I strive to be kind to everyone I interact with

Everyone is the difficult part. Kindness costs nothing with people you like and roughly everything with the man on the phone from the energy company, reading the same script for the fortieth time today.

Striving allows for failure, which is realistic. You will be short with somebody before Friday. That is the ordinary rate and it is not a reason to abandon the project.

The good mood was never the test. The second time the same person asks the same question — that is the test.