On Being Nice (The School of Life Library)

need to perform with ourselves and with others. We need to imagine the turmoil, disappointment, worry and sadness in people who may outwardly appear merely aggressive. We need to aim compassion in an unexpected place: at those who annoy us most.

the belief that the nice can’t be sexually desirable, because the qualities that make us sexy are bound up with the possession of brutal, domineering, confident edges at odds with the tenderness and cosiness of the nice. Once

The less we like ourselves, the more we appear in our own eyes as plausible targets for mockery and harm.

The theory goes like this: every strength that an individual has brings with it a weakness of which it is an inherent part. It is impossible to have strengths without weaknesses. Every virtue has an associated weakness. Not all the virtues can belong together in a single person.

When we carry an excess of self-disgust around with us, operating just below the radar of conscious awareness, we constantly seek confirmation from the wider world that we really are the worthless people we take ourselves to be. The expectation is almost always set in childhood, where someone close to us is likely to have left us feeling dirty and

Here what we tend to be short of is charity of interpretation: that is, a kindly perspective on the weaknesses, eccentricities, anxieties and follies that we present but are unable to win direct sympathy for.

Perhaps the most instructive question we can ask – the one that teaches us most about the value of affectionate teasing – is simply: what do I need to be teased about?

The temptation is to be stern and cruel back, but the only way to diminish the vicious cycle of hate is to address its origins, which lie in suffering. There is no point punching back. We must – as the old prophets always told us – learn to look upon our enemies with sorrow, pity and, when we can manage it, a forgiving kind of love.

Friendship begins, and loneliness can end, when we cease trying to impress, have the courage to step outside our safety zones and can dare, for a time, to look a little ridiculous.