Pensieri - Key takeaways 1 of many

As I was saying in the previous post, is already time to wrap up and evaluate what I've learned.

It is true that all life is a learning experience, but some periods are denser than others. And this period taught me a lot, especially about myself, a person I used to know very well, but whose behaviour in the last months was so not typical of him (i.e: ME!) to surprise myself as well. Now, regardless of that...I feel there are more than a few things I learned. And I want to write them not only to share them, but also not to forget them!!

THe list is long so this post will be one of the many on the topic! Keep posted!

"BEING NICE IS DIFFERENT FROM BEING POLITE": Now this is something that I did not learn, but that someone taught me, in between (i think) my third and forth beer ten days ago (thanks Arnoldo for that - u r one of the smartest people around!). At first the distinction sounded strange to me but triggered a lot of thoughts in my mind on the day after.

Arnoldo is right, and this is extremely true. Polite people are just that - polite. We must not confuse kindness of heart with politeness, since politeness is just a superficial social behaviour, like many others, such as don't hit people in the streets or paying the bill at the restaurant. Politeness do not tell u anything about the REAL mind of a person, that is, does not tell you if the person is good or bad. I did not use to make the distinction between polite and nice, and that was a mistake, that also put me somehow in trouble. In the past I've been fooled by politeness deluding myself to see nicety behind it, whereas there was nothing than superficial politeness and nothing else

If anything, on the contrary, beware of extremely polite people, whose behaviour is always appropriate and have a smile and a good morning for everyone: more often than not they use this approach to hide their insecurity, their superficiality or even something worse. More direct people may hurt you sometimes, but you can more easily take them at face value - the super polite are difficult to get to know, have often something to hide and so trusting them could be....risky.

To sum up: nice people are those willing to sacrifice something of theirs to help you, so their drive is sincere. Polite people are just polite. Their behaviour tells nothing about who they are. Don't mistake the first with the latter. And in general, do not trust the latter