Kindness Still Needs Boundaries: Tuesday Morning with Lynn

By Linda Pritchard August 18th 2026

There is something I have been thinking about for a long time: When does helping someone stop being helpful?

I believe in helping people. I always have.

I also believe that in a country as prosperous as ours, we should care whether people

have food to eat and a safe place to sleep. I truly believe that when people have their basic needs met, communities can become healthier and safer.

But I have also learned something through owning a business and working with people for many years:

Giving everything away for free is not always good for the person receiving it—or for the person giving it.

That may not be a popular thing to say, but it is something I have experienced personally.

Over the years, I have been extremely generous with employees, customers, students, volunteers, and people I believed were going through difficult times. Sometimes that generosity was appreciated. Other times, unfortunately, it seemed to create an expectation that there should always be more.

I once had an employee whom I helped over and over again. I gave more than I probably should have because I cared about her and wanted to help. Eventually, instead of creating appreciation, it seemed to create expectations and resentment. That experience hurt me, but it also taught me an important lesson about boundaries.

I have seen the same thing happen in much smaller ways.

Years ago, I found an incense that I loved. It smelled wonderful, and I enjoyed giving samples to customers so they could experience it themselves.

One day, a customer thanked me for introducing her to it and then happily told me that she had gone home and ordered it online.

I remember thinking, I just gave you this product for free, introduced you to something you loved, and instead of coming back to support the small business that helped you discover it, you purchased it somewhere else.

She probably never intended to hurt my feelings. In fact, she may not have even realized why it mattered.

But for a small business, it matters.

There are employees to pay. There is electricity, insurance, inventory, taxes, maintenance, advertising, and countless expenses customers never see.

A small business cannot survive by giving everything away.

I have also exchanged services for people's time when they have volunteered or helped with something. I have offered gift cards, services, classes, and other things because I wanted people to know that I valued their time.

Yet there have been occasions when someone received hundreds of dollars' worth of services and later complained about having to pay for something else.

Those experiences caused me to rethink what generosity really means.

I still believe in helping people.

I simply no longer believe that helping someone always means giving something away for free.

Sometimes helping means giving someone an opportunity.

Sometimes it means giving a discount.

Sometimes it means teaching them something.

Sometimes it means listening.

Sometimes it means quietly helping someone who truly needs it.

And sometimes helping means saying, “This is what my work is worth.”

There is nothing wrong with expecting people to respect your time, education, experience, employees, products, and business.

I have spent decades learning, working, building, making mistakes, getting back up, and continuing forward. Like every small-business owner, there are things behind the scenes that customers will never see.

That doesn't mean I have stopped being generous.

It means I am learning that generosity needs boundaries.

Because when we constantly give without boundaries, we don't always teach appreciation. Sometimes, without meaning to, we teach expectation.

And there is a very big difference between the two.

I believe we can be compassionate and have boundaries.

We can help people and value our work.

We can care about those who are struggling without believing that everything should be free.

Maybe the healthiest kind of giving is not giving until we are empty.

Maybe it is helping where we genuinely can, while still teaching one another to appreciate the time, work, and kindness behind what we receive.

Kindness should never disappear. But neither should gratitude.

Love you all Lynn Pritchard