Measuring Out Life With Coffee Spoons
On Finding Your Own Self-Actualization
One of T.S. Eliot’s most famous lines is from the poem “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” (1915). The poem paints a picture of a middle-aged man experiencing anxiety, likely before attending some kind of social event. He describes the process of preparing “a face to meet the faces that you meet” and the “visions and revisions” to be made to his demeanor before “the taking of a toast and tea.” When I read this poem, I imagine a man wearily smiling at himself in the mirror, rehearsing how he will greet folks, trying on different facial expressions and vocal inflections. An image I feel like I know all too well. But the line that’s arguably enamored readers most for over a century now is this:
“For I have known them all already, known them all:
Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons,
I have measured out my life with coffee spoons”
“I have measured out my life with coffee spoons” has been endlessly screen printed on T-shirts and mugs in that classic, curly millennial font and sold in Etsy shops. For the purchasers of those goods, the line may have somehow spoken to their intense devotion to caffeine, and how they measure their life through the number of coffee beverages they consume. Upon further reading, I surprisingly learned that this interpretation isn’t too far off from the predominant one, which is that the mundanity of the narrator’s life leaves him with little to look forward to apart from his morning coffee. The coffee spoon - plain and common, endlessly swirling cream and sugar to dissolve into a mindless vortex - is a rather humdrum vessel to measure one’s life with.
Nonetheless, I’ve always paid less attention to the commonplace nature of the coffee spoon and more to its size. Used more often to swirl than scoop, the coffee spoon is often the smallest utensil in one’s drawer, not intended to take on too much weight. Thus, I’ve taken measuring life with a coffee spoon as exactly that: consuming things in small doses. Never biting off more than you can chew. “Taking things one day at a time” as they say, so as not to get too overwhelmed by the convoluted size and nature of life. Carefully sipping your coffee spoon-sized bout of life before moving on to the next.
Growing up, I was quite busy. In addition to school, I had a myriad of extra-curricular activities: dance, soccer, and basketball in elementary school, and later competitive and professional dance, a part-time job, an honor society, and community service events in high school. To keep track of all this, life consisted of a mental series of checkpoints. I would have to get through school, so I could go to work, so I could go to dance class, so I could eat dinner, so I could finish my homework. My day-to-day life felt like a meticulously crafted mosaic of dominoes, the last one unable to fall until the first one was knocked over. I was hungry for a domino to topple so the next one could. And the next and the next, chipping away at life with a doll-sized pick axe.
It wasn’t just my daily routine that was composed this way. My overarching goals in life consisted of a series of smaller events, all of which I anticipated to go as planned so I could achieve my final form. I would try to get good grades in elementary school to set the stage for middle school. Add extracurriculars and AP classes to my plate in high school so I could get into a good college. Carefully select a major and land internships so I could get a good job. Earn money so I could save money. Each step prepared me for a bigger leap, the dominoes grew bigger in size with each fall.
This optimization process is represented well through the tiered leotard system that many ballet schools require. In my first ballet class, I and the rest of the five-year-old students arrived at the studio in pink frilly leotards, ready to learn how to skip and point our toes. If we advanced to the next level, we would get to wear light blue. Then lilac. Then burgundy. And then forest green and then navy blue and then, finally, black. Along with a pair of pointe shoes, if our instructor deemed us prepared.
All of this finally happened to me. I got a black leotard and pointe shoes. I graduated college. These were the final bosses, the last dragons I had to slay before I “won” the game. And when I got there, I did feel a sense of accomplishment I hadn’t felt at any other point. I felt like all the dominoes had fallen down, revealing an exquisite image I hadn’t seen before. I felt like the mug I had been slowly filling with coffee spoon-sized quantities of life had finally reached its brim. Life somehow felt so abundant. And then soon after, quite hollow.
Improved iteration is a part of our nature. The action of learning to crawl prepares us for learning to walk which prepares us for learning to run. In this way, optimization is inherent. We want to be better versions of ourselves so we can survive. However, in 2023, most of us aren’t optimizing for physical survival; why would we need to when we don’t have to hunt for food or build our own shelters? Yet, we never cease to try to optimize, in every domain. Why? And, most importantly, to what end?
There is, of course, something to be said about wanting to optimize so we can fulfill our higher-order needs. In 1943, American psychologist Abraham Maslow identified a Hierarchy of Needs that humans must satisfy to move on to the next, similar to the leotard hierarchy. Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, in order, include physiological needs (food, water, oxygen), safety needs (employment, property, and resource security), love and belonging needs (family and friends), esteem needs (how we view ourselves), and finally, self-actualization, which involves humans achieving their fullest individual potential. When humans self-actualize, they become the most they can be, engaging with complex thought involving creativity, problem-solving, and acceptance.
Self-actualization is the need that is always the most difficult to define, yet it’s what humans are supposedly optimizing towards. In this way, I think it’s quite easy to displace our peripheral, more material desires as self-actualization. If I can just look a certain way, I will be happy. If I can just date the right person, I will be happy. If I can have the right car, house, set of clothes, job, and amount of money - if I can just have what I want - I will have made it.
It doesn’t necessarily help that so many other forces in life are telling us what we need to have or do to self-actualize, whether it’s companies peddling products or a society equating educational and financial statuses with worth. A perpetual state of “work” is what’s often enforced by various institutions, rarely with a tangible end goal in sight. Instead, our metrics are cloaked in vague language: becoming more “successful” or a “better version of ourselves” is what we should want. And in order to get there - in order to self-actualize - we have to simply keep ourselves busy.
Women, in particular, are burdened with the pressure of constant optimization, which is only worsening with messaging being sent by influencers with profit-laden ulterior motives. Being in a state of dissatisfaction with your body and relationships is an expectation and feeling otherwise is breaking the norm. What do you mean you don’t want clearer skin? Or to be more physically fit? Or to want more men to find you attractive? Constantly thinking there’s something to amend is the default, but the ultimate goal is rarely visible (or existent), as this helps the people on top get richer.
We’re all attempting to fill up a dried-up canyon using a coffee spoon of water at a time. Fixating on micro, fussy details that we’re made to think are important by powerful traditions and institutions thinking they’ll finally make our cup feel full.
For so many years, I told myself “I just have to get through finals week,” or “I just have to get through the summer,” or “I just have to get through college, and then, I can start actually being happy.” In reality, I’m learning that there is no real moment when we reach the summit and things start sailing smoothly. There are moments of triumph for sure, as well as many moments of disappointment. And why should I be surprised? There was never a guarantee that things would always work out. Accepting that life is full of peaks and valleys, but that we can choose to live, achieve, mourn, and celebrate how we want is, in my opinion, the key to self-actualization.
When we realize that we don’t have to wait for things to be perfect to start living life, we can actually start living it. Drink it up in abundant batches, never denying ourselves satiation. Leaving the coffee spoons behind.
One of your best. Beautifully written