Why is kindness often viewed as a sign of naïveté?

Submitted ⁨⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩ by ⁨compostgoblin@lemmy.blahaj.zone⁩ to ⁨nostupidquestions@lemmy.world⁩

I try to be kind, upbeat, etc in my interactions with other people, especially at work. I want to treat others well, work together peacefully, and leave the project happy. I’ve noticed that some people (particularly more curmudgeonly folks) seem to read that attitude as naïveté, and feel like they can walk all over me or treat me like I don’t know what I’m talking about. Why is that?

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baconmonsta@piefed.social ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
There are different kinds of kindness. The people-pleasing kind may come across as being naive and triggers some people. Another kind of kindness is to actually care and be curious about others and that usually comes across better.

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- compostgoblin@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  I’m a fan of the line from Ted Lasso: be curious, not judgmental. I try approach things from the perspective of “how can we solve this problem”, since I don’t see any good in finger pointing. You can’t change the past.
  
  I’ll admit, I am a people pleaser at times, but it’s something I’ve worked on - identifying the line when I start to be too much of a pushover.
  
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  - baconmonsta@piefed.social ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    That's a good quote.
    
    Also props for recognizing your own people-pleasing tendencies. And I'm glad to hear you've worked on it. It takes time to understand what causes us to be like that. It might be out of fear of rejection or some other unwanted outcome. And it could be based on some irrational assumptions or beliefs.
    
    To be able to accept any outcome in any situation is very difficult, but a strong foundation for confidence and inner peace.
    
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How_do_I_computah@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Likely because they were once upbeat and positive people too and it didn’t get them what they want so they have changed their ways to be less positive.

So anybody who is still positive, in their experience, hasn’t learned yet that that isn’t going to get them what they want.

It might be a defense mechanism. They were taken advantage of when they were more open and positive.

It might just be bad learned behavior. The people who have what they want aren’t very positive to them.

It is also not easy to stay positive so a lot of people choose not to. Sometimes we like to make excuses for why people are able to do the harder things that we’re not doing. “Oh I would volunteer too if I had as much time as them.”. “Oh I am just not naive enough to be that positive”

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- 474D@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  I was gonna say something similar, it’s not so much about being nice, it’s about being happy.
  
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HobbitFoot@thelemmy.club ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Some people have bad experiences where they lost trust in people and therefore treat the lack of trust as experience. That if you aren’t as paranoid as they are, you don’t know as much as they do.

Also, some people are bad to work with or are mediocre at their jobs, especially at communication. This is how they cover for themselves. It isn’t their fault that they messed up, you didn’t tell them something that they should have realized they should have asked but it is easier just to blame you.

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noretus@sopuli.xyz ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
I mean the reason you have to ask is kind of… why

We’re in mostly a capitalistic world. Capitalism makes utilitarianism seem easy since it becomes easy to assign a “value” to everything. That kind of thinking easily gets you to naive cynicism. We’re conditioned to think certain things are more valuable than others - mental wellbeing and community have been steadily devalued.

There’s a saying “behind every cynic there’s a disappointed idealist”. We’re in a world where a lot of people grew up in a time of amazing technological advancement, but have been bitterly disappointed by how the world is today. These people are now getting to that age where they may have been working the same job for a while (if they got lucky with job security) and they just want to get the job done and not exert any more effort than necessary (since by their experience, it doesn’t “pay off”).

Let them be them, you do your thing. They don’t owe you any kind of behavior really, though it would be expected and polite of them to keep things at professional level of course. You don’t owe them either so you don’t have to let them bring you down. Don’t take it personally though because it really, really isn’t.

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gon@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Some people were taught that being an asshole is good; hence, being nice is bad.

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- WhatGodIsMadeOf@feddit.org ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Finna git mine. 💰💲💵 🌐
  
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  - gon@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    I support your endeavours!
    
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Angelusz@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
There are many things at play in situations such as you describe. One of which is often a form of jealousy “I don’t feel happy, so you shouldn’t either”. People often don’t even realize they do this, sub conscious.

They probably don’t intend to be negative, just haven’t found a way to better be.

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daveywaveyboy@feddit.nl ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
You seem to be a nice person. Don’t give up. I hope you find your people and I’d be happy to have positive people like you around me. Do you read about Buddhism and metta at all? When the whole world can show love and respect to themselves and others it will be a better place, and you seem to be there already.

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- compostgoblin@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Thank you 😊
  
  I actually was very into Buddhism a few years ago. I had a better meditation practice then, and I did a lot of reading, some on metta, but moreso insight. I don’t think I’d consider myself a Buddhist, but they have a lot of good ideas!
  
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