What do you want to be when you grow up?
A professional nice person.
A what?
You heard me. I want to be a professional nice person.
What’s that?
Well, let me tell you. A professional nice person is, obviously, a person who’s nice. Like, perpetually nice. Nice at seven in the morning when she’s cranky, nice at three in the afternoon when she’s hungry, and nice at every interval beyond and in between. Nice even when others aren’t nice to her, nice when all she wants to do is scream out insult after insult, and nice even when she doesn’t have to be. I want to be nice because I choose to be. I want to be unshakably, eternally, forever optimistic.
Well, that’s cute and nicely worded and all, but what do you want to do with your life? What are your dreams? Your hopes? Your aspirations? Are you going to graduate school? Do you want to have a family? How many kids do you want to have? When do you want to get married? Where do you want to live? Do you want to live in the city or the suburbs?
I don’t know. I’m hardly even an adult yet. I barely made it to breakfast this morning.
Oh, come on. Surely you must have some idea of what your future holds. And in this world, simply being nice isn’t even close to enough. Where’s your drive to succeed? Where's your edge? Where's your cutthroat attitude? Everything is a competition, you know, and if you aren't first, you're last.
I just want to be the best person I can be, and I'm not worried because I’m patient. I recognize that I’m not in competition with anybody but myself. I don’t know what my future holds, but isn’t that nice — that I still have the time to decide? I have nothing but time. And in that time, I have chosen to recognize that being nice to others matters above all.
