'Nice people are seldom successful and successful people are seldom nice'- how much is it true?

I have often heard people say that ‘nice people are seldom successful and successful people are seldom nice’ but I have no faith in such kind of a statement. I firmly believe that people can be nice as well as successful and that too not just ‘seldom’  instead it could even be a contrary case, that is, only nice people can be truly successful.

But, there lies an ambiguity in the statement . This ambiguity has a very close connection to how one defines the terms ‘nice’ and ‘successful’. If we go by the dictionary, the term ‘nice’ means ’good-natured’, ‘kind’, ‘good -looking’, etc  while the term ‘successful’ means ‘having achieved an aim or purpose’ or ‘having gained wealth or status’.

So if we go by the meaning of being ‘good natured’ or ‘kind’ ,of the term ‘nice’,then if we ponder upon the probability of such a person to be ‘successful’, we see that there is no relation between  ‘nice’ and ‘successful’ with respect the two meanings described of ‘successful’. I mean ,there have been many barbaric people in history who were neither ‘kind’ nor ‘good natured’ yet they gained lots of wealth and became famous (or rather infamous),that is, they achieved a high status (although in bad terms) in history or in other words they became successful (according to the definition). On the contrary, we may also say that a ‘nice’ person (defined as good natured or kind)  may not become successful, that is, ‘gain wealth or status’ or ‘achieve an aim or purpose’, just because he does not have any well focused aim in life or desire for wealth or status.

Now , when we go by the meaning – ‘good looking’ of the term ‘nice’, we can straightaway say that it has no direct relation to being successful. I mean, that just because a person is ‘good looking’ will he achieve wealth or status or some aim of his own. Obviously not! But , but, but, if someone has a doubt that can’t a good looking lady achieve or status by marrying a wealthy man having high status, then let me tell that aspect of success is not under discussion. I am discussing success achieved through one’s own labour. Still there is a slight ambiguity as I say this. The ambiguity is that would being ‘nice’ (good looking) not asset a person to climb heights (achieve success) in the fields like cinema, beauty contests, etc. It is true but as I said above that there is no ‘direct’ relation between being ’good looking’ and ‘successful’, it is also true that if that person does not have the talent required for that field then he won’t achieve any such success. So , we may also say that being nice may asset in being successful which contradicts the given statement that nice people are seldom successful.

So, it is now clear that being nice has no direct relation with being successful according to the terms defined as per the dictionary. In this way, we may say, that the given statement is incorrect or invalid.

Now, what is the thing that relates a person directly with success? It is the strong determination and passion towards one’s aim in life. It is the only thing by which a person can achieve success (varies according to the individual’s aim in life).

Now, let me discuss why I, in the starting, said that only nice people can be truly successful. For this the terms nice and successful have to be redefined at a deeper level. Here, the term ‘nice people’ is defined as the people with high moral values in life, an open minded mental state and a pure conscience (ideally speaking!) and the term ‘truly successful’ is defined as having achieved satisfaction and inner peace of mind in the later stages of life. We know many cases in which a person achieved great heights of success (here its dictionary meaning) but had horrible later stages of his life in which he had things varying from broken families, nervous breakdown, critical body health and in some cases complete madness.

One might think that after achieving heights of success why did he have such horrible stages of  life. This is because he did not have any quality of a ‘nice’ person viz. – high moral values, open mind and pure conscience.

So, he tried to achieve success by hook or by crook and in some cases took wrong paths to gain more and more wealth to achieve high status. But is all this wrongly and unwisely achieved wealth or status worth it? I don’t think so when one does not get satisfaction and inner peace of mind in his later life. That is why, I said that only nice people can be truly successful.