Have you ever tried to be ‘Nice’ to someone, only to find yourself feeling rejected instead?
Something like this happened with my two oldest daughters this week.
They are getting to the age where certain things are starting to really matter.
Life or death things like clothes, privacy, phones, and friends!!!
The older they get the harder it seems for them to get along..
I remember those days with my older sister.
All I wanted was to be her best friend. I wanted to follow her around, be friends with all her friends, wear her clothes and listen to all the same music.
She wasn’t as excited about this as I was though.
And so two decade later the same cycle continues.
When my girls are bickering I will often say in a very sarcastic tone “Can you feel the love?!!”
So on this particular day I was rather surprised to hear that my daughter told her big sister how pretty she thought she looked.
It warmed my little Mom Heart.
But then guess what happened?
Big sister didn’t respond the way little sister thought she should.
Instead, the compliment was apparently just sloughed off, not important, ignored.
Sad?
Well yes it sure was for little sister.
Then sad turned to anger.
She expressed her thoughts to me about this encounter.
She said “What’s the point of being nice to people if they aren’t going to be nice back?
To which I responded
“Well, what do you think the point is?”
“There is no point, so I’m not going to be nice ever again.” Came the response.
And cue the lesson that applies to us all.
Being nice to people should never be a way to manipulate how they will show up for us.
Being kind and showing love is something we should want to do because of how it makes us feel.
When we are kind and love others no matter what they do, say or what they don’t do, WE are the ones that benefit from it.
Perhaps you are thinking “But Laura, you don’t understand, let me tell you what they did…they don’t deserve my kindness.”
And here’s what I say to that.
YOU deserve kindness.
And being kind to you means choosing love anyways because love and kindness always feels better then resentment, anger, bitterness or holding a grudge.
We overlook this because we are relying on others to be kind to us. We have expectations of how we think they should show up.
In our house this concept is still a work in progress and that’s ok.
We are learning that being kind to others for no other reason than to take care of our own well being and happiness is possible.
Evaluate yourself. Could you choose love and kindness for YOU more often in your life?
