I try to be kind, upbeat, etc in my interactions with other people, especially at work. I want to treat others well, work together peacefully, and leave the project happy. I’ve noticed that some people (particularly more curmudgeonly folks) seem to read that attitude as naïveté, and feel like they can walk all over me or treat me like I don’t know what I’m talking about. Why is that?
People sometimes have difficulty walking the line between being nice and being a doormat and let people take advantage of their kindness. This bitters some people and they start to see their own kindness as a weakness.
When this happens they tend to think people who are kind just haven’t had that bad experience yet and that they’re naive about the way the world “really works”.It’s funny, but I feel like I strive to be kind because I’m aware of how the world really works. Like, I’ve been let down by reality and know the world can be a nightmare already, so why would I want to pile even more on someone and make their life harder, you know?
“Hello babies. Welcome to Earth. It’s hot in the summer and cold in the winter. It’s round and wet and crowded. On the outside, babies, you’ve got a hundred years here. There’s only one rule that I know of, babies-"God damn it, you’ve got to be kind.”
― Kurt Vonnegut
You sound very sweet, OP. Never change. A lot of people are just miserable themselves and want company being miserable.
Oh, sweet summer child
/s
I think there might be a kind of tragedy of the commons thinking there, as in “Somebody is going to take advantage of this naive person, it may as well be me.”
Some people were taught that being an asshole is good; hence, being nice is bad.
Finna git mine. 💰💵🌐🪣🦀🔪🔫
I support your endeavours!
You seem to be a nice person. Don’t give up. I hope you find your people and I’d be happy to have positive people like you around me. Do you read about Buddhism and metta at all? When the whole world can show love and respect to themselves and others it will be a better place, and you seem to be there already.
Thank you 😊
I actually was very into Buddhism a few years ago. I had a better meditation practice then, and I did a lot of reading, some on metta, but moreso insight. I don’t think I’d consider myself a Buddhist, but they have a lot of good ideas!
I’d bet that there is a lot of overlap between “people who are kind” and “people who are easily taken advantage of”.
But the converse is true as well, for example the political situation in the UK with Brexit and USA with Republicans showed, that there is also a big overlap between “people who are assholes” and “people who are easily taken advantage of”.
So I think it’s rather humans are easily taken advantage of, if you know how.
And also thus them being stupid.
People think you are either (a) nice and let people walk all over you, or (b) you have to be evil to be strong. But the truth is you can be in between, you can be both nice and retaliatory in case others are evil to you first.
Its actually the best game-theory strategy, called “Tit-for-Tat”, you be nice to others, but don’t be afraid to retaliate when they start being evil. Because if you don’t retaliate, they will take advantage of you.
With a slight addendum, tit for tat is best, while also allowing for an appropriate amount of forgiveness in case of mistakes
Also this short game showcases the concept well https://ncase.me/trust/
But the truth is you can be in between
I think the term for this is assertive. At least that’s how I’ve been defining it. You can be compassionate while also setting boundaries to prevent people from walking all over you.
The best example from my life I can recall is when I was managing the weekend shift for a help desk and one of the techs got a call from a lady who had had a TBI and could not regulate her emotions. She needed some information that was not in our wheelhouse and when this kid told her shed have to call the other department on Monday she went off on him. I took over the call and was eventually able to talk her down and get her to understand that we could not help her and we were not just refusing to by going back and forth with her and keeping my voice even and setting boundaries when she started to get pissed. She was happy with the resolution I came up with by the end of the call. It took like an hour and I felt like I was breaking a horse to get therethough.
actual real humans in reality also have this amazing ability to “talk” to each other, allowing them to communicate and say things like “hey you’re being a dick, stop being a dick and we can help each other instead, if you don’t stop then me and everyone i know will throw you into the ocean”
Assholes like to rationalise their assholery by painting their victims as weak and somehow deserving it. You can very much see that in present day politics but you’ll also meet people like that in real life.
Classic wolf vs sheep paranoid reality of toxic individualism.
These people cannot fathom humanity being bigger than “strong kill weak” or “predator / prey / competitor” classifications.
Many men hold this worldview as their reality as the bro culture and toxic masculinity plays right into it.
They see it as a vulnerability they can exploit to get what they want. This is a reminder to use strong boundaries. You can be kind but also strong.
Knowing when to set boundaries and sticking to them is not one of my strong suits, admittedly. But it’s something I’m working on.
How do you know when to set a boundary? How do you enforce it without feeling like an asshole?
Check in with yourself during/after interactions and explore your feelings/thoughts that came up. If you experience negative emotions after an interaction, ask yourself why. Did they say or do something that made you feel uncomfortable - ie: being controlling or physically being too close. Keep a list of this and update it. This will tell you what kind of boundaries you need to set and which people violate those boundaries. Then you can decide how you want to set the boundary - the boundary could be imposed on you (ie: you leave the room), the boundary could be imposed on the other person (ie: you tell them how you feel and tell them the consequences). The latter really depends on the kind of relationship you have with the other person.
the boundary could be imposed on you (ie: you leave the room), the boundary could be imposed on the other person (ie: you tell them how you feel and tell them the consequences
I was in the same situation as the OP and I have done both the things you have suggested and guess what they didn’t change anything. Yes the day I told them what I felt and walked out of the room, felt reliving, as I did what I wanted to do and the next few days felt different too. But things came back to being bad as they were before.
