Credit Where Credit Is Due for Tamsyn Lewis.

Recently I did a blog on Tamsyn Lewis and about how when she was being unfairly treated by some people, that she never gave up, but even now is still being knocked, even when winning!
To which I received this reply: Isn’t it amazing the way we treat our elite? It doesn’t matter what it is, politics, sport, music, anything that gets that person’s name out there in the public eye. I sometimes wonder if it not a gigantic case of envy. Sure Tamsyn is sometimes outspoken and she is not particularly popular with her fellow athletes but she should be given credit for what she does and not knocked all the time. Her feud with Jana (Pittman) Rawlinson was headlines all over the place but at least she is out there competing which is more than most of her knockers are doing.
To which I replied with the following: “Hear, hear!” That was my point exactly. Sure if a person needs a kick up the back-side, then give it by all means, just make sure that the time and place is appropriate, and that you are genuinely doing it to help that person, and not to inflate your own ego or cause. That is the problem with most criticism these days! It is not aimed to help the other person, but to help our own cause or egos.
If criticism or correction is warranted to help the other person, then we should indeed give it if we have a legitimate opportunity, but we should offer it graciously and definitely without any malice or envy.
However, at the same time, where credit is due, give it and don't hold back either. So few ever do that these days do they? But how about you and your Criticism? Why do you give it? To really help build up the other person, or to tear them down so that you can be built up in their place?
Are you a knocker from the grandstands too, or are you out there competing as well? It is easy to give advice from a distance, but it is more meaningful and powerful if it is from a fellow participator rather than from an onlooker. That’s not to say onlookers can’t give good advice too, just that most critics can’t compete, so they complain about those that can. I trust that I am not talking about you here? What say you? Walter