If you ever get the extremely fortunate chance of getting to know me, you’ll see why a lot of people want to describe me as “nice.” I totally understand where that’s coming from. For a huge part of my life, I’ve always been the “nice guy.” I would be the one in school where people can come to for academic help whilst also being the shoulder they can cry on. I’m going to assume that’s the main reason why I was so popular rather than being the only audibly queer kid in the school. I will admit that being the “nice” guy did get me through a lot of situations, and I owe it to niceness for getting me out of being possibly hate crimes. But as I’ve discovered in therapy, being nice isn’t going to do it for me anymore.

For the last few weeks before writing this, I’ve been indulging in reruns of my favourite TV shows: The Layover and No Reservations. Both are hosted by one of the people I look up to, Anthony Bourdain. For those of you who don’t know or don’t Google, Anthony is a chef, author, journalist, and travel documentarian. In both of these shows, he visits different locations around the world trying different cuisines and immersing himself in other cultures. Watching him get so passionate about food and travel was a truly a magical thing. Of course I would be remiss if I didn’t mention his iconic tea-spilling book Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly. If you watch any show or interview that he’s done or read anything he’s ever written, you’ll notice how just how well Anthony does his job. He’s able to critique food objectively and with an open mind. You’ll also notice how much he appreciates being introduced to different cultures and how he wants to incorporate those cultures in his food. He inherently has this desire and motivation to unite the world through food and diversity. That’s the kind of shit I like. I like watching people be passionate about something and using their passion to help make the world a better place. Sadly, he did not live long enough to see the impact of his work in the world. I miss seeing him on my screen. I hope that he sees this in the afterlife and knows the impact he’s made on my life.

So why am I bringing him up? In order for someone like Anthony Bourdain to do the kind of work he does, he cannot afford to be nice. The way he speaks to other people comes off as mean and abrasive. There’s a scene in The Layover where he’s stuck in a bar in Amsterdam where the patrons start singing karaoke, and he called the situation “the literal definition of hell.” Even if he didn’t like being there, he was able to critique the food, take in the culture, have a drink, and got the job done. That’s why I bring him up. He evidenced the emotional distance necessary to get results. Anthony Bourdain is the definition of what it means to be a kind person, but not necessarily a nice one.

In one of my therapy sessions, that same contrast came up. My therapist told me that with my long history of being nice to other people, I never had the energy to be nice to myself. My likability went insofar as being the empathetic friend. I would expend all my energy being nice and crying with my friends and giving them a few extra dollars for a burger without ever expecting anything in return. Constantly doing that to other people but being unable to give myself that kind of niceness absolutely drained me. In retrospect, it was dangerous and unsustainable. My therapist then introduced me to the idea of compassion. What exactly is the difference between being empathetic and being compassionate? Empathy is the emotional connection that allows us to feel another person’s pain. We can cry with them and we can sit with them for hours on end until they can feel somewhat better only to repeat that cycle if and when the pain returns. Compassion takes that empathy a step further. When approaching a situation or a person from a place of compassion, we are able to feel their pain but also give ourselves the necessary resolve to distance ourselves from their pain in order for us to work together to create a solution. Empathy is self-serving and selfish and doesn’t really allow for other people to find results by themselves. It’s counterproductive. Being empathetic leads to nothing but sobbing, blubbering idiots with no intention of creating change whereas being compassionate leads to sobbing, blubbering idiots who can eventually get it together to create something meaningful out of a painful, traumatic situation.

If a doctor would just be empathetic, they wouldn’t be doing their job. They would just sit there and cry with the patient after telling them that they have cancer. A compassionate doctor is not only equipped with proper bedside manners but also the knowledge to help put the patient on a proper path of recovery. If Anthony Bourdain was just nice, all he would ever do is smile and compliment people’s cooking no matter how repulsive it may taste. But since he’s more kind than he is nice, he allows for that room for criticism so that other people in the culinary industry can work on themselves to produce better results. In therapy, I’m just nice to myself. When I feel sad, that’s all I let happen. I sob for hours with nothing to get out of it. In learning compassion, I can sob for hours with the added bonus of being able to get my shit together and stop feeling sad to produce a better, happier version of Tim.

Empathy is also a really divisive quality. It allows room for pain, but only for people who’s pain we can sympathize with. That’s kind of the origins of cancel culture when you think about it. Imagine you’re scrolling through the usual social media news feeds and you see one person’s side of the story without listening to the other. Everyone who feels this person’s pain registers this Instagram post as a call to arms and help cancel that motherfucker. Call his employer. Get him fired. Ruin his life forever! Is this really a more productive use of our time and energy? If we approached that same situation with compassion, we wouldn’t be so quick to anger. We would allow ourselves room to feel that person’s pain and process our own emotions without acting so irrationally. That’s why I can’t participate in the internet’s cancel culture any longer. Being nice and feeling another person’s pain is too exhausting for me. Nice is when I’m stuck in a shitty relationship I don’t want to be in because I’m trying to protect the other person’s feelings. Kind is letting that person know I’m unhappy and I want out because it’s good for the both of us. It’s high time I stop letting myself feel other people’s pain and start feeling my own. I need to be able to feel my own suffering and process it so that I can be there for others.

To be nice is to be empathetic. To be kind is to be compassionate. So fuck being nice. It’s time to be more compassionate.