Kindness is hard work – and heart work

We all know the feeling. A frown at the counter. A sigh from the receptionist. A waiter who seems more interested in their phone than in you. Sometimes, hospitality feels very far away.

And honestly, it doesn’t feel good. We all want to be treated kindly, to be noticed, to feel welcome for a moment. But let’s also be fair to the other side of the counter. Kindness is not a switch you can turn on. It’s not an automatic smile. Kindness is hard work – and heart work

The effort behind kindness

Empathy takes energy. Attention requires focus. Real connection demands time and presence.
To be kind, you have to be there – with both head and heart. And that’s not always easy, especially on long days, with short nights, endless queues, and constant pressure. Sometimes, it just doesn’t work.

It’s easy to judge unkindness, but harder to see what lies beneath it. Fatigue. Stress. Frustration. Or simply a person having a difficult day. We often forget that behind every service provider is another human being doing their best, and sometimes falling short.

How kindness changes everything

The best response to unkindness is not more unkindness, but kindness itself.
A calm tone. A smile in return. A gentle word. Not because the other person necessarily deserves it, but because it works. Kindness mirrors. It softens tension and shifts the atmosphere.

True hospitality is not only found in perfect welcomes or polished service. It lives in the imperfect moments; in how we respond when things go wrong, when someone forgets, or when patience runs out.

The human side of hospitality

Hospitality is sometimes hard to find. But that’s often the very moment when we can offer it ourselves; in our reaction, in our choice to stay kind, even when it costs a little effort.

Because that might be the purest form of hospitality there is: showing humanity in a moment when it seems to have disappeared.