For many people, being nice even if the other person is an asshat is a job requirement. Very few service industry managers will back up the person on the line if the customer was a butt-munch, and the (waiter, counter person, etc.) called them on their bad behavior, or simply didn’t respond with the appropriate groveling.
It’s nice to be able to say “Life is too short to spend it with jerks”, but it frequently doesn’t work out like that.
Put it this way: if someone is rude to you and you’re rude back, have you gained anything? And if they’re rude to you and you’re nice back, have you lost anything?
In contrast, being rude to someone in itself costs you something, in my opinion. You have upset yourself and lost some part of what you see yourself as (by your own admission, someone that tries to be nice to people) so you’ve given something of yourself to an asshole. If instead you are unfailingly nice to them they have failed to harm you in any way.
That’s not to say you should allow them to walk all over you, but be polite in getting the hell away from them as soon as possible.
I always liked that Dalai Lama quote, even if I haven’t always lived up to it:
Be kind whenever possible.
It it always possible.
Yes, of course. I definitely didn’t mean to imply that aren’t situations where you basically have to be nice, but I think what Adam Savage was presenting applies more to a context where you have a bit more choice in the matter.
I agree that someone being simply rude doesn’t necessitate one’s being rude in return. I was talking about the more extreme cases, as Adam Savage’s point said to be nice to everyone. Again, maybe I’m over-thinking this, but I was genuinely curious what people thought.
That said, maybe I’m kind of ghetto, but there was this really rude guy on the bus yesterday who I almost yelled at. First, he finished his soda and literally threw the can out the door into the curb.
Soon after, he realized the “express” bus was right behind us (we were in the “local” bus) and he started yelling at the bus driver to open the back door after the bus had started to lurch forward. I think the driver would have kept going (and I feel he would have been well within his rights to do so), but the guy was being so obnoxious and belligerent that he let the guy out. Honestly, I don’t blame him.
Then! (and this is weirdly comical), the obnoxious soda can guy yells at the driver and calls him a knucklehead! haha, and it was such a weird, Leave It to Beaver thing to say that it was simultaneously funny, but somehow more rude.
Anyway, my point is that I was ready to yell at the guy for holding the bus up, but once he called the driver a knucklehead, I would have definitely yelled at him if he weren’t already off the bus. People like that are the kind I feel need to be put in their place, because they are fucking dicks lol.
The End
I agree it’s difficult to be nice to everyone, but say you had yelled at him: what would anyone have gained? I submit that it would have been a loss for everyone involved. You wouldn’t have gained anything, the driver wouldn’t have gained anything, and SodaCan McRudepants wouldn’t have gained anything - it’s not like a stranger yelling at him would have made him suddenly have insight into his personality.
Fair enough.
I’ve always found the unnatributed
“Treat me good, and I’ll treat you better. Treat me bad and I’ll treat you worse.”
to be helpful. You definitely aren’t overthinking it.
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