Being nice is different from being silly

When we see an elderly woman helping her grandchildren, we immediately think that this person can be considered a good person. However, if the grandson abuses this help and you do nothing to change, prevent or at least reduce the behavior of the abuser, we may think that the grandmother – besides being good – is being silly.

Due to my clinical experience, I see that many people confuse being nice with being silly, as in the example above. Another very common example is of women who take care of their husbands as if they were children, always cutting the steak they are eating, making bread and coffee and fetching water… and the husband himself could very well do all this.

Some think that being good is the same as being silly, that is, they believe that anyone who performs good deeds for others is a silly person, who wastes his time with others, instead of looking at his own navel. In the opposite direction, there are people who are good to those around them, but are “too good” and, in this sense, are fools of those who try to help.

The fact that we help other people, whether it’s a small action or an attitude that could take years (like contributing to college or donating a part of what you earn every month), is what we can consider as being good. Although kindness can be debated under the bias of philosophy, for our purposes, kindness here is understood as altruism, dedicating a part of yourself, your time and your resources, to society or to a person who is close to you. .

Being the fool of the other means, on the other hand, being deceived by someone who uses – consciously or unconsciously – someone else’s good will for his own benefit.

Anyone who thinks that to be good you have to do everything, usually doesn’t know how to say no. They have problems with being assertive, imposing limits and, in certain cases, fighting, because they think that if they do, they will be hurting, hurting the people they love. If the grandmother in the example says no, or if the housewife says no to her husband, they would be going against this pre-disposition of inability to speak.

They cannot say – “No, do it yourself”. “No, you try”.

In principle, it is positive to be good, to help, to contribute. But it’s also wise to be kind to yourself and, at certain times, “be selfish” and say no. It is important to know how to set our own limits. As a very wise popular saying goes: “It’s no use covering a saint to discover another”.

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