"politics is when people choose their words and actions based on how they want others to react rather than based on what they really think."
-the five dysfunctions of a team: a leadership fable-

no good deed goes unpunished. you know how people say that there are no deeds done without some ulterior motive involved? in an infamous friends episode, phoebe tries to disprove joey's assertation that any selfless good deed isn't truly selfless when you get to the bottom of it. i pretty much wholeheartedly believe this statement, if only because it just has the ring of truth to it.

for the past few weeks i've been making a few assertations myself. mainly that i am "top ten nicest people." now this may seem like a subjective ranking to you, but i feel like i'm objectively top ten nice in any category. well, except say "nicest jump shot," but that's another story.

i know, many people are gagging and making puking noises now but allow me a chance to defend myself. see, to me, the term "nice" isn't just reserved for those people who are kind, genial, and overall pleasing to have around. most of the time, we think of someone "nice" as an agreeable person who doesn't ruffle too many feathers, who doesn't make fun of other people, who is semi-fun to have around, who is friendly by nature, that kind of thing. now i'd agree i'm probably not top ten in any of those categories but here's the thing, i'm not competing against those people.

the people i'm competing against are the ones who have the choice of being nice or not. some people choose to be nice when they can just as easily be mean/unfriendly. some people don't have that choice. they are dealt the nice card in life and they have no choice but to play it. these people are nice by default. however, i'm probaby not nice by default. i say lots of borderline mean things, i like to make fun of things/people, i revel in death destruction and other mean sounding d-words. but here's the thing, all that aside, i mean well. and for those who know me, who truly know me, they know that i'm top ten nice. no questions asked.

of course, i've asked many people to confirm this tidbit about myself and they all laugh in my face. they immediately push me down to top (ten) thousand nice or even worse, not nice at all. it's all a bit rude i'd say. i mean, that's not nice of them, to dash my glorious self image. the thing that gets brought up time and time again is that i'm nice on the outside but only because i get something back in return. which apparently negates the nice involved. much like a selfish person doing good deeds versus a selfless person doing them.

i'm inherently not nice, but since i get something out of it, i might do nice things. is that so wrong? most of life is an exchange anyway. why in the world would anyone be nice just on principle? in the cosmic scheme of things, most people are nice so that they can reap nice down the road. is it so wrong that i'm probably more calculating than the average purveyor of nice? where does it say that nice has to be done selflessly?