While spoon theory was originally developed to describe the energy it takes to do common tasks while suffering from chronic illness, it really applies to everyone across all sectors of the globe. No one has infinite energy, and there's only so much we can do in one day. Priorities are important. We may find that if we exert ourselves too much in one area we won't have the energy to complete other tasks that we planned on.
Working 40+ hour weeks takes a lot of spoons.
When someone puts in a 50 or even 60 hour week at work, they really don't have time for anything else. Sure, you may TECHICALLY still have the time to go to the gym, prepare healthy meals, and spend time with the kids, but more often than not when we spend too much time at work, a severe burnout will occur and we start cutting out high-energy activities out of our schedules.
Why spend an hour cooking dinner when you can order a pizza? I can afford it. Why go to the gym when you're already dead tired? Might as well play a video game for a couple hours or watch a movie to unwind. Eh, do I really need to take a shower today if I'm not leaving the house? God bless work from home!
Mana Pool
An even better analogy than spoons is the mana pool. Of course this only makes sense to gamers so it's a bit more niche. Casting a spell (doing an activity) costs mana. When you run out you're spent and just need to rest and up get your energy levels up for the next day.
There isn't some magical way to just force yourself to run on fumes. There's always a tradeoff. Some people are built for auto-pilot and others are not. Everyone is different and everyone has different costs for different activities. Some people have more energy than others, and some people can regenerate their energy faster or bank more than others for a rainy day.
Today is an extremely low energy day for me. Now sure where it all went, but I'm out of gas. Not sure what to write about either. Might as well get all meta with it.
Bad habits die hard.
There are plenty of tricks and tips one can employ to boost energy levels. Every doctor will tell you the same thing: diet & exercise. It's funny that doctors will so regularly admit that they know very little and just depend on the body to heal itself while still maintaining their god-complexes. Go figure.
Eat a lot of vegetables and fruit for vitamins and minerals. Drink more water and stay away from sugar (especially artificial sweeteners). Low calories don't mean more healthy. Try to at least break a sweat every day from exercise. Build some muscle by pushing then to the limit (failure). Eat enough protein to make sure they heal properly.
Proper breathing techniques are important. Simply taking a deep breath can lower blood pressure. Meditation can be a good coping mechanism for stress. Find healthy ways to cope with short-term stress and attempt to eliminate long-term stressors. These will sap a lot of energy if not dealt with.
Right action
It's often easy to know what we should do, it's another ask entirely to actually do the things. It's even harder to know what our own limitations are while prioritizing activity correctly and avoid burning out. Sure, you can force yourself to go to the gym for a week or even a couple months without actually having the energy to do it. Sooner or later the burnout will come and your brain will deny you if the routine wasn't sustainable.
But what is a sustainable routine?
That's the ultimate question, isn't it? Everyone is different. If we like our job rather than hate it, we might find we have a lot of extra energy leftover when the work day/week is over. Proper diet and exercise can also give us a boost rather than taking it away, just like an extrovert can gain energy by being around other people rather than being drained like an introvert. On a real level we must get to know ourselves and be honest with our own limitations. The ego is not helpful in this regard.
This even applies to the financial markets in many different ways. @taskmaster4450 wrote a post today about having the mental fortitude to handle the downswings. Such a simple concept that even created the entire HODL culture. However, as we've all seen time and time again, the simplest of concepts in theory can be the hardest ones to actually achieve in reality.
Synergy.
Our biggest focus should always be thinking about what we can do in our lives that benefits all other aspects of our lives. Unfortunately, these concepts of synergy and cooperation run completely contrary to the very fiber of our economy. The pyramid scheme of capitalism has a way of becoming unsustainable. Why help out your neighbor when you can make a quick buck off of him instead? The pyramid is a solid structure, but once it gets too big it can no longer scale. The base (lower class) becomes too wide and cannot grow much further.
How ironic it is that the solution to this problem is seemingly flat architecture, where everyone is constantly on the ground floor trying to build on shifting sands. Just when an entity thinks they've cornered the market, the market will pivot. That's just the nature of permissionless systems.
Conclusion
Woof. I think that's all from me today. I can't even think straight. I must have used all my spoons a couple hours back. ADHD and this chronic shoulder injury certainly aren't doing me any favors, but if I'm being honest I need to do myself some favors rather than getting sucked into this blackhole void.
Take a look around. The world is simultaneously horrible and fantastic all rolled into this one weird experience. Sometimes reality is just a matter of perspective. What do we choose to focus on? Personally I'd like to focus on abundance over scarcity, and that means gratitude for what I have and the motivation to continue self-improvement. Hopefully I have enough mana to get the job done.
At the end of the day we have to ask ourselves: what motivates us? Why do we do the things that we do? If the answer is often times "fear" this could be a sign that we are living in scarcity, and perhaps that's nobody's fault but our own.
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Return from spoon theory: out of mana to edicted's Web3 Blog
