The following blog posts were written on my original blog over five years ago. This article is part of my 37 Life Lessons From My Youth Series. Note: I’ve matured a lot since then and my “voice” has changed since. Enjoy.
By now you have a keen sense of empathy for how others feel. So you constantly avoid behaving in a way that’d hurt their feelings, even if they don’t do the same for you.
Your problem is that empathy is meant to be a tool and you’ve tricked yourself into believing it’s a personality.
You’ve got to ease up on the empathy. You need to stop being so considerate of others. Stop believing that being nice is some kind of answer to a good life.
Being nice 24/7 is always humbling yourself before people who don’t deserve it. It’s giving people permission to steamroll and humiliate you because you haven’t understood otherwise.
Being nice is accepting that you will get the short end of the stick in this game we call life.
If you’re tired of being the nice and useful idiot, then you’ll be happy to know that fixing your issue comes down to one simple rule:
Don’t be considerate.
When you live your daily life you must remind yourself, “don’t be considerate”.
Because when you’re actively being nice you are doing the most. Cut that out.
When you decide to live by the words don’t be considerate, you will filter out all of your nice guy behavior.
You will notice when you are going out of your way to help someone you aren’t responsible for helping. Don’t do it. Ignore the thought and act for yourself only.
This isn’t a switch of behavior where you’re actively inconsiderate and shit all over other people.
No, it doesn’t need to be like that.
You will simply filter your behavior so that you pay no concern to other people. This isn’t a bad thing. Because by “disregarding” other people you learn to put yourself first.
If you’re listening to your favorite music in your car and you pick someone up, don’t change the station for the other person. Keep listening to your music.
If someone tries getting your attention and you’re doing something, don’t stop what you’re doing to answer their call or text. Ignore them and maybe answer after you finish.
When it’s time to get something to eat and you feel like having a burger but the other person doesn’t, go get what you want and join them later if they don’t want to come.
If you don’t be considerate of others, you will learn more about your own value and things you like.
You develop a sense of your own world. And when you aren’t considerate – you bring the other person into your world too.
You aren’t leading. You are just being. Doing as you would without considering others.
The same way you’ve been dragged into other people’s worlds while you were the nice guy.
You’ll realize how much free value you’ve been giving to everyone. You learn that you have more value than you thought and your usefulness deserves a price tag.
You also make the realization that being considerate of others is making someone special. When you treat everyone like they’re special, no one is special. People will take advantage of this treatment.
Conclusion
So there you have it. Understand that being nice does not matter. The idea that good things will eventually come of it is a lie someone pushed onto you. But it’s not how things work.
If you want things to go your way, then you need to see reality for what it is and adapt to the truth. And if you want more for yourself than you need to do what you’ll realize everyone else already does:
Don’t be considerate.
Until next time.
Your brother,
- Rich
