This Christmas, there’s enough nastiness in the world. How about being nice? | Opinion
With Christmas just around the corner and me hitting an age milestone, I have thought a lot about Santa’s mythical naughty and nice lists. I have pondered why some people are so nice, while others care only about themselves and are, well, naughty. When I use the term naughty, I include nasty, mean and often despicable.
Most people I know are nice. My wife is nice. My grandchildren are nice, because my children have taught them to be nice. My grandchildren treat other children nicely and with respect. Me? I think I am nicer now, but I was not always nice. When I was an attorney, I was pretty nasty with some people. I still struggle with thinking and doing more for myself than for others.
Some people can be nice as can be to their families and friends, but are mean to others outside their circle. There are people who will throw a $20 bill in the Salvation Army kettle and then cut off another driver in a fit of road rage. Small percentages of mean people are mean, nasty and brutal in nearly everything they do.
We are fortunate there are lots of nice people in this world. Many of them have made niceness the focus of their lives. Those who founded Lenexa’s Heart to Heart International, Operation BBQ Relief, the Salvation Army and Union Rescue Mission created a legacy of niceness.
Unfortunately, in our past and present there are lots of very nasty people. Terrorists who want to blow up innocent civilians. Russian President Vladimir Putin, who has killed and displaced thousands with his attack on Ukraine. North Korea’s Kim Jong Un, Iran’s Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro and China’s Xi Jinping have ruthlessly suppressed democracy in their countries. In our own country, Donald Trump plans on physically and forcibly removing entire families from their homes and housing them in camps until they can be deported. That is just plain mean.
What amazes me about the leaders of nations who are evil and nasty is their willingness to kill thousands and, in some cases, millions of people for the supposed good of their country. Hitler killed millions of Jews, and espoused that doing so would make Germany a great Aryan nation. Xi has brutally suppressed Uyghurs in China because he sees them as a threat to his government.
Broken families, good parents, genetics?
For centuries, there have been both nice and naughty people. Some nice people have risen from the poorest of the poor. Some folks are nice from birth to death, Mother Teresa comes to mind. Others started out life as self-centered sinners and later devoted the rest of their lives to others and God, such as St. Augustine, who famously said “There is no saint without a past, no sinner without a future.”
Many mean, nasty people come from broken families. Their parents physically or mentally abused them, or simply left when they were small children. Sometimes parents go out of their way to teach their kids not to be nice. I remember one dad who taught his kids to “stand up for themselves” and “not take crap from anybody.” He told his two boys that if they were disrespected, “Hit the other guy first.” Both sons ended up in prison, one for beating another person within an inch of his life. Teens often have low self-esteem and too many have committed suicide because they were bullied on social media by a mean person.
On the other hand, many nasty people were brought up in nice, loving families. Dennis Rader, the infamous BTK serial killer in the Wichita area, came from a loving family. His father, Bill, was a plant operator for a utility company. According to childhood friends, Bill was strict, but not mean. Dennis read comic books and dime-store novels growing up, and was well liked.
I know every person is different and different factors make us nice or mean. The older I get, the more I believe it is genetics that determine whether a person is nice or naughty. Maybe nice people have a nice gene. Maybe naughty people lack this gene or, instead, have its nasty counterpart.
I am now old enough to know that I can control only my own behavior and for me, being nice takes work. It doesn’t come naturally like my wife’s niceness. Each person determines whether to he nice or naughty. To all of you reading this, Merry Christmas and please, please: Be nice, and be nice all the time.