Are You As Nice As You Think You Are?

As research reveals that most of us think we’re nicer than we actually are, a Grazia girl steps up her kindness game

- Dhvani Solani

When I was 10, I decided to save the world by saving the tigers, especially the ones prowling around the Nepalese mountain ranges. I’d make tiny paper badges of something resembling a giant cat and urge unsuspecting passersby to use them as lapel pins ASAP. It was peculiar considering I didn’t have a single activist bone in my tween body, and dozed off in the canter this one time I was tiger tracking in Ranthambhore with the overly enthusiastic folks. But I began to care about them big cats, and I did so for one reason alone: Leonardo DiCaprio said it was important, and I listened to him.

That was a time when I thought I was being ‘nice’ when I was just fangirling over a silly boy who froze to death for love, and who was breaking out on the scene for the various causes he lent his (sexy) voice to (tigers in Terai being one). I thought the world could be a better place if I channelled my wannabe entourage tendencies the right way. It was only after I reached my current adulting status that I realised that I was confusing being ‘nice’ with a fleeting charitable moment. That niceness cannot be a momentary thought or action. It has to be an ongoing way of life. Many might see a vast difference between being kind and being nice (for example, a nice person will ask you if you’re cold, whereas a kind one will give you their jacket), but for the sake of this story, we’re blurring the line between them.