“You’re so nice!” I’ve been the recipient of that compliment more times in my life than I can remember. While I treasure those words at this age, I wasn’t always so excited to hear what I considered to be a generic accolade when I was younger.
I can remember a distinct incident involving that phrase when I was in 7th grade attending a small Catholic school. Our teacher, a wonderful sister with the Franciscan Sisters of Christian Charity, had an assignment for the 35 students in our class. We were given a sheet of paper with the names of each of our classmates typed down the left column and down the right column.
After each name on the left, we were told to write one “not-so-great” thing about that classmate. In the other column, we were told to write one complimentary thing about that classmate. All comments were anonymous. When we got back to school after the weekend, Sister had compiled a paper for each student that listed the not-so-great things about themselves on the left-hand side of the page and the complimentary things about themselves on the right-hand side.
The left side was food for thought for a lot of us. The right side was heart-warming. We spent a lot of time trying to guess who wrote what about us. I heard years later at a class reunion that many of our classmates still had those typed compliments. Some of the guys even carried that list with them in their wallets to that day.
As for me, other than the words from the class bully — who wrote mean things about me in both columns (you can read more about this event and what I did with my list in my book Anything But Groovy), the vast majority of the complimentary statements said the same thing. “She’s nice.”
Those words sounded like something someone would say if they barely knew another person. So bland. I’d gone to school with these kids since I was in first grade, couldn’t they think of something more original to say about me?
In the 40-plus years since then, I’ve noticed a pattern. When someone mentions me, the word nice comes up again and again. It was gratifying to hear but still made me feel like the Plain Jane Girl Next Door.
At some point not too long ago, it hit me that being called nice was probably the highest compliment someone could give me. Nice ranked right up there with being called kind. From that moment on, I embraced being the nice person. It became my identity. I went out of my way to live up to that title and be the nicest person I could be.
Anyone remember the church hymn, They Will Know We Are Christians By Our Love (a great ‘70s guitar Mass favorite). My version is They Will Know I Am Catholic By How Nice I Am. Not quite as catchy, but it resounds with me. And you know what? If someday the epithet on my gravestone reads, “AMANDA LAUER She Was Nice,” I’ll feel that I’d completed God’s mission for my life.