I looked up “kindness” in the dictionary, which says it means “being friendly, generous, and considerate”. I am usually polite and courteous, and I try to be friendly with the strangers that we all deal with on a daily basis, like sales clerks and wait staff, and I generally tip well when service is reasonably good.
However, I have observed that there is some truth to the old adage that if you “give them an inch, they’ll take a mile” in regards to people one deals with on a regular basis. For example, we have several patients who put off calling in to the last minute, and then want to be squeezed-in as if it were an emergency. If I don’t squeeze them in, they perceive me as unkind – but I am quick to remind them that it isn’t fair to the people who called and made their appointments weeks ago, if we overbook our schedules and run behind and stress ourselves out to the point that our overall service suffers.
As a parent, I learned to take a tough-love position, as well. I feel that caving-in and appeasing others may seem kind in the moment, but in the long run it does a disservice to the individuals involved and society as a whole if people expect to be indulged and pandered to all the time, as those indulged become more spoiled, and the “kind” ones develop resentments.