research on that.

I wouldn't have a "solution" to your dilemma--except to say that, aside from your attempts at archaic language at the end, your post was actually quite lucid.

Thomas Chatterton you're not (and you wouldn't want to be him, nor could you ever be him: he died at age 17). He was a lad who was quite good at using archaic language (even when the standards of the 18th century are considered). He could have had some sort of autism. He locked himself in rooms which contained old manuscripts. He took the archaic language from those manuscripts, and attempted to pass himself off as some kind of Edmund Spenser-type romantic poet.

I do hope you become an autism researcher some day, for you are fascinated by the subject.

I've been told I'm nice. People don't necessarily like me, but mostly they seem to think I am nice.

I think about how I want to be treated and try to do that for people. They don't necessarily want what I want, but I guess I've been hurt enough I really don't want to be the person who intentionally hurts or who doesn't try to avoid hurting.

Other people aren't controllable, and aren't necessarily very nice.

But are you really sure this matters to you?

And I agree. You were very lucid.

(Warning: It's been a rough one and this is text based communication! I intend the following to be exclusively room temperature analysis, I seriously don't intend it to be rude or imprecative (heh) in anyway. I make these observations because I am/have been there too.)
(Meaning I mean it to be 'info sans judgement')

It's fake.
Look to their actions. do they actually do nice things?
What does it actually 'cost' them while "being genuinely nice?" Not just in cash but in time, effort, and reputation (defending the unpopular)...
vs the notoriety/advertizing of their "niceness" to boost their public reputation for "being wonderful?"
Or do they just do the easy stuff or only "talk" niceity.
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What logical reason would anyone actually care about the death of any animal that wasn't special specifically to them? (or someone they cared about)
Do you wish to cry over ants or bacteria too? Or wheat and tomatoes? (I don't mean this as sarcasm)
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In my opinion - there is an evolutionary drive/imperative to correct others so as to ..
1. Confirm or correct one's own beliefs/knowledge.
2. Increase survivability of the species.
3. Favor/debt exchange.
4. Communicate and bond.
5. And other reasons.
Good luck fighting a million plus years of that. =(

(Will the truth do them any good at this point in time? If not then, maybe, nevermind.)
(Or form the opinion that certain people are too stupid and pathetic to handle the truth, then just smile and nod.)
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Sounds like you at least somewhat/somewhere in your brain believe there's a big "absolute truth" machine recording and evaluating your (everyone's?) actions for 'posterity.'
Moments after you do/say something it disappears from the Universe.
  Even massive and impressive things:
What was the name of the person who carved the Sphinx? Where was his house? How many kids did he have? What was his favorite color? How tall was he? What was the stupidest thing he ever did; according to his wife, according to himself?
We don't know jacksh*t about this guy (assuming) and this is one of the most impressive, unique and durable things ever built by anyone.
(What was the name of the person that carved the tail?)

And/or maybe you're Unitizing these microprojects for completion satisfaction.
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Does this bother you if no one see you doing it or does it pretty much only bother you if you're "caught" at it?
If the latter then it's probably only bothering you because of "appearances" and because of "what people must think."
If the former, you have every right to enjoy any sensory experiences you wish.
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Yes, you're very smart. Now wtf is a plarx??
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Sounds like you at least somewhat/somewhere in your brain believe there's a big "Karma" machine recording and evaluating your (everyone's?) actions and dispensing "Justice."
And that you're trying to "mod" the results before the Karma machine notices the imbalance and nukes your existence like the biblical Job.

(plus i hate you today)
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Once you look at these reasons* for what you do, you can decide if you wish to continue the belief system and therefore modify your behavior or if you wish to eliminate the belief and live happily ever after with your activities, so that you'll have time to work on other things that you might feel are 'more important.'**

(*imho)
(**iyho)

I always feel like a complete phoney with genuinely nice people, because for me it is always going to be an act! I am a compulsive editor too - wrote a novel but keep editing it until all that remains is a long story - very frustrating.

I find when I keep on reading my own stories I wrote, I will always find an error so I have to stop at one point and decide it's good enough. I don't see it as an act.

I'm nice because I don't really know how to be mean or assertive or whatever not-nice is.
I do compulsively edit things but I don't know what that has to do with it. I just think of a better way to say something and then I edit.

I put that badly - see what happens when I don't edit?

I feel like I am acting when I am with genuine, nice people because I find it really hard being in any social situation. The editing thing is a different issue ,and that is good advice League Girl, but it is very hard for me to leave things alone.

140lb, people who are genuinely nice really are. It's not fake. Some people have an extreme measure of gentleness and patience and that makes them able to be more kind. Certain kinds of sensitivities also make it more natural to be nice as well as maturity in certain areas and an ability to detach from oneself and see things from a different perspective. Some of these things can be difficult if we are neurologically impaired but they are possible. And some people do have these gifts naturally and in abundance. Many people are fake but not all of them.

