being nice and doing the "right" thing

wow...so, in law school we often talk about "the relationship of the parties" meaning do the two parties in the lawsuit have some type of special ongoing social or business relationship that is worth being protected. it's one reason that parents have tort immunity from suits by their children, and why amicable settlements are preferred when dealing with long-term business relationships: if you sue somebody and get in a big fight, and the court starts making orders and forcing people to do things, chances are it's going to ruin the relationship. but at the same time, sometimes you just have to sue them anyway. sometimes the reason for the fight is, at least from the point of view of one of the parties, worth fighting about.

so, are you ready for me to tie this in with everyday non-lawyer-like life? here goes...

sometimes someone asks if they can come over and you say yes because you can't come up with a good reason to say no, even though that's what you want to say. sometimes you might say it because you know the person needs friends, or because you just don't want to be mean or rude. other times it might be because it's your best friend, or your girlfriend or something and you feel like it's your duty to say yes; because of the relationship you feel that person has a right to come over. but in the long run you being nice and saying yes when you feel like saying no might not really be the best thing. if you're really worried about the relationship and the rights of the other person don't they deserve your honesty about what you think and how you feel? especially if it's directly pertaining to them? if the relationship really ends up ending just because you felt trapped in it, wouldn't it maybe have been better to say no once in a while and have saved the relationship? maybe not. maybe it wasn't a relationship worth saving. but maybe a little honesty could have at least saved someone's feelings, even if the honest things weren't nice.

in law school they say that knowing the "right" thing to do isn't always easy. luckily, a lot of the time knowing how to be nice and do what's best is easy. smile at someone who looks sad, be nice to the person who needs a friend. but at some point "niceness" just isn't enough. maybe little things that seem not as nice sometimes can save you from having to do really big outright mean things in the end. if you talk to someone and are open and honest, you might never have a misunderstanding that you need to sue them over.

and maybe no matter what you do people will get hurt, so just do whatever you want...