storbarnsförälder

This is my opinion. Feel free to agree or disagree, but I'm not trying to start an argument. We each have a finite amount of physical, mental and emotional energy we are able to dedicate to a task. As an analogy, some people have enough to climb Everest, while for another just managing to walk up to the top of the hill down their street is an achievement. In each case, they have "given it their all". But then there are people who start walking up the hill, with the intention climbing to the top, but half way up they spot a McDonalds and decide to spend the afternoon there instead, even though they had plenty of energy to climb the rest of the way up.

As an outsider, we have no way of knowing whether the person we see in the McDonalds is the one who made it there with nothing left, or the one who just fancied a bite to eat because they'd decided the whole hill-climbing thing wasn't for them after all. But we'd probably still make some comment about all the fat people in McDonalds as we walked past on our way up the hill.

I probably haven't clarified my thinking at all, but I think we're on the same side. My point is that we shouldn't criticise anyone for "not trying hard enough", because as an outsider we really don't know how hard they've tried, and the measure of "hardness" is unique to everyone.