I’m not trying to toot my own horn here, but I’ve always considered myself a nice person. I’m always respectful, and I’m civil to people even if I’m not all that fond of them. I’ll help anyone if they ask for help or if I see they’re in need, and I’ve even had teachers put me in groups with “difficult to work with” kids because they felt I was the only one who would be nice to them.

People always tell me how nice I am, and while it does feel good to be told that it seems to also come with a lot of disadvantages.

For starters, everyone takes advantage of how kind I am. It takes a lot for me to finally hit a breaking point when I’ll start speaking up if I feel I’m being treated unfairly, so it usually ends in me keeping quiet in order to not hurt anyone’s feelings and then when I do finally say what’s on my mind I’m suddenly the bad guy.

I also can’t forget to mention that because I almost always say “yes” when someone asks for help with something that they’ll continually ask me and benefit from me, but when I need their help they seem to fall off the face of the earth.

It’s a constant battle between “Treat them the way they treat me,” and “Treat them the way you would like to be treated.”

Another disadvantage is that I can ask so little from everyone, and then the one time I do reach out for help, advice, etc. it suddenly is like I have asked them for all of their organs and that I should be ashamed of myself for asking for something from them.

It seems that I always give more than I get, and because I don’t want to be mean I can’t push myself to treat them the same way.

My absolute favorite part about being nice is that I always try to be as inclusive as I can be. I like to make everyone around me comfortable and to feel welcome, and if I’m hanging out with one friend I’ll invite others so they know they are invited and wanted.

While it is a trait that I think is a great one to have, it’s not so fun when the people you are always including do not do the same. It honestly just makes me feel like I’m too annoying or that I’ve done something wrong.

This also seems to happen with advice and venting too. I will gladly listen to anyone’s problems, I love helping people and making sure they’re okay. When I ask for advice though I’ll get those “Aw, I’m sorry.” responses. Thanks for the help, I’m sorry for myself too.

I’m a person, and I have feelings too.

Following on that idea, we all have some people that have distanced over the years and the friendly thing to do is to check in on them every once in a while.

I genuinely want to know how old friends of mine are doing, but it is honestly a really shitty feeling when they don’t do the same. If any of my old friends reach out to me to help them with their problems I don’t mind, but it would just be nice if they’d do the same for me or if they’d reach out to me when things are good.

Being nice has a lot of perks and it also makes me feel good about myself, but when it constantly backfires on me sometimes it feels so pointless. A lot of people would probably say I’m just too much of a pushover, but it’s basic things that anyone can easily do with little to no effort.

It costs nothing to be nice, and that’s why I find it so hard to wrap my head around the fact that it seems almost impossible for some people.

I’m not asking for everyone to be a saint to me (trust me I have my bad moments too), but all I ask is to be treated the way I’m treating other people.

A lot of people think that being nice will get you nowhere in life, and there’s a lot of proof that it’s not true. While you shouldn’t take anyone’s bullshit, it wouldn’t harm anyone to just be a little more considerate of the people around you. We could all use a little more love in our lives.