The Burden of Niceness - A personal reflection.

I’ve often found myself caught in a web of niceness—being the agreeable, trustworthy person others expect me to be. But when I look deeper, I realize this isn’t who I am at my core. My behavior might be a reaction to a combination of childhood experiences, trauma, and the way my ADHD affects my thinking and emotional responses. Yet, I’m not sure of these conclusions, and I’m not claiming to have any solid answers. I’m still working through it all, uncertain of where it leads.

From a young age, I was labeled the "nice kid," the one who didn’t lie and who could be trusted. People praised me for this, and in some way, I felt obligated to maintain that image, almost as if my entire credibility depended on it. But it wasn’t easy. It felt like a burden I carried every day. I feared that any misstep—a single lie—would destroy the image I’d carefully built and, along with it, my sense of identity. I didn’t want my life to crumble around me.

Part of this need to be nice, I think, comes from the role I played within my family. My parents fought a lot, and I found myself in the middle, trying to mediate between them. Even at a young age, I was doing what I could to avoid conflict, hiding things from one parent so that the other wouldn’t get upset, deleting messages from my father’s phone before my mother could see them. This taught me to keep the peace, no matter the personal cost.

At school, I learned how to avoid attention, to escape the gaze of teachers who might call on me and put me in the spotlight. But with my friends, I did the opposite—I became the clown. I made jokes, acted foolishly, and did whatever I could to be the funny guy. And even though I was a good student, it was the bad behavior that got attention. So, I played into that, trying to seem worse than I was, debating with others about how much less I cared. I did things to please people, even when it came at the cost of my own integrity.

I’m not sure whether any of this was beneficial in the long run. It’s hard to say. I can’t decide if this behavior—constantly pleasing others, avoiding conflict, always being the nice guy—is something I should continue or something I need to leave behind. What I do know is that it’s hard for me to be anything else. It feels almost impossible to be the "bad guy." When I try, it’s like torturing myself. I can’t help but forgive people, even when they’ve wronged me. It’s as though I’m hardwired to serve others’ attention and approval. When people don’t like me, it’s as if I’ve taken a physical hit—it drains me, leaves me burned out in a way that’s difficult to describe.

Even though I’ve changed a lot over the years—started confronting people more—I still fall back into the old patterns. When people confront me, my default mode is to retreat, to be nice again, even if it’s undeserved. I’m tired of forgiving everyone, tired of being the person who can’t hold a grudge. I think, maybe, that’s what I need: to learn how to hold grudges, to stop letting people off the hook. Some people deserve to be hated. But even now, I’m not sure if that’s the right approach, if that’s a change I really need to make. There’s no certainty here.

This constant tension between wanting to change and being stuck in old patterns is frustrating. I don’t want to be the nice guy anymore, but it’s like a default setting I can’t escape. I’ve made so many decisions that harmed me while benefiting others, and I’m not sure if I even know how to stop doing that. It’s like I’m trapped in this cycle of being agreeable, no matter how much I might want to break free from it.

So here I am, still uncertain. I don’t claim to know where I’m going with this, or whether these realizations will lead to any real change. But I know that for now, I need to keep questioning the behaviors that have shaped me—whether they serve me or whether I’m just stuck in a role I’ve outgrown. It’s not about morality for me. Morality is something that seems to exist because it helps people connect and live with each other, and for now, it serves me to follow it. But I don’t feel tethered to it in any real way. If it stopped benefiting me, I’m not sure I’d care about it at all.

I don’t have the answers. I’m not even sure I’m asking the right questions. But I do know this: I’m tired of being the nice guy. And even though I don’t know how to fully change, at least I’m beginning to see the patterns that have kept me stuck. Whether or not I can break free is something only time will tell.