Russell McMahon wrote:

>>> What do you recommend for someone with chronic fatigue, who can't
>>> exercise, and has great trouble sleeping?
> 
>> If asked, I'd say a possible first step is to stop complaining, accept
>> whatever is and try to make the best out of it. And be happy with that,
>> as it still is more than many others have.
> 
> Now, it may just be a "lost in translation" issue but some people 
> could easily see this as saying, along with some good advice.
> 
> - you're a moaner.
> - you fail to accept your lot as you ought
> - eat your greens, the poor starving children in "...." would love to 
> have those to eat.
> - your mother wears army boots

You said one thing right: "some people could easily see this as saying
[fill in your preferred offense]". 

I don't know since when it was a good argument against anything that "some
people" could take it the wrong way. I guess you must go about pretty
purposefully in misrepresenting what I wrote, if you want to do so. There's
a context. There was a question, I answered. The question didn't give many
specific details, so the answer was pretty generic, too. The more specific
the question gets, the more specific the answer becomes. 

Another part of the context are the other messages I wrote in this thread.
In one I wrote:

> (However please don't misunderstand me. I don't want to say that this is
> a recipe how to judge /others/. It only works for looking at oneself, it
> doesn't work for looking at others.)

I almost feel as if I had to add this paragraph as some sort of disclaimer
to every message. Isn't common sense enough? Or do we have to get all PC
here?


> Gerhard may just want to put the same advice differently.

How? Why? There's a million ways to put it, but it all boils down to the
same: stop being greedy and start being grateful, stop thinking about what
you could have and start thinking about what you can give, ... Advice is
advice. It wasn't uncalled for advice either: it was requested by the
question. 

Of course, when talking (or writing) to a real person about the real
problems of that person, this could be phrased completely differently,
personally, taking into account the individual situation. But this is not
possible with such a generic question. I thought that was pretty much
obvious.

If I'm not mistaken (this since I'm responding to you :), there's some in
the Christian faith that boils down to the same. (Which I happen to think
is one of the brighter sides of Christianity.)

Gerhard

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