It Sucks to be The Nice Guy
I was looking up old acquaintances and friends I grew up with one day on Google. The results shocked me. Some had made it in life and gone on to be very important people. Others were kind of scratching out a mediocre existence, while still others were doing the same thing they had done nearly twenty years ago.
It’s been a while since I graduated from college but it’s interesting to see how far people have come. One of the people that I Google searched for was a friend that I had while growing up. His parents were friends with my parents so we were kind of forced to be best buds. Some time ago he fell off the face of the earth and I lost contact with him. It wasn’t until recently that my mom mentioned him. I went online and did some searching and found out that he now works at a prestigious company as a Data Scientist.
Growing up, he was largely a nice kid. When he hit his teens he became an asshole and bullied me. It sucked to have one of your good friends change before your eyes and turn on you, but that seems to be common nowadays. He was always the smart kid — doing things differently and thinking outside the box. It wouldn’t surprise me if he is a narcissist today. He usually got his way when he was younger and he got away with it.
I don’t think I would befriend him if we met today. Here’s why:
Nice guys are always taking out the bad guy’s garbage
I was always a sucker for being nice. In elementary school, I did what I was told no questions asked. I didn’t suck up to anybody but I did the work and more or less got by. Later in my teens, I somewhat rebelled but did it under a veneer of complacency. Throughout my twenties, I did a full reverse and tripped a bunch of people up including my own family when I decided to defy the norms presented to me all my life.
Today, well that’s for another story, but you could say I’ve constantly reinvented myself and pulled a few 180s on life. My inner circle would be surprised.
I’m not that surprised though by where it’s gotten me. And the reason is I’ve continued to be nice.
“Nice guys always finish last” is the saying. But I think it goes much deeper than that. In today’s world, you have to be a complete bully or downright egomaniac to get anywhere. It’s not just guys, but gals too. There are plenty of female assholes that would easily stab you in the back if given the opportunity. We see it a lot in the news. Just look at our politicians. And our CEOs. Most of them are crooks.
In the game of chess, there is only one winner. All the opponents get knocked down. We get to see them win, but we don’t get to see how the game is played. What goes on behind closed doors is a bit nauseating. A lot of people got where they are because they befriended people and used them for their power, prestige, or position in life. It’s a power play we see played too often in the media.
They get away with it all the time.
It’s sad to say that the ones who fail are usually the nice guys. The “nice” people of the world — the compassionate, the empathetic. Those that take out your garbage and work long hours and those that take care of your dying parent. Those that work for a low wage and mow your lawn and those that drive trucks across the country hauling your food and gas. It’s those people that got there because someone else wasn’t so nice.
I’ve been trying to find a balance lately as to why the rich keep getting richer and the poor, poorer. I haven’t been able to. It seems like the odds are stacked against you as nice people become nicer because they don’t want to lose that job or that marriage. They know this because they know their boss is subtlety cruel and powerfully nice at the same time. They know that if they speak their mind in a relationship it could have dire consequences and could result in some catastrophic shit.
So they get by.
They do it because they know they can get knocked down again. And that sucks.
Nice guys get by with what little help they have
They know that if they speak up things could go terribly wrong. In an instant, the tables could turn. It might be in the form of a job layoff, a divorce, or some sort of economic injustice.
It’s not just people. It’s the collective. It’s the society we live in — the government, the corporations, the economy, the banks, even our private gym clubs, and golf tournament sponsorships.
Collectively we need to change if there’s even going to be a collective.
We know this but we don’t do it because we fear the consequences. Just like when we were knocked down by our opponent (friend) in high school we’re secretly afraid of standing up for ourselves because they might do something to thwart our progress.
So we just get by with a little help from ourselves ( not our friends).
We know that if we just coast through life we can somehow make it and not be overly successful or a people pleaser. We can reject the status quo while still holding it firmly in another hand.
Nice guys secretly want to be the bad guy
This is the ironic one, but it’s true. They want to be the ones who boss people around. They want their way. They want happiness, even at the expense of others. Every one of us tends to have a little Lex Luthor in them.
Deep down though, we just want a good-paying job with great benefits or we desire to be an entrepreneur who does something good for the world while making a profit. We want to be sustainable and do good for the world.
I kinda felt that way for a while. But I realized I would just become like the person I loathed the most. In the end, you become bitter and close yourself off from people.
We don’t need another Scrooge tale to show us that.
We need to be our authentic selves. Some will scoff at that and roll their eyes. Others will go down a path toward it but stumble along the way.
It’s all good. Everything is the way it’s supposed to be.
It’s just that nice guys (and gals) get a bad rap. They get taken advantage of. They get bullied. They get neglected. They don’t get the recognition they truly deserve.
Subconsciously they want to be like the bad guy. But they know that if they do they’re just right back where they started looking at themselves in the mirror all along.
