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By Dennis Hinkamp

Thanks to the Internet, we all have easy access to all the HD naughty that that bandwidth can stuff down the Internet chimney. What counts as nice is a little harder to define, even if you do check your list twice.

It's a little perverted that he knows when you're sleeping and when you're awake, but obviously not much gets by Santa's judgment. Santa's claws are definitely coming to town, so be good for goodness sake. No, be good because it's the right thing to do.

But really? Trying to make it through a week, much less a Christmas season, takes so much effort. Giving money, food and volunteer time are quantifiable, but just being nicer than naughty on a daily basis is harder to measure. Here are a few exercises to help you increase your quantity of nice.

1. Think twice. Speak or write once. If there is anything worthwhile to be learned from the Wikileaks fiasco it is that the electronic written word stays around forever and can't be hidden. Whether it is some hackers on the other side of the world or an ex-friend who decides to hit the forward button on their email, what you write will follow you forever. So learn a lesson and try to be nice to begin with and save your snarky remarks for face-to-face conversations.

2. Tell your inner voice to shut up. Realize that what you call intuition is generally a petulant brat who still wants that pony and the last piece of cake. Speaking your mind and deciding on an impulse rarely ends well.

3. Take 30 minutes a week to wallow in shame and regret, then move on. The self-esteem movement and power of positive thinking have given us a false impression of ourselves. You don't really need to share your shame and regret with the world or even your spouse, but you do need to get in touch with your inner guilt and failure if you want to be a nicer person. I personally have whole decades that rival the Dark Ages for un-accomplishment.

4. Be kind to those in sales. This is the hardest one for me. Waiting in traffic, checkout lines and circling parking lots are all the price we pay for an economy measured by sales figures. Until some imagined future changes this, we might as well be civil to the lowliest on the economic food chain.

5. Say thank you (sincerely) 10 times a day. Thank you goes a long, long way. It is so simple that we often forget it. We all do mind-numbing repetitive stuff and in many cases even get paid for it. But that doesn't mean we don't like to hear an occasional thanks. Pick some hard ones to thank, such as cops, city hall and anyone who works for the tax commission. Then thank the utility company that you have water, heat and electricity.

Can you imagine the chaos it would cause if everyone wrote "thanks" on their utility bill checks?

Dennis Hinkamp lives in Logan.