wohnzimmer wandgestaltung steinoptik
[intro music] the so-called spoon theory is a model for explaining how people live who have to pace themselves every day. i'm going to put a link to the page of the spoon theory's inventor in the description of this video. according to the spoon theory spoons are a measure
for how many resources we have at our disposal to get through everyday life or to complete other tasks. people that don't have any impairment have an infinite supply of spoons. people that have impairments only have a limited supply of spoons for every day. if i for example start my day with 6 spoons,
then everything i do costs me one spoon or several. if i get up, make breakfast, and brush my teeth, i only have 5 spoons left. getting dressed, feeding the cats, and cleaning the litter box costs the next spoon. if i have to leave the house for example because i have to see my gp,
it costs several spoons because moving around costs me a lot of energy. now i have 2 spoons left and it might not even be afternoon. now i have to consider carefully what i'm going to use the last two spoons for. i could -for example- spend one spoon to cook a nice dinner. i could also spend one spoon to take a shower.
or i could spend one spoon to make a phone call. or i could use one spoon to talk to my friends on the internet. i have to keep one spoon so i can brush my teeth at night and get ready for bed. when i've spent all my spoons the day is over for me.
i can only lie in bed then or maybe sit upright. but my concentration is not even enough to read anything. however i decide to spend my spoons, there are never enough to do everything i would like to do. when i overburden myself on a day, i spend more spoons than i have.
we call this "negative spoons" because they are subtracted from the next day's spoons. instead of 6 spoons i only get 4. with 4 spoons i can do a lot less. since i am going to need one spoon for my morning routine and one for my evening routine there are only 2 spoons for me to spend during the day
for example to do my chores or to do things that i enjoy. on some days i have an exceptional amout of spoons at my disposal. today it might even be enough to go visit a friend for which i need at least 4 spoons. i have very few spoons at my disposal. on those days i have very little freedom
in organising my day. of course it's hard so know how many spoons we have at our disposal. we don't have a digital display on our body showing how much energy there's left. because of this we often have to guess: is today a day i have a lot of energy? or is today a day i have little energy? unforeseen events
can make it very hard to distribute spoons correctly. for example, when i have an allergic reaction after half of the day suddenly all my remaining spoons for the day are gone. some people have different spoons for different tasks. it is possible
that someone only has a sole spoon at their disposal for enduring social interactions. one phone call or talking to the neighbour can use up this spoon. this doesn't mean however that this person can't do anything else for the rest of the day. they still have 3 spoons for physical labour at their disposal
and 2 spoons for concentration. reading for one hour or writing a blog post consumes the concentration spoons. with the 3 spoons for physical labour they might be able to do the dishes, take out the garbage or go for a walk. the spoon theory is not
reserved for certain groups of people but is for everyone who thinks that the spoon theory is a good method to describe the reality of their life. many disabled people, chronically ill people or mentally ill people find the spoon theory very useful to communicate how much energy they have left
or why they have to abstain from certain tasks.