Nice Broken People

I wonder how many nice people are broken.

I used to be a very self-sacrificing person. I would go out of my way to do things for other people, or be nice to other people, even to my own detriment on occasion. The reasons for that of course were varied, but two main ones come to mind. One, I genuinely enjoy making people smile...hearing "Oh, you didn't have to do that" and responding, "I know, but I wanted to," not from any ulterior motive, but because there is an honest joy in caring for the people around you. In some ways, too, being kind to others fights depression, because it helps you realize that, while depression is focused on self (not in a selfish way, though), making others happy makes you think about something else for a while.

The other reason is because I wanted people to like me, or to love me. Growing up Christian and especially Baptist taught me, purposefully or not, that love is a thing that you earn, and that it is perfectly acceptable to withhold love from someone who is unhappy with you. That may seem odd to you, since Christianity is supposed to be all about loving people no matter what. I don't pretend to understand it at all, but there it is. I thought, that if I was kind and did nice things for people, that they would like me. And, really, I was right. After all, nice people usually have friends, and I did meet a lot of people and made quite a few friends.

Eventually, as I grew, and healed, and became less broken (though by no means whole) I grew less nice. I still enjoyed (and do even to this day) doing nice things for people, and genuinely giving someone else joy still brightens my whole day. But I started doing it less and less. I began to realize that love and friendship should not be and are not based on how many nice things you do for the other person. A friendship that is based only on those things isn't a very deep or lasting relationship. And I learned that a true friend would accept me no matter what.

So now I'm more of a normal person. I'm not a "nice" person, not overtly. Sometimes I'm even kind of an asshole. But I'm more real, and I don't expect people to like or dislike me based on how many nice things I do or don't do for them. I expect people to love me for me. But I wonder, how many people are like I was? How many nice people are broken?