Driven by Fear, Not Virtue

Título
Nice is good, right?
No hay nada malo en ser bueno, ¿verdad?
It means you’re caring, you don’t hurt
Quiere decir que eres atento/que te
people, and you do the right thing. You put
preocupas por los demás, no los
others first, avoid saying critical or mean
lastimas/no les haces daño y siempre
things, and try to make others feel happy.
intentas hacer lo correcto/y haces lo
Of course, this is all good, right?
correcto. Pones las necesidades de los
Well, maybe not… otros antes que las tuyas/priorizas el
bienestar de los demás antes que el
After fourteen years of clinical experience,
tuyo/piensas en otros antes que en ti,
working with thousands of people from all
evitar criticar o decir palabras/comentarios
different cultures, I began to question this
hirientes y tratas de que los demás se
assumption. In fact, I saw that clients who
sientan felices. No hay nada de malo en
were trying the hardest to be nice people
esto, ¿verdad?
also felt the most anxious, guilty, and
frustrated. They had difficulty standing up O tal vez sí.
for themselves, felt obligated to please
others, and worried about what people Catorce años de experiencia clínica/como
thought of them. They couldn’t directly ask psicólogo clínico, trabajando con cientos de
for what they wanted, freely say “no” personas de diferentes culturas me
when it was the right thing to do, or openly hicieron cuestionar esta premisa.
disagree with others’ opinions, even
though they had strong, well-developed
beliefs. In short, they were trapped in a
cage of niceness that prevented them from
being their real selves.

That’s when I started to realize that there

was a problem with nice. That it was
different than kindness, compassion, and
love. It wasn’t necessarily the same thing
as being a good person. In fact, I started to
question if being less nice actually allowed
us to be more kind, generous, and loving
people.

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