The Hamlet Project

People always say they don’t want to be all things to all people
Or is it that you can’t be all things to all people?
Anyway – you can’t.
I thought I could when I was young. See, I was nice.
I had the signs from the Student of the Week exercise to prove it.
Emily is nice. Emily is nice. Emily is nice.
Repeated ad infinitum by almost every student who had been compelled to write
Something positive about me.
And it was true.
I was nice.
And I thought being nice
Would keep me safe.
I thought I would be nice
And always and forever
That would mean
I would be for all.
That the world around me could disagree about religion
And politics and fashion
But they would all agree
That I was nice.
I was for everybody.
When that illusion burst,
It was devastating at first.
All that adjusting to please everyone
To accommodate the world
To fit myself newly into each new frame
Was for naught. Really I could have been for only a few all along,
Not for all,
But for those more precisely more deeply more exactly more truly more my own self –
Not just nice.