And this made me think that, I shouldn’t have been the nice/doormat guy I was from the beginning itself and be more open about my views and opinions which would make me look like a strong character. First impression is everything and you really can’t do anything after they’re set.
You cannot control other people. And as I said, bouandry setting with others is a case by case situation. The next step would be to limit your interaction with them - this could be from changing your routine to something more drastic like changing jobs/going no contact.
To add to what others have said, boundary-setting is a skill we develop over many social interactions. It may feel awkward or mean setting a boundary initially, but it’s essential to maintain one’s “social battery” and priorities/sanity.
Speaking of priorities, those are a good indication as to when setting boundaries is helpful. For example, you have an important appointment to get to, but a family member/friend is asking your help with something at around the same time. Communicating you have a prior engagement at the time of your appointment while being willing to help out after, or giving them suggestion on how else they can get the help they need, is you setting a boundary of what you can do with your time.
When we have concerns of feeling like an asshole, we want to consider from where that originates. Sometimes we’ve been raised around family members or “friends” who take advantage of another’s kindness and treat people maintaining boundaries as the villain (e.g. “Why are you leaving us hanging?/ Why couldn’t you help me/your Old Man out this one time?”). This is often a sign of emotional immaturity/ poor insight, empathy, and/or self-awareness. Healthy connections will respect your boundaries and maybe check in later if a raincheck is suggested. When interacting with people who don’t respect “no” as a full sentence and answer, sometimes reminding them of our limits and empathizing with the person’s situation can disarm them.
Due to the inherently competitive nature of living in a society that competes for resources, many people assume that a kind, upbeat person will be easy prey for someone tough and pushy. They lack the emotional intelligence to understand that you can be both kind and assertive.
In reality, you catch more flies with honey. Pretty much every study of game theory concludes that nice but assertive is the optimal strategy in any ongoing interaction. A nice person with a backbone is likely to have healthier boundaries, lower stress, and better relationships with people.
In reality, you catch more flies with honey
Than with vinegar.
Because the world is ruled by sociopaths.
It makes people feel better and more in control of themselves to think that their compassion fatigue is maturity instead of an injury that has been inflicted on them. I’ve spent a LOT of time working in inpatient psychiatry for a decade now wondering why people keep hurting each other. Why patients lash out at staff members, why staff members lash out at patients and why either does the same to their peers. This is just one of many common manifestations.
Because many people mistake selfishness for strength and intelligence.
However, not matter how wrong they are and how deep in denial they go, at the end of the day mean selfish people are bad people and kind people are good ones.And these bad people look very stupid when they think they can get away with their bad behavior and the kind not naïve person, just say no and don’t back down.
Because the world is run by narcissists and psychopaths
I mean the reason you have to ask is kind of… why
We’re in mostly a capitalistic world. Capitalism makes utilitarianism seem easy since it becomes easy to assign a “value” to everything. That kind of thinking quickly gets you to naive cynicism. We’re conditioned to think certain things are more valuable than others - mental wellbeing and community have been steadily devalued.
There’s a saying “behind every cynic there’s a disappointed idealist”. We’re in a world where a lot of people grew up in a time of amazing technological advancement, but have been bitterly disappointed by how the world is today. These people are now getting to that age where they may have been working the same job for a while (if they got lucky with job security) and they just want to get the job done and not exert any more effort than necessary (since by their experience, it doesn’t “pay off”).
Let them be them, you do your thing. They don’t owe you any kind of behavior really, though it would be expected and polite of them to keep things at professional level of course. You don’t owe them either so you don’t have to let them bring you down. Don’t take it personally though because it really, really isn’t.
Obvs just my view. If you really want to know, you can try to just ask what they value and if you can work in a way that aligns with that while not disregarding your own values.
Likely because they were once upbeat and positive people too and it didn’t get them what they want so they have changed their ways to be less positive.
So anybody who is still positive, in their experience, hasn’t learned yet that that isn’t going to get them what they want.
It might be a defense mechanism. They were taken advantage of when they were more open and positive.
It might just be bad learned behavior. The people who have what they want aren’t very positive to them.
It is also not easy to stay positive so a lot of people choose not to. Sometimes we like to make excuses for why people are able to do the harder things that we’re not doing. “Oh I would volunteer too if I had as much time as them.”. “Oh I am just not naive enough to be that positive”
I was gonna say something similar, it’s not so much about being nice, it’s about being happy.
They think you’re easy to take advantage of. If you assume that humans are innately evil (which I don’t agree with), you’d also have to assume that kindness is a weakness.
