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My 4 year old told me I shouldn’t worry about the price of the toys she wants for Christmas because Santa will buy them…
Tell her Santa has a tight budget this year.
This is why “it costs nothing to be kind” always rubbed me the wrong way.
Like, yes it does cost, at least to some degree, energy/money/time to put on some form of extroversion or extra effort when things are being asked of you. That’s not to say it’s never worth it, but for those of us with more limited capacity (although everyone has a set capacity) there’s only so much available to extend before burnout.
Whenever I can afford it, I take time to be kind. I can’t always stop and give money or extend myself mentally to strangers or acquaintances, though. I don’t expect them to, either. Problematic contacts who ask a lot of emotional resources without offering in return, as well.
I think the term is “compassion fatigue.” /rant
I’d say rhat the saying is more about saying “thank you” to the cashier and less about giving money
Being nice to nice people doesn’t take energy at all, instead it energizes us. But being nice to not so nice people, now that takes effort, i.e. use of mental resources, which can only be sustained for so long before the battery drains out, and you need a nap.
Different people are different. For some people mere social interaction is draining even if they are interacting with genuinely nice people.
Her 5yo got it right.
By default you should be nice to people. Care about their needs, avoid offending them (and if you do, apologise), avoid unnecessary lies, all that thing. And since most people are surprisingly reasonable, they’ll do the same towards you.
However. There’s always “that” arsehole, petty, assumptive person. No matter how nice you are towards them, they won’t be nice to you. Don’t be nice to them - even if on the outside it’s irrelevant, it’ll eat you from the inside and make you feel like shit. Or, like she said, “hurt your energies”.
“Most people don’t want you to die in a concentration camp.”
I am talking about the sort of everyday interaction that would make a 5yo get scolded for not being nice. This is clear by context.
I wonder how many parents don’t realize that their children parrot things they see in kids’ shows and on YouTube. My brother and his gf when they had my nephew, they were so psyched he was painting all these “monsters”, that he had obviously watched online and just started drawing, and they were telling everyone what a great artist he was and how original he is.
I mean he IS awesome and original, his parents are just are completely out of sync with his interests, which is like SCP foundation and Pokemon.
