ali's niceness > jordan's niceness

On Saturday morning, my sister jumped on my bed to wake me up. Actually I was sleeping on the couch. I said, quite angrily, "jeni! This is the one day I can sleep in what were you thinking I'm so mad!" she said, defensively, "well I just woke up at 8:30 and I didn't want to either!" and then I said "you're dumb" and then we forgot about everythjg and had a great day. BUT then she specifically asked me NOT to wake her up this morning when I left for work and I specifically did. How mean. The nice part is that I texted her later and said, "sorry for waking you up, but it was really funny. Love you." I think in the end, Im the nice one. Maybe.

I did the nicest thing just barely.

All day I have been looking forward with dread to the time this evening when I would have to go to work because I was on call, but when I called in they said they didn't need me so I got to stay home! I was so gleeful at having the next three hours opened up to any activity I chose that I decided to take time from my personal homework period to serve my roommates by emptying the whole dishwasher and doing everybody's dishes that were languishing in the sink. My roommates even saw me and they didn't say thank you but it didn't MATTER because I was so happy! And now our kitchen is clean and we have bowls for our cereal in the morning . . . and I'm not at work! Hallelujah.

Don't be yourself - be someone a little nicer. ~Mignon McLaughlin, The Second Neurotic's Notebook, 1966

people who are not nice make me feel not happy

not as good as you but i try

Sunday I did quite a nice thing: I rumbaed (rumbad? rumba'd?) with Carla even though it was really annoying. She barged into my room late at night and said, "I came over because I need to practice my dancing for class tomorrow. You don't have to do anything, just stand here and be my reference point." I was going to say "No," because I dislike rumbaing but then I remembered how nice I am trying to be and reconsidered. I left my pressing urgent matters at my computer and stood up while she counted her footsteps and did an unexciting dance around me for some time.
For almost any other friend, I would definitely count this as a simple act of avoiding confrontation, but because Carla and I are so close she is more like a sister than a friend, and by that I mean I don't take pains to conceal my true feelings when she vexes me (which really doesn't happen very often, but sometimes you know. It happened several times on Saturday and I was probably rude and I felt bad). But THIS was a conscious vote for kindness! I did it out of actual loving my neighbor. I was so congenial. I hope that helped her practice even though I disenjoyed it.  After that was over, she talked to me about how much she hated her Sunday School class on marriage and it was one of the more fulfilling social interactions I had all week; then she slept over in my bed with me and we had a good time. She speaks Italian in her sleep.

hate to show you up but. . .

I was so nice today you wouldn't even believe. I'll probably get translated. My mom had an awful day yesterday. Just absolutely awful. So naturally, she was in a horrible mood. When mom's not happy, nobody is happy. Anyways, normally, i would just avoid her at all costs until she's happier and more pleasant. But instead, I went out of my way to cheer her up. I know, how Christlike. She had to go pick my sister up late at night so I drove with her to keep her company and let her talk the entire forty minutes about her problems and I just listened. Then, I planned with her a very nice activity for us to do today. I took her to the visitor's center at the Los Angles Temple. They had some really uplifting movies that we watched and I think it made her feel better. Then I treated her to ice cream. The cherry on top was that I didn't criticize her driving. Well I did a little bit but it's hardly worth mentioning. And now she's kinda happy! Once again, I benefitted a lot from this endeavor, but I think she was grateful. Anyways, I just really wanted to try confronting something unpleasant upfront instead of tiptoeing around it like I always do. It was a rewarding experiment that I want to make a habit.

LOZER

Something that happened today was I was in the library on the computer and this nice Japanese-American student studying Spanish at the computer next to me asked if he could borrow a pen. Being really nice, I said yes. Then an hour passed and the time came for me to leave my computer, but the kid still had need of my pen, so I started freaking out. I couldn't ask for it back because he was using it and I didn't want to leave him incapable of finishing his homework. I thought, "I will just not say anything because I'm really nice and I have tons of other pens at home." Then I thought, "No--I wouldn't be making that choice out of kindness. I would be making that choice because I want to avoid confrontation and making this kid that I will definitely never see again feel like I am a jerk." But I still hadn't decided what to do. When I stood up to leave, he handed me my pen, so I didn't have to decide.  So I didn't really fail at being nice but I didn't win at making my actions consistent with my principles. What should I have been--nice for bad reasons or rude for good reasons?
Something else that happened to me today was I was walking to the JKB and fell into step/wheel with a kid in a wheelchair who had a broken leg. His arms were working really fast to propel himself on to class and they looked tired. I thought, "I should offer to push him in the direction of class." But then I thought, "No, disabled people are very self-righteous and stuff and want to do everything themselves. Plus that would be so weird. I wouldn't want a stranger to push me in a wheelchair." So I walked a little farther and then this old lady walked up to him and said, "Where are you headed? Can I push you to class?" And he said, "That would be great, thank you." And so she did and they talked about how he will be in a cast for 2 months and his arms are really tired. I felt like a bad person. That would have been a nice deed for a nice reason and I didn't do it.
So no wins today. I decree you don't have to write about winning at stuff if you don't want to--just write about mean stuff that you'd like to do over. That should probably prove productive. Being nice is actually so tricky.

Wouldn't you know it i like to blog

Emma walked by my computer and saw me writing and said "You have a blog?" and I said "Jordan and I started a blog to document the nice things we do for other people because Jordan doesn't feel very nice," and she said "Wait--but Jordan's the nicest." So that should make you feel good about yourself.
But maybe not, because ofttimes it's really easy to be nice in such a way that people might say of you "She's the nicest," but hard to be nice for good reasons. It's like this thing I read last night in this book (The Winter of Our Discontent by Mr. Steinbeck; I don't care if you think he's dumb): "There's an awful lot of inactive kindness that is nothing but laziness, not wanting any trouble, confusion, or effort." That's why I'm nice most of the time--because I'm afraid of people (which, by the way, would be #1 on my list of undesirable characteristics).
Anyways this was my nice goal for the day and I think I accomplished it: don't ignore anyone. On campus it becomes very easy to fail at this. But I made eye contact and smiled at strangers on the street and said a cheerful hello with name to quasi-acquaintances I chanced to meet. Not just because it's NICE, but because people are the most interesting and wonderful creations on the earth and so why would I ever just walk by one and pretend I didn't see it? That's ridiculous. So I actually didn't change anyone's life today but probably tomorrow I will.
I like this blog. I'm glad you made it.
And another quote from the abovementioned book: "I love [Jordan] so much I ache from it."

This blog

was nice of me to make.