If there's one thing that comes with living in a pandemic, it's a sense of priority.
What I mean by that is our lives can sometimes be incredibly complicated.
Many of us commit to a ton of things.
A number of us have probably committed to any number of after-work-or-school tasks, like sports or volunteering.
Many of us probably have multiple social circles that we normally inhabit.
But in times like these, things get pared away.
When you have to work within limits, it can show what's really important to you.
I remember reading Christine Miserandino's essay, The Spoon Theory some time ago.
It was this poignant story about how Miserandino used spoons as a metaphor to help explain to her friend what it was like to live with a chronic illness.
In Miserandino's case, this was lupus.
To illustrate, she took a handful of spoons and declared that each spoon is a unit of energy.
A person with a chronic illness has only a limited amount of energy in a day, and every task — even ones that seem really small — takes away one spoon.
Using this metaphor, Miserandino showed she often had to choose between things as simple as eating or cooking — her energy was that limited.
Now, I'm not saying people with good health will ever truly understand what someone like Miserandino is faced with, but there's one takeaway I got from this that I feel applies to our situation today.
We used to have infinite possibilities about what we could do and who we could spend time with.
Now, all of us, to some degree, are limited by the number of spoons we have. They may not be units of energy, but in this case, they are units of opportunity.
For example, I may not risk going skiing, which I only kind of enjoy, but I'll probably risk going out climbing, which I definitely enjoy.
I'm allowed to see a couple of people under the restrictions, because I live alone. Do I choose hanging out with a fun-but-shallow recent acquaintance, or do I choose my partner?
Toward the end of Miserandino's essay, she describes how sad her friend feels when she realizes her situation.
And many of us are, understandably, sad at the limits that have been imposed on us.
But there is something revealing about our situation now — having a finite amount of opportunity has, in at least some cases, revealed to us what matters most.
Perhaps Miserandino's words best sum it up when she writes: "I have been forced to think about everything I do. Do you know how many spoons people waste everyday? I don't have room for wasted time, or wasted 'spoons' and I chose to spend this time with you."
