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> 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 does

> 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.

surajx 6y ago
The healthy stay healthy because they consciously make choices that maximizes the probability of staying healthy.
- svrtknst 6y ago
  like making the choice not to have an accident or being born a certain way?
  - sterlind 6y ago
    I try to tell myself that comments like GP's come from a place of taking one's health for granted, and have only experienced sickness from eating junk food or not sleeping enough. I have a genetic disorder that makes me fragile, chronically ill, and limits my mobility. I do PT every day for 30-45 minutes - I've never missed a day since September. I eat healthy vegan food and sleep as much as I can (though painsomnia makes this hard.) I'm doing all the right things, but I'm still sick. If I didn't do the right things, I'd be sicker. I'm still quite limited, and have to carefully plan things that my able-bodied friends take for granted. That's spoon theory.
    - p1necone 6y ago
      A lot of people seem to be incapable of thinking in hypotheticals. All they know or care about is whatever they or close family members have experienced directly.
- weego 6y ago
  Ah my consciousness must have really let me down when I got a crippling autoimmune disease at 35
- ikiris 6y ago
  Oh my god, you're right. I'm cured! Thank you so much! No one has ever made this simple connection before and I'll never know how to thank you properly for your contributions.
- robertfw 6y ago
  What nonsense. I did not choose to be born with a neurological condition.
dmos62 6y ago
What choices do you mean? I'd say that healthy people have more freedom so they have more choices to make. When you come down to it health is about freedom. Freedom from preoccupying pain, constricting impairment, freedom to do whatever. Choices are a symptom of freedom. We must have a different definition somewhere in here. Haven't read the article yet. Edit: Having read the story, the spoons are a metaphor for units of personal energy required to do a basic everyday task, and the choices, as used in above quote, are compromises you have to make when you have too little spoons to do everything you'd like. Edit2: man, it's easy to get downvoted in this thread. Do I come off as unsympathetic or something? I've been depressed for most of my life, so spoon-shortage isn't exactly new ground for me. For what it's worth, I think that while freedom is everyone's ultimate goal, whether they comprehend it or not, it's not necessary for happiness (and not the same as happiness). Happiness is about accepting what is (whatever it might be). Unhappiness is about rejecting what is. To say that happiness depends on what you can do, is to project your internal rejection onto the external "capability", thus retreating to the comfort of not owning your own feelings. Of course, if someone said "take this pill and you'll be able to do everything" I'd down the whole bottle, but that's because I'd rather circumvent the symptom, than face my own addiction to powerlessness.
- coldtea 6y ago
  >What choices do you mean? Hard choices. The "Should I do X, or it will hurt me?", "Is it worth feeling bad for doing Y?" related to the disease and its impact. It's not about choice as in a healthy person having a selection of 10 fun sports to decice which to play in a sunny day. It's about difficult choices, like "I want to do this sport activity today, but should I do it and feel depleted for the rest of my day? I should double think about doing this" In other words, we could say that healthy people have more options, but sick people (of the variety of the article, not somebody in a come e.g.), have more hard choices on what to do each day, even simple things (e.g. play with the kids).
  - Moru 6y ago
    Or even simpler things that we take for granted, eg brush teeth, get dressed in the morning, or even get out of bed. And no, I don't mean the usual Monday morning tiredness most of us have.

surajx 6y ago

The healthy stay healthy because they consciously make choices that maximizes the probability of staying healthy.

svrtknst 6y ago
like making the choice not to have an accident or being born a certain way?
- sterlind 6y ago
  I try to tell myself that comments like GP's come from a place of taking one's health for granted, and have only experienced sickness from eating junk food or not sleeping enough. I have a genetic disorder that makes me fragile, chronically ill, and limits my mobility. I do PT every day for 30-45 minutes - I've never missed a day since September. I eat healthy vegan food and sleep as much as I can (though painsomnia makes this hard.) I'm doing all the right things, but I'm still sick. If I didn't do the right things, I'd be sicker. I'm still quite limited, and have to carefully plan things that my able-bodied friends take for granted. That's spoon theory.
  - p1necone 6y ago
    A lot of people seem to be incapable of thinking in hypotheticals. All they know or care about is whatever they or close family members have experienced directly.
weego 6y ago
Ah my consciousness must have really let me down when I got a crippling autoimmune disease at 35
ikiris 6y ago
Oh my god, you're right. I'm cured! Thank you so much! No one has ever made this simple connection before and I'll never know how to thank you properly for your contributions.
robertfw 6y ago
What nonsense. I did not choose to be born with a neurological condition.

dmos62 6y ago

What choices do you mean? I'd say that healthy people have more freedom so they have more choices to make. When you come down to it health is about freedom. Freedom from preoccupying pain, constricting impairment, freedom to do whatever. Choices are a symptom of freedom. We must have a different definition somewhere in here. Haven't read the article yet. Edit: Having read the story, the spoons are a metaphor for units of personal energy required to do a basic everyday task, and the choices, as used in above quote, are compromises you have to make when you have too little spoons to do everything you'd like. Edit2: man, it's easy to get downvoted in this thread. Do I come off as unsympathetic or something? I've been depressed for most of my life, so spoon-shortage isn't exactly new ground for me. For what it's worth, I think that while freedom is everyone's ultimate goal, whether they comprehend it or not, it's not necessary for happiness (and not the same as happiness). Happiness is about accepting what is (whatever it might be). Unhappiness is about rejecting what is. To say that happiness depends on what you can do, is to project your internal rejection onto the external "capability", thus retreating to the comfort of not owning your own feelings. Of course, if someone said "take this pill and you'll be able to do everything" I'd down the whole bottle, but that's because I'd rather circumvent the symptom, than face my own addiction to powerlessness.

coldtea 6y ago
>What choices do you mean? Hard choices. The "Should I do X, or it will hurt me?", "Is it worth feeling bad for doing Y?" related to the disease and its impact. It's not about choice as in a healthy person having a selection of 10 fun sports to decice which to play in a sunny day. It's about difficult choices, like "I want to do this sport activity today, but should I do it and feel depleted for the rest of my day? I should double think about doing this" In other words, we could say that healthy people have more options, but sick people (of the variety of the article, not somebody in a come e.g.), have more hard choices on what to do each day, even simple things (e.g. play with the kids).
- Moru 6y ago
  Or even simpler things that we take for granted, eg brush teeth, get dressed in the morning, or even get out of bed. And no, I don't mean the usual Monday morning tiredness most of us have.