“He was the only actor I ever knew that more often than not when fans came up to him, of any age or race or gender, they wouldn't ask for an autograph, they'd want a hug. He had a heart as big as the world,” Dan Spilo, manager to the late actor Michael Clarke Duncan was quoted as saying on his passing away on September 3, 2012.
The first time I came to know about Michael was when I saw him act in the movie The Green Mile and he made a big impression on me. Though the character he played was that of a gentle giant, it was surprising to read in obituaries that he was this way in real life too. Even more commendable, on reading further about him, was his affable nature despite the numerous hardships he faced in his early years such as making a living by digging ditches for a gas company.
Invariably, hardships turn many into bitter and ill-tempered individuals. But not Michael, it seems.
This made me think what a wonderful man he must have been and I wonder why it is so difficult for most of us, especially those who have a lot and a lot going good, to be nice to others.
With every passing day and generation, it seems the trait of being nice is becoming rare; especially in cities.
We could find a variety of reasons to justify why people are not nice to others -- a dysfunctional family life, jilted in love, a troubled marriage, a hard life.
The challenge is to achieve mental equilibrium; to cultivate good qualities. And the decisive question is -- how do we want people to behave with us? Nicely, I am sure.
It all boils down to a choice we have to make and there is so much to learn from Michael and others like him who chose to be nice when they had so many reasons for being otherwise.
Most of us are fortunate in experiencing the feeling of someone being nice to us, perhaps on a daily basis – it could be our spouse, a favourite senior at work or a peer and friend. But how many times has a stranger or a boss we do not get along with been nice to us and vice-versa?
According to a review of a book titled The meaning of nice: how compassion and civility can change your life (and your world), by Joan Duncan Oliver, the meaning of the term nice has many connotations and there are many qualities such as being generous, kind, compassionate, etc., which encompass it.
In my formative years, O’Henry’s short story The Last Leaf made a deep impression on me, taught me what it means to be nice and inspired me.
Sue and Joanna share an apartment in the Greenwich Village area of New York. Joanna falls sick and contracts pneumonia. She loses the will to live and says that when the last leaf of the dying ivy tree, which clings to the outside wall of her bedroom window, falls, she would die. Sue mentions this to their downstairs neighbour, an elderly struggling artist, Mr. Behrman; who is a failure at art and hopes to paint a masterpiece someday. He gets deeply disturbed to learn about Joanna’s illness and her fatalistic thought and plans to do something about it. Behrman decides to paint the ivy tree with one remaining leaf on it and places it outside the window of Joanna’s room in the night. When she wakes up in the morning and sees that the last leaf has not fallen, she is reassured, realises her folly and resolves to live. However, Behrman falls sick because of his exposure to the cold in the night and dies. He sacrifices his life for another by his act of being nice.
Can we be nice to a stranger by offering assistance or any form of help and can we be nice to a colleague we do not get along with? If we can, then we have succeeded in overcoming the difficulty of being nice and added a powerful trait to our character and life.
The trait of being nice is indeed a life-enhancing quality which, if practiced often, can not only be life-changing for recipients but also for those being nice.
Copyright © Tarun Dalaya
The first time I came to know about Michael was when I saw him act in the movie The Green Mile and he made a big impression on me. Though the character he played was that of a gentle giant, it was surprising to read in obituaries that he was this way in real life too. Even more commendable, on reading further about him, was his affable nature despite the numerous hardships he faced in his early years such as making a living by digging ditches for a gas company.
Invariably, hardships turn many into bitter and ill-tempered individuals. But not Michael, it seems.
This made me think what a wonderful man he must have been and I wonder why it is so difficult for most of us, especially those who have a lot and a lot going good, to be nice to others.
With every passing day and generation, it seems the trait of being nice is becoming rare; especially in cities.
We could find a variety of reasons to justify why people are not nice to others -- a dysfunctional family life, jilted in love, a troubled marriage, a hard life.
The challenge is to achieve mental equilibrium; to cultivate good qualities. And the decisive question is -- how do we want people to behave with us? Nicely, I am sure.
It all boils down to a choice we have to make and there is so much to learn from Michael and others like him who chose to be nice when they had so many reasons for being otherwise.
Most of us are fortunate in experiencing the feeling of someone being nice to us, perhaps on a daily basis – it could be our spouse, a favourite senior at work or a peer and friend. But how many times has a stranger or a boss we do not get along with been nice to us and vice-versa?
According to a review of a book titled The meaning of nice: how compassion and civility can change your life (and your world), by Joan Duncan Oliver, the meaning of the term nice has many connotations and there are many qualities such as being generous, kind, compassionate, etc., which encompass it.
In my formative years, O’Henry’s short story The Last Leaf made a deep impression on me, taught me what it means to be nice and inspired me.
Sue and Joanna share an apartment in the Greenwich Village area of New York. Joanna falls sick and contracts pneumonia. She loses the will to live and says that when the last leaf of the dying ivy tree, which clings to the outside wall of her bedroom window, falls, she would die. Sue mentions this to their downstairs neighbour, an elderly struggling artist, Mr. Behrman; who is a failure at art and hopes to paint a masterpiece someday. He gets deeply disturbed to learn about Joanna’s illness and her fatalistic thought and plans to do something about it. Behrman decides to paint the ivy tree with one remaining leaf on it and places it outside the window of Joanna’s room in the night. When she wakes up in the morning and sees that the last leaf has not fallen, she is reassured, realises her folly and resolves to live. However, Behrman falls sick because of his exposure to the cold in the night and dies. He sacrifices his life for another by his act of being nice.
Can we be nice to a stranger by offering assistance or any form of help and can we be nice to a colleague we do not get along with? If we can, then we have succeeded in overcoming the difficulty of being nice and added a powerful trait to our character and life.
The trait of being nice is indeed a life-enhancing quality which, if practiced often, can not only be life-changing for recipients but also for those being nice.
Copyright © Tarun Dalaya
