I’m so tired of just being the good girl all of the time. I’m tired of being seen as the nice girl. Now, that isn’t to say that I’m not going to be a kind human. It’s just that that I won’t always be so nice to everyone I meet at this point. There is a difference – and it’s very important to make that distinction.
When people are nice to you, it might be because they are trying to get something out of you. But people who are inherently kind are just kind for the sake of being kind. There’s nothing behind that kindness that anyone could deem bad or toxic.
However, niceness can be used to mask something terrible. And I don’t want to be masking anything about me anymore. I’m not going to play nice. I don’t want to be doing harm in the name of good.
There are so many innocent girls all over the world who are told that they need to earn society’s respect and approval by living up to certain standards. Girls are always taught to behave. Girls are always made to believe that they have to subdue themselves.
Girls are made to think that in order for them to be deemed as good girls, they have to always just go with the flow – they must always be willing to say yes to everything that anyone else might tell them. They are taught to blindly conform – because that’s what society says constitutes good behavior.
These girls are made to think that their feelings and emotions are invalid. They are made to believe that they aren’t allowed to have independent thoughts. They are made to think that they just need to always swallow their pride; that they need to see themselves as lowly people if they want to gain the trust of others. They need to please as many people as possible; and the very idea of offending anyone is just downright terrible.
But sometimes, that’s just not who I am. Sometimes, I have to offend people in order for me to get my point across. Sometimes, I need to be able to express my feelings and thoughts because I know that they’re aren’t invalid. Sometimes, I don’t like to conform to whatever society is dictating on me.
Sometimes, I don’t want to behave – because I don’t want to be complicit in something that I don’t totally believe in. I don’t want to just go with the flow. I want to forge my own path. I don’t want to just keep on saying yes to things even when I want to say no.
I don’t want to keep on pleasing people I don’t really care for. I don’t need to earn everyone’s respect and praise. And if thinking all of those things makes me a bad girl, then I accept it. I own up to it. I don’t want to be a good girl anymore.
The problem with being a good girl all the time is that they are taught to be weak. They are led to believe that they don’t have anything substantial to offer the world. They are told to quiet down because their voices have no weight. They are made to think that they aren’t people of value; people of importance.
The problem with being a good girl is that so many other people just tend to treat them like doormats. They walk all over them because they know that the good girl is never going to resist. They know this because the good girl has always been taught to never resist; the good girl is always taught to submit and to behave.
And I’m not looking to be a doormat. I don’t want to have people walk all over me. I don’t want people to be using me and abusing me however they see fit. I am my own person and I get to decide the kind of person I want to be. I don’t have to conform to whatever society is trying to sell to me.
I don’t want to be a good girl who has to keep on apologizing even when I know that I have the moral high ground. I don’t want to be the good girl who just lets guys use me in ways that make me feel uncomfortable. I don’t want to be the good girl who just shuts up and lets other get ahead of me. I don’t want to be a spectator to my own life. I want to take control. I want to own up to my life. And if going after what I want makes me a bad girl, then so be it.
Being good is overrated. It’s about being great that matters. And you can’t be great if you have to fake being nice to everyone.
