Being Nice Versus Being Kind

My best friend from medical school is currently practicing on the West Coast.  When I visited her for the first time, we started comparing notes about the (admittedly stereotypical) personalities of different parts of the country.   I relayed that my time in Seattle had worked my Midwest “Smile at strangers when you lock eyes” out of my system because I’d found people in Seattle to be more reserved than those in the Midwest.  Moving from Seattle to Nashville brought that tendency back to me, though, because folks in the South are so effusive that they ask strangers how their days are going and actually want to know.  My friend said, “The people here are just nice,” but she said it with a tone that conveyed a bit of, I don’t know, distaste, maybe?  She explained that she’s found people on the West Coast are nice, whereas people on the East Coast are kind.  “Say you’re on the side of the road with a flat tire,” she said.  “A person here may pull up alongside you and mouth, ‘Are you okay?’ while gesturing to their cell phone through the passenger side window.  You’ll nod, and then they’ll nod and be on their way.  On the East Coast, on the other hand, a person will pull up alongside you, roll down their window and say, ‘Ya idiot, I saw you hit that pothole back there. I’ll pull up, park ahead, and help you change your tire. Give me a second.’ The West Coast person is nice, but the East Coast person is kind.”  

The story has echoed back to me for months.  I usually see myself interacting with my patients’ families with kindness.  I answer questions truthfully, even when the answer may be difficult.  I ask more open-ended questions and actually listen to the answers.  If I catch myself mentally running through all of the other things I need to get done, I can redirect myself and think, “Not now.  You’re here with this person right now.  All of that can wait.”  With my co-workers, though, I think I trend toward “nice.”  My greetings are reflexive, and my answers to questions are much more automatic (and sometimes incomplete and devoid of nuance).  “Nice” is superficial, whereas “kind” is deeper.  “Nice” is unidirectional, whereas “kind” is bidirectional.  Does “kind” take more time, more effort, more commitment?   Do I use up my capacity for “kind” with some people so that I can only treat others “nicely?”  And how do I treat myself?  “Nice” may be eating that pint of ice cream after a lousy day, whereas “kind” reminds me that it’s okay to feel sad and that eating the pint of ice cream will give me a stomach ache, mess with my sleep, and get me further from my goal weight.  

Maybe being kind doesn’t take more work than being nice. Perhaps I’ve lived in Nashville long enough to ask co-workers how their day’s going and listen intently to their answers.  I can build data about the time and energy difference between acting kindly and acting nicely (acknowledging my hypothesis that it probably just feels way better to be kind). I can work up to being kind more often.  Which would be the easiest next step, though, being kind to strangers or being kind to myself?