100nm

More than a decade later I can still hear this line in my head as if I saw it today. My brother and I (both adults now) will still occasionally call each other and answer the phone with: "Retuuurn the slaaab".

In a professional setting, I think a reputation for kindness can make you more likely to be the target of an acute malicious action by someone who wants to take advantage of that kindness or use it to paint you in a negative light. Someone who is unscrupulous may mistake kindness for weakness and think a kind person is an easy target. I think it takes a little extra effort for a kind person to be aware of this and protect themselves against it. Otherwise, there might be a risk of being chronically taken advantage of.

Ultimately, I think kindness is both a sign of and a source of professional strength. In the long run, over the course of an entire career, people who are unkind develop bad reputations and limit themselves professionally because people eventually can find out how they really are. Many professional communities are relatively small when you get down to it, and word gets around about who you don’t want to work with. A person who spends their career treating others with respect and lifting up those around them will have a supportive network of colleagues who know their quality.

Kindness may put a target on your back, but I think it makes you stronger and more successful if you know how to leverage the fruits of your kind actions.

Do you think kindness is something that can be taught after someone reaches adulthood? Do you think there are effective ways to incentivize an unkind person to learn to be kind and change their behavior?

Thank you for your thorough and informative answer!

Hi Drs. Hovik and Love. Thanks for doing this AMA. My understanding is that chronic and acute stress can have similarities and differences with respect to their physiological and mental impact. The health impacts of chronic stress may be more insidious and harder to spot, at times. What are some indicators that chronic stress has become a medically relevant problem to the point that it should be discussed with a medical professional? What type of medical professional would be a reasonable first point of contact to start pursuing solutions to chronic stress?