We grow up learning that we must be kind and nice to people. As a baby I bet we feel safer looking at kind-looking faces (kind-looking - is there such an expression? blah, whatever). If we are being too frank or outspoken we are being rude, and being rude is never a good thing. I grow up believing this, and I know I am not alone.
Mum told me that as a child I say what I feel. Sometimes I appeared to people as rude, although - as far as I can recall - more often than not I didn't mean to be so. Well, I learn not to always say what I feel as time passes. Eventually I get myself used to it. Too used to it, I'm afraid. And now I'm paying the price. It's gotten to a point where even the most cowardly of people could make me their subject of ridicule and embarrassment.
For a long time I go on trying to be nice, trying to make everyone happy, trying to satisfy everybody, trying to let things go. For a very long time I got so sensitive I can't stand people yelling at me. Well, everybody cannot stand being yelled to, but my degree of sensitivity is unusually higher than that of anybody else I know (I think I can safely claim it without having to go through a debate). As a result, I am afraid to try new things because I am afraid of making mistakes (because it's very possible to get yelled at and get scolded if we make mistakes, right? Right? Riiiiigggghhhht?)
But maybe it's right when people say that time and experience change how we view things and stuff. As time passes and I get to know new people and make new acquaintances, I learn that just because people are nice to you when they are with you, it doesn't necessarily mean that they like you - or at least, have nothing that they dislike about you. Hey, I've seen people badmouthing their supposedly best friends behind their back. I've got some people coming to me complaining about their best friends doing things they hate. They come to me and anybody else to express their dissatisfaction and anger but the person in question. Yes, we have more weird inhabitants on Earth now.
On the other hand, some acquaintances of mine are outspoken - they say what they feel. If they are angry with someone, they don't go hiding it for the sake of not being rude, they spill it out right there and then. I used to hate such people and I used to avoid communicating with this kind of people as much as I can - but now I know what I did is not a smart move on my part at all. I begin to realize that it is hard for me to take direct, bold, honest criticisms, but it is even harder when people that I view as nice and kind are badmouthing me behind my back, or even worse, backstabbing me. Experience taught me to appreciate people's boldness. Right at this moment I am learning to appreciate some friends I have who I know to be very frank and outspoken, and I am learning not to be so sensitive.
Trust me, been there done that, I can safely say that it is better to have a few friends who criticize and scold us right to our face at the right time and the right place, than to have a thousand of friends who shower and gratify us with politeness and compliments in front of us all the time. I used to be angry at my best friends if they point out my mistakes and give me a good bashing, but now I realize they did it only because they care about me and they don't want me to keep repeating the same mistakes. Yes, my best friends are quite frank and bold, but I know I am very lucky to have them for friends (I took a long time to realize this. It took a long time for me to realize how lucky I am. Better late than never, though).
As for now, I'm taking baby steps to get back the outspoken me. Too much politeness will kill us. Really.
