Sometimes you're nice to someone and they respond back with ignorance, meanness, indifference, boredom, or no response whatsoever. You may say hello to total strangers and they look at you as though you're an axe murderer.
Being nice to people is not necessarily about the other person. You can be nice for selfish reasons- selfish in a good way. You can be nice out of your own self-interest.
When you're mean and you attack other people with your words, actions, or thoughts on a continual basis, there's a very good chance that you also "attack" yourself. A self-attack can have many faces, including addictions, eating disorders, disease, and negative self-talk like the following:
I'm so clumsy. I'm so fat. I'm so stupid.
I'm a bad person. I'll never amount to much.
When you choose to be nice to others, you begin to respect yourself, be nice to yourself, and show love to yourself to the same degree. Other people are your home-play assignments to improve your own self-worth and self-love.
Winn Claybaugh
Be Nice (Or Else!) Pg- 23
I picked this story because I cant tell you how often I see this happen. People going out of their way to be nice and in return they get shot down with no niceness in return. At school we carry around a lot, and I mean A LOT of stuff. One day at school one of my friends accidently ran into another girl with her big case full of all our stuff- she quickly replied with a sincere apology and in return received no reply back and only a dirty look. Also, today while my roommate Caitlin was driving home, a car with cute boys in it honked at her, she smiled and waved and kept on driving only to hear another honk to which she looked up as the boys gave her "the finger".
For me in both situations my first reaction would automatically have been to be rude right back. But what would that have done? Nothing. It would only make myself look just as mean. So instead of stooping down to their level, we might as well just keep being nice and ignore their responses all together. And i'll be honest and say that there has been times where I have said things about others just to make myself feel better about myself, but in the end it just always makes me feel worse and doesn't make the situation any better. Being mean does nothing good for you, and in the end it will only make you feel worse about yourself. Just like Winn says, attacking others leads to attacking yourself.
