If you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say it at all.

I’ve heard of this phrase time and time again. And too often, I’ve seen people hold back their tongue — afraid that opening their mouth will amount to great regrets.

Now, I’ve always lived by a simple rule similar to the one aforementioned above. A rule I’ve set myself. A rule I didn’t have to be told to follow as a child.

I’ve come to learn from experience just how scarring words can be.

Be nice.

It doesn’t always mean shut your mouth if you’ve nothing nice to say. Instead, I’ve taken it as knowing how to say something in a nice manner. A manner in which you make sure that the criticism won’t affect the receiver of your words negatively, but rather turn something destructive, constructively — away from all the sarcastic remarks and all — because, honestly, how well will a person who has been told nothing but praise affect their character development entirely?

It’s a simple yet difficult rule to follow. Doing so, requires great self-discipline — a trait only a few people have, or so I’ve witnessed.

Take, for example, social media enthusiasts.

Social networks have gone haywire. And in a way in which you can’t blame its system to be at fault. Social networks like Facebook and Twitter give its users the ability to share almost anything, from thoughts to videos, and relay them to an extensive list of followers — you know the drill.

Of course, nothing is wrong with that. I, myself, use Facebook and Twitter, in all its ingenuity.

However, some people use these features in a peculiar way. In addition to posting unnecessary content, people have, too freely, been posting spiteful and demeaning things about others, in a roundabout way.

Now I know that people are entitled to a lot of rights, especially rights of speech. However, given the fact that there is the possibility that more than a hundred people have access to reading the same post, would saying something demeaning about someone we’re too afraid to mention the name of, be the best way to use an inventive feature?

Now let me assume what the psychology behind this action is — being too afraid to state our resentment of someone — we post about them online, behind a screen and behind the comfort of having more than a hundred people read it and not have a clue that the post was, indeed, directed to one, or maybe even more, of our followers.

Now, after clicking the ‘post’ button, we lie back and continue scrolling through our feed, thinking we’ve done something so life-changing.
We posted something rude pertaining to a certain someone. That should teach them not to mess with us, right?

Wrong.

It’s a shout to the void. If we’re already pious to the person we were talking about in real life, why would they follow our toxicity online as well?
Same goes in the real world. Being rude makes us a distasteful and uninteresting person. Yes, we may think that our name will echo in their heads forever because of a snide remark, but no. If the person we’re trying to attack is, in truth, emotionally and mentally strong, we’ll be easily replaced by a constructive enemy — a goal in the form of a person — a person to aim to be.

We will not be tolerated by the people who despise us.

Naturally, I am not perfect, not even close to being a slight epitome of the perfect person. Just like everybody else, I feel anger and resentment as well.

However, it’s not that my mother smacked my mouth every time I said something rude, it’s the fact that I, like everybody else — or so I’m assuming — have been a victim of a rude and hurtful remark, in which I decided to resign myself of anything that could cause someone to retreat in a shell of insecurity and self-doubt.

Now, we don’t always have the assurance that our actions and words — no matter how nice we put it — will ignite a positive spark in the people who receive it. Criticism, especially, as it comes in many forms, can be taken in either a positive or a negative light.

So, will we ever really know if we’re criticizing someone effectively?

Due to the fact that I am not a — very good — researcher, nor am I a statistician, I honestly wouldn’t know. The best we could do is anticipate if, in their next appearance, there would be some sort of progression from the last effort we invitingly criticized.

You may think that being nice will reward you with people who’d openly befriend you and ask you for advice, but it doesn’t — at least not all of the time. People find it easier to surround themselves with others who — in their own way or the same — also find the person they hate, hateful.

If you play your cards wrong, you end up as a doormat for compliments. So-called friends would love you for nodding your head in agreement to every snide remark their mouths permeate throughout a nosy community.

It’s happened so many times before. I’ve come to meet several groups of people who seem to have a lot in common, but don’t. You hear them try to talk about something else, but short pauses can only be so tolerable that they either have to go back to talking bad about the common enemy, or disperse.

Although, most of the time, peculiar events take place and actual friendships are built on hate.

Am I envious of this?

No. Never. I would never — again — dream to build a connection with others that would entail me to violate other people’s right of being who they want to be, physically or verbally.

Be nice.
But don’t be a doormat.

You don’t have to be everybody’s friend. Being nice is not grounds for being everyone’s go-to person. You don’t have to be everybody’s shoulder to cry on — if not anybody’s. You can dismiss others, and you can tell them anything a rude person can, only you can do it nicely. In which someone who had just been told to lay off is happily walking away, thinking more of the friendly way you smiled rather than the fact that he had just been told to disappear from sight.

You can be in a position wherein your words need to be firm and your demands require immediate responsive actions.

Being nice doesn’t mean being the person at the back, too afraid to open his mouth. Neither does it mean for you to give and give and give.

We are human beings. We get exhausted. We feel anger. We feel disappointment. However, being a victim of the chain of screaming doesn’t mean we have to take part in it.

Be productive with your anger. Take everything that destroys your inner peace and throw them into a pile of creativity — write about your disappointments, or paint your anger in blue. And try your best not to take your anger out on someone who’s having a better day than you.

And sometimes, being nice means not saying anything at all. No words. No bodily gestures. No lashing out.

It’s better to be spoken of sweetly than be talked about by sour tongues, and be bitter about it.