Kindness and discernment belong in the same room.

Kindness without judgment gets exploited; judgment without kindness gets cold. The two are not opposites and needing both is not a compromise. You can be genuinely warm toward someone and clear-eyed about whether this particular help is a good idea.

When you feel torn between being nice and being sensible, look for the version that is both. Usually it exists: a smaller offer, a different form of help, a warm no. That version is harder to find and much better than either extreme.