Say Something

The old saying goes, "If you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all."

Maybe this phrase satisfies the hearts of children and helps them think before they speak. Maybe it allows the most sarcastic and cynical adults to function among the moronic masses without losing their jobs or getting slapped. Maybe it reminds us that some situations call for patience and tactful words instead of brutal honesty.

Realistically, however, this simplistic phrase does not accurately reflect how the modern world works--for two reasons.

1. The word "nice" is absolutely meaningless. I usually say, "That's so nice!" when I literally have no positive feelings about something and I can't appropriately express myself. Like many expressions it has come to mean the opposite of its original. For example, two dudes are skateboarding and one scrapes his knee. He shows his bloody knee to his friend and the friend says, "Oooh, nice." Nice really does mean nothing, and it's almost inexcusable to use it in formal speech. When I was teaching middle school I reminded my students on a daily basis that "nice" should be removed from their vocabulary and replaced with... pretty much anything else in the "nice" spectrum. Nice is boring, nice is insincere, nice is hovering above the surface of an ocean of excellent synonyms.

2. If we took this phrase literally and only ever said nice things, the world as we know it would fizzle and disappear. Stories would never be told and a million lessons would go unlearned, no one would sing the blues in a beautiful baritone, and people would walk around with diseases because it's certainly not nice to say, "I'm sorry, sir, but you have The Bubonic Plague." Furthermore, marriage proposals are not "nice"--powerful, moving, but not nice. Pregnancy announcements, likewise, are not nice. Asking for a raise or you'll quit, telling the news of a relative's death, warning the country that the British are coming, or correcting a student's paper and writing 'F' at the top are all very not-nice things.

The reason I mention this is because in today's society everything you say in social networking circles or public domains can be criticized and crushed for the most insignificant reasons. Our friends, on the other hand, never say anything critical to us on these platforms simply because they want to show us support. (Siblings are not part of this equation.) We say nice (meaningless) things to our friends and rip apart strangers. It really should be the opposite.

We should say the not-nice things to our friends. To our families. We should give them words full of meaning and power, words to uplift them and encourage them grow. We should share thoughts that bring us closer together instead of keeping us at a comfortable distance. Our nice words--the ones that are polite, appropriate, and meaningless--save them for strangers.

There are so many words we use and things we say that are not nice but they are necessary. They sustain us! A life based on "nice" may be pleasant but it will be empty of meaning. And a life without meaning is no life. A nice life is detrimental to life. 

I don't want a nice life. I want an incredible one.