What do you guys think about this Oprahesque article? Have we been too tough on Henry and Woods? We should not judge or condemn, we should try to understand. They were reaching out for help.
"And maybe, just maybe, what we can learn from all of this is simple: instead of being so quick to judge, perhaps we should be quicker to try to help."
http://bleacherreport.com/articles/311082-tiger-woods-and-chris-henry-what-can-we-learn-from-their-many-failings
(snip)
I look at the two men this way:
Eldrick Tont "Tiger"Â Woods is a man whose duplicitous actions cried out for attention that he claimed he did not want. There is a stark dichotomy between the public persona that he meticulously fabricated, and the acceptance that he so deeply (and obviously, in retrospect) craved.
The internal struggle resulting from the need for solitude and control colliding with his silent ache to be understood and approved of created a chasm that engulfed the fabric of his moral being, swallowing it whole.
Out of that deep, dark abyss, a serial infidel was born. A man who needed therapy more than he needed air to breathe. Blissful ignorance of that fact, and being constantly emboldened by his not being caught, motivated Woods to push the envelope of his depravity until one day he was forced to come to grips with his demons.
Which is what I think he secretly wanted all along, to be forced to deal with his strife.
That day has finally come.
When I consider the life and times of Chris Henry, it is quite plain to me that the young man suffered with a cruel, unrelenting mental (or quite probably emotional) disorder, dissociative in nature, and highly resistant to conformity to societal "norms."
Here, in his police blotter and in the very public airing of his misdeeds, was a cry for professional help as clear as the newsprint on the magazines that breathlessly regaled us with column inch after column inch of recitations of his truancy.
Why no one thought to persuade him to seek professional help is beyond me.
I'm not asking for sympathy for either man, especially not Woods. He is still alive, and very young, so there are myriad opportunities for him to heal his internal battles, seek redemption for his infidelities, and rehabilitate his public image.
Henry is a bit trickier; he is dead, and has no more opportunities at redemption.
But we can all keep the families involvedâ€"especially the children, who are 100 percent blameless in either morasseâ€"in our thoughts and prayers (if we believe in some deity to whom we can pray).
We can temper the words that we transmit over the Web, realizing that we don't know all the facts and have no right to judge, anyway.
And maybe, just maybe, what we can learn from all of this is simple: instead of being so quick to judge, perhaps we should be quicker to try to help.
Whether it be in our homes, neighborhoods, or places of work, we all know someone whom we probably label as evil or incorrigible. We call them a**holes, bitches and pricks, or any of a number of other colorful titles. We ridicule and laugh at them behind their backs, and attempt to persuade others to do the same.
But do we ever bother to wonder why they act the way they do, and what we might be able to do to help them?
It's too late to help or save Chris Henry, but it's not too late for anyone reading these words right now to reach out to someone else.
