NICE is an acronym that stands for Never, Innocuous, Considerably, Extra. This seemingly incomplete nemonic device is best explained when broken down into two distinct parts.
Part one, “Never Innocuous” because nice things, as with all things, are never neutral. And while nice things attempt to position themselves as helpful or at the very least non-harmful, they do have an effect on us. Primarily, they make us crave more things of their nature. Once we get a taste for the nicer side, it’s hard to develop a distaste for it. This craving for nice things eventually causes us to structure our entire lives around getting more of them. We hunger for nice experiences. We chase after nice artifacts. We dream of nice conditions. So in this way, nice things are “Never Innocuous” because of the gravitational force created by their very existence.
Part two, “Considerably Extra” because niceties are never essential to the function of the artifact. When we label something as nice, the niceness is always tacked on, but is never itself utilitarian. So a nice thing is “Considerably Extra” because when we consider what the nice qualities are adding, we realize that if we had to, we could get on just fine without them.
To drive things home, here are a few examples of nice things that are also NICE. Premium desk chairs. Ice-cold drinks. Monoculture grass lawns. Luxury vehicles. Soundproof headphones. First class plane tickets. Expensive dinners. Blackout curtains. Leather wallets. Engineered pens. Specialty coffee. The list could go on for a while.
So while there is nothing wrong with enjoying or consuming nice things, we should remember that the distinction between nice and NICE is always up to us to determine—and always worth the mental bandwidth—regardless of how nice the thing at hand seems to be.