I think the nice thing about the spoon metaphor is that it includes the healthy. I mean, nobody in the entire universe has unlimited spoons. Except maybe Barack Obama.

What is he doing with all those spoons anyhow? I think maybe we need some congressional hears to look into this situation which, to coin a fair and balanced term, I'll call spoongate. You know who else used spoons? Hitler. Nobody's saying there's a link there, I just find it interesting.

wrod. Obama has his spoons and yours, too.

I mean, nobody in the entire universe has unlimited spoons.

I agree, but the essay doesn't:

I explained that the difference in being sick and being healthy is having to make choices or to consciously think about things when the rest of the world doesn’t have to. The healthy have the luxury of a life without choices, a gift most people take for granted.

Most people start the day with unlimited amount of possibilities, and energy to do whatever they desire

And I simply don't think that's true. I think "unlimited energy to do whatever they desire" applies to a very small minority, if anyone.

I'm personally uncomfortable drawing a bright line between "healthy" and "sick." (And especially with the implied definition of "healthy" as "has unlimited energy to do anything all the time." Nobody's healthy by those standards.)

I think that is the conclusion of the author -- that healthy people when given the spoon explanation sometimes start looking at their lives differently .

I personally think I am healthier than I have been most of life despite having two chronic conditions. ( diabetes and asthma ) If I pay attention to 3 different things - eating properly, taking my meds and looking at air quality - I have as much energy as anybody. But if I ignore those things there is a good chance I'll end up on the couch - unable to do anything. And it is one day of ignoring those things. So while everyone has to pay attention to eating well, I pay a higher price faster than a non-diabetic person.

I know I'm sugar-coating nostalgia, but I could do five full days of krav and come back and teach the next day. It really felt pretty unlimited, compared to this. Because I'd only feel tired, and that felt surmountable. I wouldn't feel ill, wrecked, depressed and just all-around ruined, like one night of bad sleep can do to me now.

It's fucking pathetic.

Yeah, I dunno about that part of the wording of the spoon thing. I just always figure it as a "healthy people get a lot more spoons". For me, being all migrainey often, and/or trying to prevent that, it just means that most days I've got nearly as many spoons as most other people...but I'm a few short. Because moreso than some, I *can't* short on sleep more than a day, or be super cavalier about being in the heat/sun all day, etc. Because if I do, I know I'll have a day with almost no spoons.

I don't disagree with the spoon metaphor overall - mainly I just don't think it's helpful to start the conversation with "Well, you know how you have unlimited energy all the time and never have to make choices?" Because assuming the "healthy" person doesn't feel that way, the point of the explanation is already lost.

It works better for me if everyone gets a finite number of spoons. The healthier you are, the more spoons you have, and the more likely you are to have more spoons per day, on average, than you need. The other end of the spectrum is strict spoon rationing. But nobody's supply is unlimited.

My takeaway from the essay was the constant prioritizing and re-prioritizing of every single task that the chronically ill have to do every minute of every day.

That for me was more important than the number of spoons and how they were used.

I don't disagree with the spoon metaphor overall - mainly I just don't think it's helpful to start the conversation with "Well, you know how you have unlimited energy all the time and never have to make choices?" Because assuming the "healthy" person doesn't feel that way, the point of the explanation is already lost.

This is the problem I have with the spoons thing as well. I don't really think the metaphor illustrates what it's like to, say, have a chronic fatiguing condition versus being tired because you didn't get a full night's sleep, you work a demanding job, and you have a small child child to wrangle, for example. Everyone I know, regardless of their health, is always weighing choices about how much they can do in their day. But I get how after a night hanging out at a party with lots of people I may need to be alone and do very little besides run to the grocery store but my friend with an anxiety disorder may need to literally not leave her couch all day.