Kindness from somebody with no obligation to you lands differently than kindness from a friend, because nothing sits behind it except a decision they made. Those moments quietly set a default. Decades later people are still passing along something they got once from a person whose name they never learned.

You will be that stranger to somebody this month, most likely without noticing it happen. Give the directions properly, hold the thing, answer the question instead of shrugging. A minute of your time can set somebody’s whole idea of what people are generally like.