欧宝娱乐

“Men are what they are because of what they do. Not what they say.”
― Fredrik Backman, A Man Called Ove

“Do you know about the spoons? Because you should. The Spoon Theory was created by a friend of mine, Christine Miserandino, to explain the limits you have when you live with chronic illness. Most healthy people have a seemingly infinite number of spoons at their disposal, each one representing the energy needed to do a task. You get up in the morning. That鈥檚 a spoon. You take a shower. That鈥檚 a spoon. You work, and play, and clean, and love, and hate, and that鈥檚 lots of damn spoons聽鈥� but if you are young and healthy you still have spoons left over as you fall asleep and wait for the new supply of spoons to be delivered in the morning. But if you are sick or in pain, your exhaustion changes you and the number of spoons you have. Autoimmune disease or chronic pain like I have with my arthritis cuts down on your spoons. Depression or anxiety takes away even more. Maybe you only have six spoons to use that day. Sometimes you have even fewer. And you look at the things you need to do and realize that you don鈥檛 have enough spoons to do them all. If you clean the house you won鈥檛 have any spoons left to exercise. You can visit a friend but you won鈥檛 have enough spoons to drive yourself back home. You can accomplish everything a normal person does for hours but then you hit a wall and fall into bed thinking, 鈥淚 wish I could stop breathing for an hour because it鈥檚 exhausting, all this inhaling and exhaling.鈥� And then your husband sees you lying on the bed and raises his eyebrow seductively and you say, 鈥淣o. I can鈥檛 have sex with you today because there aren鈥檛 enough spoons,鈥� and he looks at you strangely because that sounds kinky, and not in a good way. And you know you should explain the Spoon Theory so he won鈥檛 get mad but you don鈥檛 have the energy to explain properly because you used your last spoon of the morning picking up his dry cleaning so instead you just defensively yell: 鈥淚 SPENT ALL MY SPOONS ON YOUR LAUNDRY,鈥� and he says, 鈥淲hat the聽鈥� You can鈥檛 pay for dry cleaning with spoons. What is wrong with you?鈥� Now you鈥檙e mad because this is his fault too but you鈥檙e too tired to fight out loud and so you have the argument in your mind, but it doesn鈥檛 go well because you鈥檙e too tired to defend yourself even in your head, and the critical internal voices take over and you鈥檙e too tired not to believe them. Then you get more depressed and the next day you wake up with even fewer spoons and so you try to make spoons out of caffeine and willpower but that never really works. The only thing that does work is realizing that your lack of spoons is not your fault, and to remind yourself of that fact over and over as you compare your fucked-up life to everyone else鈥檚 just-as-fucked-up-but-not-as-noticeably-to-outsiders lives. Really, the only people you should be comparing yourself to would be people who make you feel better by comparison. For instance, people who are in comas, because those people have no spoons at all and you don鈥檛 see anyone judging them. Personally, I always compare myself to Galileo because everyone knows he鈥檚 fantastic, but he has no spoons at all because he鈥檚 dead. So technically I鈥檓 better than Galileo because all I鈥檝e done is take a shower and already I鈥檝e accomplished more than him today. If we were having a competition I鈥檇 have beaten him in daily accomplishments every damn day of my life. But I鈥檓 not gloating because Galileo can鈥檛 control his current spoon supply any more than I can, and if Galileo couldn鈥檛 figure out how to keep his dwindling spoon supply I think it鈥檚 pretty unfair of me to judge myself for mine. I鈥檝e learned to use my spoons wisely. To say no. To push myself, but not too hard. To try to enjoy the amazingness of life while teetering at the edge of terror and fatigue.”
― Jenny Lawson, Furiously Happy: A Funny Book About Horrible Things

“But the one great shocking occasion, when tens or hundreds or thousands will join with you, never comes. That鈥檚 the difficulty. If the last and worst act of the whole regime had come immediately after the first and smallest, thousands, yes, millions would have been sufficiently shocked鈥攊f, let us say, the gassing of the Jews in 鈥�43 had come immediately after the 鈥楪erman Firm鈥� stickers on the windows of non-Jewish shops in 鈥�33. But of course this isn鈥檛 the way it happens. In between come all the hundreds of little steps, some of them imperceptible, each of them preparing you not to be shocked by the next. Step C is not so much worse than Step B, and, if you did not make a stand at Step B, why should you at Step C? And so on to Step D.

And one day, too late, your principles, if you were ever sensible of them, all rush in upon you. The burden of self-deception has grown too heavy, and some minor incident, in my case my little boy, hardly more than a baby, saying 鈥楯ewish swine,鈥� collapses it all at once, and you see that everything, everything, has changed and changed completely under your nose. The world you live in鈥攜our nation, your people鈥攊s not the world you were born in at all. The forms are all there, all untouched, all reassuring, the houses, the shops, the jobs, the mealtimes, the visits, the concerts, the cinema, the holidays. But the spirit, which you never noticed because you made the lifelong mistake of identifying it with the forms, is changed. Now you live in a world of hate and fear, and the people who hate and fear do not even know it themselves; when everyone is transformed, no one is transformed. Now you live in a system which rules without responsibility even to God. The system itself could not have intended this in the beginning, but in order to sustain itself it was compelled to go all the way.”
― Milton Sanford Mayer, They Thought They Were Free: The Germans 1933-45

“THE WORLD IS increasingly designed to depress us. Happiness isn鈥檛 very good for the economy. If we were happy with what we had, why would we need more? How do you sell an anti-ageing moisturiser? You make someone worry about ageing. How do you get people to vote for a political party? You make them worry about immigration. How do you get them to buy insurance? By making them worry about everything. How do you get them to have plastic surgery? By highlighting their physical flaws. How do you get them to watch a TV show? By making them worry about missing out. How do you get them to buy a new smartphone? By making them feel like they are being left behind. To be calm becomes a kind of revolutionary act. To be happy with your own non-upgraded existence. To be comfortable with our messy, human selves, would not be good for business.”
― Matt Haig, Reasons to Stay Alive