The world is what we make it, and the world can only be as good as we are in it. Welcome to the Only Child Diaries podcast. I'm your host, Tracy Wallace. Have you ever felt like you didn't receive the how-to brochure on life, that you didn't get enough guidance about major life issues? So did I. You don't have to be an only child to feel this way. In my podcast, we'll explore some of the best ways to better navigate adulting, while doing so with humor and light. Welcome everyone to the Only Child Diaries podcast.

Today, I'm going to talk about being nice. Yes, being nice. You know, today, actually, I was out and about and someone that I don't know told me at the end of our exchange that I had a nice energy, and then he walked away, and I have to say that that is what I strive for every day. I was very touched and very appreciative and a little shocked that a stranger would say this to me, but this is what I do strive for every day in my life, and it has been for quite a while, and so I was thrilled I really was, and it really it made my day, it made my week, made my month uh, being nice. So that's what I want to talk about today is being nice, having a good energy. I kind of see it as the same thing.

Philosophy is to try to be as kind and as pleasant and as patient as I can with other people. Now, do I always succeed at this? No, I don't, because sometimes people are difficult, sometimes people are challenging, let's face it right. So being nice is sometimes not always possible. I'm not always a pleasant person. Sometimes I'm hungry, sometimes I'm tired, sometimes I'm frustrated. And I admit, if people are just being stupid and that doesn't mean that they're stupid, they're just being stupid then I do have a hard time with that, because I can see when somebody is just acting stupid and I have a very short fuse for that. So again, I try with those people, with everybody, I try to be kind, I try to be patient, I try to be sensitive to other people's you know needs. I guess you would say I try to be thoughtful, I try to be supportive, I try to be a good communicator. Sometimes, you know, people don't quite see the situation for what it is and sometimes it helps if you try to kind of boil it down for them, right, if you try to explain what is really happening or you say, oh well, this is, you know, but there's a fine line between doing that and it being advice right. Don't give advice where it's not asked for or welcomed right, there's a fine line there. Asked for or welcomed right, there's a fine line there. So sometimes you can overstep your bounds as a stranger or another person in this world.

Now, when did this start? I wasn't always nice. I wasn't born nice. I mean, I didn't really have that, I guess, philosophy in my head. I think the first time I realized it was when I was working in retail, and that's when I was in my, you know, 18, 19, through what? 30, when I had my own store, at 30, when I had my own store, but especially when I was like 18 to 22 or so, I worked in a department store part-time while I was going to college and I found sometimes that if I went in with a negative attitude, that I would get negativity back. I mean a hundred percent, no questions. No, I would get negativity back. It just was a given. So what I tried to do and nobody taught me this, nobody told me this, I just figured this out on my own and I decided to try to do. It was to go into work and just to have the best possible opinion of everyone.

And if you've ever worked in retail, you know what I'm talking about. But if you haven't, for those of you that haven't worked in retail, there's different levels of retail. There there's clothing and makeup and hardware and everything right. There's all sorts of levels of retail. But I'm sure, like at a discount store, maybe it's a little bit harder and retail is not what it was when I was back in college. I mean, retail is so different and probably, oh, let's not forget a grocery store, which I mean retail is so different and probably, oh, let's not forget a grocery store.

But when I was working at a department store, and you know, especially in the clothing areas and I think some people that work in malls will agree with me that if you work in a clothing store, people will come back with things that they've obviously worn. People will come back with things that don't have the price tags on it or it's whatever, and they come back with ideas like, oh no, I just don't like it, or well, but you wore it, you know, or you swam in it or you, you know, we don't take back underwear or whatever, and people can get so incensed that the rules are that you know like you can't take back swimwear, for instance, right, because of hygiene issues. Well, nobody can get as mad as a disgruntled retail customer If you've ever worked in retail. There's just certain times when people are going to get ticked off. There's just certain times when people are going to get ticked off and so you have to try to deal with it with grace and love and patience.

So when I went through a string of bad days or weeks or months, even maybe, when I had the customers from hell come in to the store and I found myself so, so discouraged, I just tried to have a really good attitude that, okay, the next customer is going to be great, the next customer is going to be easy, the next customer is going to be my friend. You know thoughts like that and I. What I found was is that the customers turned out to be a lot easier to deal with. Now, was this always the case? No, but in general, the customer, the customer experience for me, dealing with people, went a lot smoother. So how much of it was me and how much of it was them, I'll never know, but it was a lot easier for me to deal with people when I went in with a good attitude.

The next level of my learning how to deal with people was and this may sound really silly and trite and like what, but it was watching Princess Diana when she was alive, because she was so concerned with taking care of people and being thoughtful and being compassionate and it really showed me that it's important to care for other people right, and to be compassionate and to be caring. And so after she died and I was very upset when she died because I just adored her and I loved her and was very supportive of her and I thought, you know, she was great. And so when she died, I was very upset. I I felt like a close friend had died and I was very, very upset. But I told myself that I wanted to be more like her and I wanted to be compassionate and I wanted to be caring. And so since then I've really tried to be more caring right, more concerned, more compassionate, and I think as I've gotten older, it's just been more important to me to be a better person for people, because that's just who I am and I don't.

I don't want to be mean to people, I don't like being mean to people now. Okay. Now there are instances when you you kind of have to be mean to people. You have to put people in their place. If they're rude to you, I to you. I'm not saying that if people are rude or hurtful or inappropriate, that you're supposed to take it. No, you have to stand your ground. But if people are just who they are and you're just interacting with them, it's okay to just be kind, right. So that's what I was doing today with this, when this person said that I had a good energy, and that's what I strive for every day when I interact with others.

How do you see yourself, how do you try to project yourself when you are around other people, whether it's your family or your friends or strangers? How do you project yourself when you're out in the world at large? I would like to know Send me a comment on my social media how do you try to better yourself and be a better person for other people? I think this is an important thing, because the world is what we make it, and the world can only be as good as we are in it. So I'll get off my soapbox now. That's all I've got for today, folks. Next week we'll tackle another topic together. I hope you'll join me. If you like this episode, please follow the Only Child Diaries podcast on Apple Podcasts or other platforms you might listen on and consider rating only child diaries and writing a review. It helps others to find us. Please share it with a friend you think might like it as well. Visit my Instagram page only child diaries or Facebook only child diaries podcast. Thanks for listening. I'm Tracy Wallace and these are the Only Child Diaries.