A Rose By Any Other Name

I was gently taken to task several weeks ago by a friend who had been avoiding my blog because of the title.  She was afraid that it would be all anger and sarcasm which was something she didn't really want invited into her life.  She gently suggested that maybe it was time in my journey to perhaps change the name of my blog, because she found my title and content so energetically counter-intuitive.  Basically she felt I was a nice person with a not very nice name for my musings and it gave the wrong impression.  On one level she is correct, the current blog title might be better served by being changed to Dilettante At Large or something similar.

Her comments sent me to the dictionary to look up the meaning of "nice".  Agreeable, pleasing, accommodating (ok, this last one is a personal definition).  The title of the blog came during a difficult time of divorce, breast cancer and death of the father of my children and a bunch of other nasty things that caused a couple of friends to offer to do a black cloud exorcism for me.  I had moved through life trying to be agreeable, pleasing and accommodating, it just wasn't working.  I was tired of being nice and doing what others wanted or trying to live to someone else's desires.  Call it boundaries or setting limits (as a retired therapist I hate terms like boundaries and issues but that is a different story), but I think it is about having the confidence and the courage to say "no" or "no thank you".  I seemed to be really good about helping others define themselves and establish a life they wanted but no so good at helping myself do the same thing.  I'm not looking to pick a fight, but I am tired of colluding with others in my personal life regarding fictions of behavior, responsibility, and actions.  I think too often women have been taught to keep quiet, go along, be nice, accommodate.  We are rewarded for these appeasement behaviors and called nasty names when we say "no thank you or I don't think I agree with that",  bitch and ball breaker come to mind. 

I'm reminded of the Emperor has no clothes tale.  This idjit is parading down the street starkers and everyone is admiring his clothes except for the little boy that says "Look, the Emperor has no clothes."  Now I'm sure every woman in the crowd knew he didn't have any clothes on because woman are genetically designed with a clothes/shopping gene which notices these kinds of things, but they were to nice to say anything or didn't want to be called bad names for speaking up.  But the little boy, being a man in training, doesn't have to watch his mouth and probably grew up to be a gay male fashion designer since he actually noticed the emperor wasn't wearing anything.

 I am a huge fan of civility and wonder where its gone these days and I don't like the cult of rudeness that has grown up in social media and conversations, however, this doesn't mean I don't have voice and a backbone, and sometimes I'm tired of being nice - "Dude your naked!"