Throughout the course of our lives, we all have opportunities to decide who we are and how we want to treat people. One of the biggest decisions that we have to make is whether or not we want to live our lives for others or for ourselves.

There is a striking difference between a person who is kind and a person who is nice. We live in a day in age where saying someone is nice has become one of the most commonly heard compliments, but you rarely ever hear someone say that someone else is kind. In doing so, we have slowly begun to forget the importance of being truly, deeply, kind to one another.

Nice by definition is someone who is pleasant, someone who does the right thing. Kindness is a heart change. It is dependent on your character as a whole and not defined by your outward actions.

Nice is the friend who calls you when they hear something bad happened, to make sure you are alright. Kind is the person who silently prays for you, and continues to make sure you're okay without being prompted, even after all the craziness has calmed down.

Kind is person who does kind things without the hope of getting recognition. Nice is the person who needs recognition in order to feel they did nice things.

Nice is the friend who tells you that they think your significant other is great even though they know otherwise. Kind is the friend who tells you the truth even if it means hurting you.

Niceness is something that can be faked. It is something that can be impure and done with an impure mind. Whereas, kindness comes from the goodness of your heart. It is something you do on a daily basis. It is a way of life, a personality trait. It is something that is done out of selflessness.

There is nothing wrong with being nice. But nice stops after the initial good deed. It is a trait that comes and goes. It is something that you can choose to do when the going gets easy, but refuse to do when the going gets tough.

Focus on the motivation of the two actions; it is easy to see that a person who is nice is externally motivated. They are motivated by the way their actions appear and benefits that it will bring them.

A person who is kind is internally motivated. They choose to focus on doing the right thing, rather than what doing the right thing will do for them. They are filled with a need to be generous and helpful towards others with little concern as to what this generosity will bring to them.

Kindness isn't always easy. Sometimes it means being honest when you don't want to be, rather than lying to spare someone's feelings. Sometimes it means you have to be the bad guy, or show tough love towards someone to help them understand that whatever they're doing is not good for them. A kind person doesn't always get the acknowledgment they deserve, but recognizes that being kind was all the recognition that they need.