Commentary: The Price of Nice

By Elizabeth Cole

March 25, 2009

We had just gotten into our ride home. As always happens, a recap of the night was the immediate topic of conversation among the five of us. We had talked to a group of friends of friends and had a good time until the lights went up and it was last call.

"Well, they were all nice," my roommate said.

I had to agree. I had a good time talking to all of them and no one was ever cold or uninterested in making conversation.

My response, "Well, everyone is inherently nice."

-----

Most people I've come across are "nice" -- at least during first, innocent encounters. My response to the new friends we had made really got me thinking. What do we expect out of the people we meet? Was their polite behavior really anything to even comment on? Whenever we meet new people, it seems the usual response to them is that they're nice. Do we really expect anything different?

When we're introduced to someone, there's the usual what-major-are-you-where-are-you-from-what-are-you-doing-with-your-life conversation that's the standard for talk in almost any situation, from sitting next to a new person in class, to bumping into someone at a bar.  As fellow human beings, answering the questions we ask and to at least act somewhat interested in our conversation is what we should expect. Yet, we don't. When someone is nice, we're almost shocked.

When someone doesn't follow these expectations and is rude to us, it's equally shocking. How could someone push me out of the way and not say excuse me? Why can't the person in front of me hold to door open? If someone doesn't do the polite things we expect, they are automatically pegged as rude. However, this behavior almost isn't a huge surprise.

If we comment on how nice the people we meet are, but complain when they aren't, what do we really expect out of our fellow human beings?

-----

On the way home with friends from a trip to the beach, we decided to stop at a crowded Chick-fil-A. The lines were strewn all over in front of the registers. While I waited in line, a register opened up in front of me, but seeing that the lines didn't really exist, I let the woman standing next to me order her food before me.

After she and I had ordered our lunches, she came up to me and said that it was so sweet of me to let her order first. She took out a five-dollar bill and said she was paying for my lunch. I immediately refused and she immediately refused to take the money back. She then stuffed the bill into the pocket of my sweatshirt. Seeing that there was no way I would be able to force the money back into her hands, I saw a Relay for Life jar sitting in front of the register and donated it. She was happy with the result.

How could I have taken this woman's money for my own use? In my view, I hadn't done anything out of the ordinary, but to this woman, I made her day.

-----

A random act of kindness is sometimes all it takes to make the whole day worthwhile. Although allowing someone to order before me didn't seem like a huge act, to someone else, it was. But an act of kindness and common decency shouldn't be done to get something out of someone else. The mere act of doing something nice is enough.

Our expectations of nice should exist. Although there are times when being a little forceful is essential to getting things done, being nice to each other is what makes us human. The next time you talk to a new person at work or accidentally run into someone in the hallway, friendliness should always be there.    

The essential part of being human is that we depend on each other. We depend on each other for safety and to make progress in the world. But most importantly, we depend on each other for happiness. Even when we're in the worst of moods and only concerned with our problems and ourselves, we affect the others around us. And the people around us are the ones who will pick us up again. We owe it to each other to be nice, to do those random acts, and to help life be worthwhile.