Nice vs Kind, Inspired by the French
Boujour Soul Dive,
I’m back. After two weeks on the Mediterranean, I’ve returned to the desert. I’ll be honest, I wasn’t ready to come home. As much as I missed our beautiful community, the salt and sunshine of the Mediterranean is my eternal happy place. I am fully in my element when I’m on the sea, in any country really, but especially France. If someday I go back and don’t return, just know it’s not you, it’s entirely me.
I was solo for about half of my trip and had incredible experiences, met wonderful people, and was reminded why I love traveling alone so much. My thoughts are shared on Instagram if you’re curious to see them.
Of all the things I did, saw, and experienced, the one that stuck out the most to me was, culturally, how kind the people are in France. Now the French, in my experience, aren’t globally known for their ‘nice’ personalities. The French are proper, sophisticated, at times rude and unless you ask 5 times, not all that accommodating. What the French lack in niceness, they more than makeup for in kindness. I can relate. I see myself wholeheartedly in French people. Their love of hospitality, perfection, and delivering the best possible experience they can. Attention to detail, style, and service are at the top of their deliverance. While they excel at all of this and more, I wouldn’t reach for the word nice to describe them. But I would absolutely label it kind.
Nice is defined as pleasant, agreeable, and satisfactory. Nice doesn’t land for me personally and it certainly doesn’t land for the French. Kind is defined as being generous, helpful, and thinking of others. Gentil is the French word for kind, and oh how that resonates.
This became most evident during the time my mom was with me. Each and every person we came into contact with - from the hotel concierge to the shop owner to the beach club servers to the restaurant staff - every single person not only took my mother by the arm but celebrated her age.This is generosity of time, personalized attention, and not only thinking of her, but ensuring my experience wasn’t compromised by worrying about my mom’s each and every step.
She was nobody’s burden,
especially not mine, and at every turn the French made her feel like absolute royalty. She was escorted to the restroom, never rushed to get out of the way and always handled with extreme care. This is kind.
This kindness was not only comforting but massively inspiring. We don’t treat elders this way in America. We have such an opportunity to celebrate people of age in our country and we simply don’t, or at least from my perspective don’t do it enough. Witnessing a culture that again, is not known as nice, cherishing and glorifying the elders was heartwarming and gave me hope. We have so much to learn from the French, far beyond their outstanding culinary and wine offerings. The French really celebrate the human experience.
While nice is well, nice… Kindness is what counts. Being clear, direct, and forthcoming is not always nice, but it is certainly kind. Living according to your values and principles and refusing to compromise when something threatens to dilute them is kind. It’s showing up for who you are and what you believe in. Don’t get me wrong, we need nice people around as well. But nice to me is passive, and perhaps why we look around and see men wearing flip-flops and baseball hats at nice restaurants (PSA - the French won’t let you sit down in that attire, no matter how nice you are).
There’s always been something about being overly nice that rubbed me the wrong way. I remember telling my parents that one of their friends was just ‘too nice.’ Rest assured young Alex, those words will never be said about you darling! As much as nice is delightful and easy, and often one of the sought-after traits we look for in a romantic partner, kindness is what moves my heart.
As a celebration of how impactful I feel it is to be kind, Soul Dive is collaborating with Be Kind Vibes to create an exclusive apparel piece that is only available in the Soul Dive studio. Kindness is not only one of our values at Soul Dive Yoga, it’s one of my defining principles as well.
Big Love,