Battle of the Characteristics: "Nice" vs. "Kind"

Another Friday night of tea and blogging.... RA duty has its advantages.

This week, I've been thinking a lot about the difference between being "nice" and being "kind." I tend to group the two words together, using them as synonyms. The more I think about it, though, the more I realize that they are two fundamentally different qualities.

I'm often told that I am nice. If I were to describe myself, I would also say I am nice. I smile a lot. I hold doors open for people. I don't get angry easily... and if I do, I don't show it. I let others go before me in line. I give my friend the bigger half of the cookie. And I definitely never let the weekend start without telling everyone, far and wide, "Have a good weekend, (insert name here)!"

But do these things also make me kind?

My case for a difference between "nice" and "kind" starts with someone important in my life: my high school speech and debate coach/English teacher. With the exception of my parents, Mrs. Carochi has helped me more than anyone I know. There are the obvious ways: She taught me a heck of a lot about English, which is now one of my college majors and a point of lifelong learning. She taught me how to write and perform a piece that will move and persuade others toward a better life through speech. She taught me how to carry my weight as a member of a team and how to delegate. Then there are the hidden ways, the ways that only I can fully understand. She is the reason I knew anything about how to apply to college, let alone how to apply to the right college. A year later, she was the reason I didn't transfer from that right college when things got difficult. She is one of the reasons I made it through my first real heartbreak. The list goes on.

Aside: Mrs. Carochi was just inducted into the Colorado High School Activities Association Hall of Fame, and she was inducted into the National Forensics League Hall of Fame a few years ago. Other people think she is just as great as I do.

Mrs. Carochi was never considered a nice teacher. She was "hard," she was "mean," and she was "stubborn." You didn't want to be around her when she is angry -- she can and will take your birthday away. Every student in Honors English feared the wrath of her red pen all over every paper. All the same, Mrs. Carochi, for the reasons outlined above, is among the kindest people I think I will ever meet.

I think the difference between "nice" and "kind" is a matter of intention. For me, being nice is a lot easier than being kind. Being nice just means I have to respond to the environment around me in a way that is pleasant toward others. It doesn't require a lot of sacrifice... smiling takes fewer muscles than frowning, so the legend says. Being kind, however, requires that I bring something original to my environment with the intention of making someone's life better. It calls for me to give of myself continuously, even when I don't feel like it or don't have time. It calls for me to bake delicious cookies from scratch with the intention of giving the whole batch to someone, not just to give the bigger half of a crummy chocolate chip cookie I already have.

The hardest part of this for me to accept is that being kind sometimes goes directly against being nice. Making someone's life better isn't always pleasant. I never enjoyed Mrs. Carochi's red pen on my papers, but I always appreciated it.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not hatin' on being nice. Often, I think being nice can open a path toward being kind. Being nice establishes approachability and an inkling of trust, making others more receptive to kindness. But there comes a point when being nice isn't enough, and being kind must take priority.

Kindness... it's more than a happy disposition.

A Frappuccino-Free Fortnight

Two small updates:

1. About three posts back, I promised I would write about my 3rd adventure of the summer. That's still coming. I've just decided to wait a little longer and expand it. You'll see.

2. I'm going to try to blog more often, likely about pseudo-significant things, in an effort to commit to the activities that matter to me (like telling the entire universe about my thoughts, apparently). It comes with a series of small changes this semester -- including eating right, exercising, and sleeping enough.

Which brings us to the topic of this post -- my life for the past two weeks without coffee.

I know, it seems like a bigger deal than it actually is. It's coffee, but sometimes it feels like it's my blood. I associate coffee with getting stuff done, with being successful, with not offending my professors with incessant yawns... etc.

Really, my coffee habits reveal a much more maladaptive thought process... one where I am defined by my productivity. It sounds like a formula that works: If a person does a lot, it must mean they care a lot. And if they care a lot, they are a good person. Obviously.

Then I realized that I cried almost every Monday because I had too many meetings and too much homework and too little time. And I realized that my budget could not afford any more Vitamin C/DayQuill/jasmine green tea from getting sick over and over. And I realized that no one likes being around grouchy, stressed Angela. And perhaps most crucial to this post, I realized that I actually was accomplishing very little.

Now that I've made some changes, the premise of accomplishing tasks at all costs is just plain annoying to me. I am not defined by my resume. We've been talking in statistics about the difference between a model and a real-world event or object. My resume is a model of me, not the real deal. In psychology, the model is often a sample of the population. The sample must be representative of the population in order to generalize the results. I only have a narrow sliver of my life on that resume -- not even close to a representative sample of sorts. Rather than drawing conclusions, I should be working to improve the model... to broaden my experiences and explore all the potential aspects of myself. (Luckily, informed consent won't be a problem). Furthermore, If I am basing my experiences on what others want rather than who I (think) I am/might be, I am making a model that actually doesn't represent me -- and that's just counterproductive.

So, I stopped drinking coffee, meaning I also make myself go to bed by a decent hour. I manage my time better and I choose to engage in activities that represent who I want to be, not just activities that I feel obligated to participate in. I take up an entire hour for dinner with my friends, because they might never be on my resume, but they are still a meaningful part of my life. And sometimes, I snuggle up in my electric blanket and write a blog post, slowly sipping lovely Russian tea from Paris.

Life is sweet.

Expect to see more blog posts more often... but feel free to forgo the coffee while you read. Or maybe just drink decaf. You define how much you do -- it doesn't define you.