The reluctance to accept niceness
Part 2 of 2
(This is the second and final installment of this series of thought articles, to fully understand this one, please read Part 1 here)
Suspicions of Niceness.
Let's imagine you are the target of a random act of unwarranted kindness. Someone you don't know does something nice for you. What are some of the thoughts and questions you would have?
Why did that person do that?
Gee, they must be super nice.
What is wrong with them?
I wonder what they want.
Most of us would approach the situation with suspicion, looking for ulterior motives. Some of us may even react negatively almost like a defensive retaliation to aggression. However, this is not aggression, it is unwarranted kindness. Rarely does the question arise of why we react so viciously & suspiciously to kindness when it’s directed towards us. Even if it’s a mild discomfort, the less than welcoming reaction to kindness passes by mostly unscrutinised.
Well, let’s scrutinise it.
The conclusion is quite simple:
You hate yourself...
...not enough to end or harm yourself (that would require too much effort), but enough so that you deem yourself to be unworthy of anyone else’s kindness; especially if it’s unwarranted kindness from a stranger. This isn’t about pride nor self esteem, it’s about self worth, and we’re not worthy. We all push ourselves into this crevice of thought from time to time, but we also get pushed into this state when we act as unwilling recipients of gratuitous kindness.
Think about it.
On one hand we have dopamine addicted fiends who want nothing other than to wantonly help others, whilst on the other hand we have recipients who deem themselves unworthy. What an absolute shitstorm!
Unfortunately, even I don’t have any further thoughts on this. It is a weird situation, perhaps in time I will add a part 3 to this series if I can come up with a plausible resolution, but until then; we are at an impasse.