Tape Noise Diary

The Importance of Being Likable

There’s a popular saying that begins “If your not offending someone, you’re doing something wrong”. There’s a truth to that and the lesson behind that phrase is that you’re never going to satisfy everyone. But a lot of people use that to give themselves permission to be cynical jerks. Scott H Young’s post discusses this and how plain old niceness has been given a bad name.

Being nice. Nice isn’t wimpy, it’s just not being rude. Often people with lower confidence try to become more confident by being a jerk. Truly self-assured people don’t need to do this, so the most genuinely confident people are also often nicer.