I have a disorder that is incompatible with living a comfortable life in the current system. Unfortunately it’s becoming less common, but there are people living in your street who will have it. Maybe even your friends, or someone in your family. Maybe you. It’s my deep shame. It’s why I will never be rich and successful. But probably why I am so deeply happy and why I am so full of love and care for other humans.
I have nicessism.
It’s defined by having no sense of entitlement, too much empathy and a failure to enjoy what you have without an awareness and a sense of responsibility for the suffering of others. It makes surviving in our capitalist system almost impossible. In fact a nicessist is completely at odds with the ‘take, take, take!’ approach encouraged by our economic model.
Nicessism makes you acutely aware of the impact of your choices on other people. It tells you that you can make a difference, and you should, and that profits don’t come before people. Nicessism is why my husband and I will work until we die.
Nicessism is exhausting; if you see something you must act – you cannot close your eyes to what is needed. When someone calls for volunteers you must step up. When someone is in need you must give. It’s a constant sense of connection and responsibility. You cannot take the parking spots of other people, even if you saw them first. You cannot drive past a hitchhiker if you have a space in the car. You cannot see someone fall, and not stop to help them up.
Nicessists don’t put their seat back when they are on a short domestic flight. They are aware of the discomfort of others. Just because there is a button doesn’t mean you are entitled to use it.
Nicessists don’t take the last cupcake. They go without.
Nicessists give their time. When they are asked to help they say, ‘Yes’. So they get asked to help all the time. This gives them less time to make money. Which they are shit at anyway. They can’t invest in anything unethical so they suck at the stockmarket.
Nicessists tend to work as teachers, nurses, paramedics or in aged care. Places where they do 16-hour shifts and don’t get paid properly. And when they complain no one listens because everyone knows they are niceissists and they’ll keep doing it until they burn out and die.
Nicessists don’t feel okay about 26 January being Australia Day. They don’t fly the Aussie flag on their front lawn.
Nicessists aren’t comfortable with offshore detention. They are appalled that we are the only country that does this and that people are suffering because our government prefers to argue about things like ‘jurisdiction’ instead of focusing on things like ‘humanity’.
Nicessists can’t destroy forests for mining or for profit-driven development of any sort. They know there are better solutions. They will tie themselves to trees and stop traffic. They will face imprisonment under NSW protest laws.
Nicessists can’t buy investment properties and put them on the short-term holiday market. Even though the financial return might benefit them, they think about things like: ‘Would I like to have people on holidays having parties night after night next door to me?’, or ‘If I use a residential house as a hotel then I am taking a house out of the market that someone could have made into a home. I’d be taking away the chances for someone else to feel security. What if a woman has to live in her car because she can’t find a rental and my home could have been hers?’.
A nicessist would see their role in the erosion of community. ‘If we don’t keep more of our houses for the community, then who will cut the oranges up for the nippers? Or coach the netball team? Or be a nurse at the local hospital?’.
Nicessists can’t buy houses in towns with the worst homelessness rates outside of a capital city and then rent them out for fast turnover profits. They don’t feel that having money and being able to do such things means that they will. In fact, they think the opposite.
Nicessists think that having money and opportunity means you should be making better decisions; more ethical ones, because you can afford to.
When people who have lots of money also have Nicessism, they do some bloody incredible things. Nicessists with money are scary; if there were enough of them all over the world, they could break capitalism.
That’s why the system lures the wealthy in and indoctrinates them into the mindset that allows them to justify profiteering at the expense of the environment or community. The system destroys nicessists and keeps them poor.
Capitalism hates nicessism.
But fortunately for capitalism people with nicessism understand that.
For four decades The Echo has printed the stories some people loved, some people hated, and some pretended not to read. If you want us to keep telling the truth, the real truth, not the sugar-coated version. We’ll need your support to keep the presses rolling. 
