Quote:
Originally Posted by Brutha  Do you think it would be more effective to receive advice from someone who had the same weaknesses and strength that you have than from someone who has different?
If you do what you have always done, you will get the results you have always gotten. |
I realize people have their strengths and weaknesses. The counselors strength is probably career advice, her weakness is her indiscipline in weight managment. Ofcourse, I have the opposite strenghs and weaknesses. If the advice was something practical, like how to write a good resume, then none of this would have mattered. BUT, the advice was of a moral nature, "How to live one's life?", "How to find meaning in one's work?", "How to balance one's career and other aspirations?". Moral advice requires personal example of being an overall good person. It is "holistic" advice, the merits of it are judged based on the whole person giving the advice. (moral advice is necessarily personal advice because there are infinite number of way of being good, there is no one true way, advice isn't "out there" to be discovered - a part of reality itself, a person giving moral advice is telling you something about themselves, how it has made them an awesome person, but if they seem to be not so awesome, then how is the advice to be taken? Maybe take the counselors as simply people who impart impersonal opinions by various authorities showing you different ways of thinking? Why not cite their sources then, the people who've actually made it work? That would certainly be the honest thing to do)
Now, a person has their strengths and weaknessess. If they have either
solved their weakness or
resolved it -- for an obese person
solving this would mean losing weight,
resolving would mean realizing that there is a weakness which is difficult to solve, and so unconditionally accepting the weakness, and handling all the judgments that come with being fat with humor, and never complaining about being fat ever again, the problem has been RESOLVED or SOLVED, the problem no longer exists, the fat person can now move onto other problems. THAT is a WHOLE person, he can handle/accept his weaknesses with humor and tact, he can be strong in what his strenghs are, he can give MORAL ADVICE.
BUT, for most obese people, their obesity is a FESTERING problem (and perhaps aided by the media portrayal of fat people), they are constantly WOUNDED when any seemingly negative judgement is made of their weakness, they cannot handle it with genuine humor (as opposed to the tension-relieving kind of humor) because they have neither solved nor resolved their problem.
These 5 counselors, from their behavior seemed to be the defensive, easily wounded sort - probably not all obese counselors are like this - but the aggregation of so much such people in one room, ready to impart
moral advice, the only thing they are probably not personally-on their own merits- qualified for, does seem strange to me.
ANYWAYS, I hope my problem is "resolved". I'll see you on the other side. Happy New Year