Last edited by skibum on 13 Aug 2014, 2:15 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I can't tell who is fake and who is not. No matter how I hate someone or despise them, I can't bring myself to be mean to them just because I don't like them. If they are being nice to me, how can I be mean to them? But yet people may call this fake. I was told this is a gift. Well a bad one I would say.

I like to be nice to people because it cheers them up and that makes me happy in return.

Gee, that's a really good response. I think most people are genuinely nice and it doesn't hurt to try to be genuinely nice back, even if you find it a little difficult. The payback is that people will go out of their way to help you. If they don't then it's not the end of the world either. Just need to be guarded when you talk to people because their good manner might be disguising an ulterior motive.

The human mind is all about egoism. Being nice gives people a good feeling, thus they are indirectly selfish.

Its the same for me. I have given gameconsoles (400-500 euro's)as a birthday present to peoples kids i barely know but live in a financial mess without ever getting something in return. I have seen people in tears of joy receiving such expensive gifts that normally is unreachable to them. My motives are not to get into someones pants or boost my ego. My motives are much more darker and depressing.

Think about *why* we get a good feeling when we are nice to others, though! When we feel pleasure, that is a signal that says to us, "You're doing something right. Keep doing that." We feel pleasure when we eat and drink, when we sleep, when we are clean and comfortable, or when we engage in interesting activity. Pleasure at being nice to others is your brain's way of saying that you are doing something you were made to do; just like eating and sleeping, helping others is one of the core functions of the human operating system.

(So is survival and providing for oneself, of course. The self-serving mindset competes with the prosocial instinct. That's the nature of humankind, to be capable of great good or great evil, depending on what we choose to do.)

When you do something that helps someone else, and you both benefit because it makes you happy to see them happy, it's a win-win situation. And so what if that pleasure motivates you to be nicer? That's the whole point of feeling pleasure to begin with. The end result is that you feel useful and your friend feels loved.

With enough practice in niceness, one can fall into the habit of it, so that the pleasure is no longer necessary. When we're little, we only help others when we are in a good mood and it doesn't have drawbacks for us; as we grow older we learn to be kind even when we are tired and grumpy, or when we don't like the other person, or even when helping others means making sacrifices. This is more difficult to do because of the lack of immediate reward, but it is also beneficial because by helping others, we improve our world. We do these things out of simple habit, because we have learned through long practice that helping is a good thing, even when it doesn't make us feel good.

The best approach to figuring out what being really nice means, is to simply love others. That means that you want the best for them; you want to build a world where they can be the people they were meant to be. Letting them walk all over you wouldn't help them, nor would trying to run their lives "for their own good", nor any of the many fake kinds of niceness out there. It makes no sense to be polite and conventional and try to please everybody no matter what--that often hurts them, and you, too. It makes no sense to completely exhaust yourself; you have to take care of yourself too if you're to do any good. Sometimes you even have to be "mean", in a way, if it's important enough to stand up against something. Love is a simple concept with very complex implications.

Which I suppose brings me to my point: if you want to be a genuinely nice person, the best way to do it is to practice. It's a skill. You can't expect to play Beethoven your first try at the piano; nor can you expect to be saintly the first time you set out to help somebody. I don't think anybody ever becomes wholly, selflessly kind, at least not in this life; but we do get better at it, the longer we work at it, and that's good enough for me, though I do wish it would go faster sometimes. I can be awfully grumpy and thoughtless when I'm hot, tired, or annoyed with something.

Nice is a relative idea the same as caring. What if you see someone that's sad and want to make them feel better yet you are completely convinced you'd only make it worse? Does that mean you don't actually care? What if you tried anyways and did in fact make it worse? Are you nice because you tried? Or mean because you tried despite knowing you might make it worse and then did make it worse?

I hate when people want to say everyone is selfish and a jerk. If it was as simple as having two sandwiches and seeing someone with none than many, if not the majority, would give the person with nothing a sandwich. But even then life isn't simple in reality. Because they might resent you and say you're taking "pity" on them.

It's not that no one cares it's that everyone is complicated. Maybe you're nice to someone and then they want to be friends. Well if you're bad with people there is a strong chance the friendship will crash and burn. Even if you truly like a person it doesn't mean you'll be able to give them what they want/need.

There is beauty in the attempt at kindness. Whether or not it goes well. But I can understand why people often refrain. A lot of us lack the skills and confidence to believe we can make a positive difference.

Sometimes being nice gets people upset with you so you are afraid to do anything nice. What if that person gets mad and tells you to mind their own business, what if it offends them because they take it as a pity thing you're giving them assuming they are struggling, what if they think you're being a fake. All these run through my head so I end up not doing it. Some people have told me I shouldn't let bad apples change how I treat people, especially what I read here about nice people. Things members here say about nice people, they make it out to be a bad thing. Plus in high school I would get told to not worry about it when I would ask what is wrong if I saw someone crying. So I learned I am to ignore it and not care and pretend I don't notice.