Eatin’ Soup with Chopsticks: The Cost of Old Habits

Shel Silverstein once wrote:

Eatin’ soup with chopsticks—I should be finished soon. Eatin’ soup with chopsticks While whistlin’ a tune. Eatin’ soup with chopsticks Because I have no spoon. Eatin’ soup with chopstick Can take all afternoon.

At first glance, Silverstein’s poem reads like playful nonsense, typical of his childlike humor. But beneath the whimsy lies something deeply human. How often do we, too, find ourselves eatin’ soup with chopsticks, using the wrong tools, repeating old methods, hoping for a different result?

We convince ourselves that effort equals progress. Yet, in truth, much of our emotional energy is spent spinning in familiar loops. We persist in the same thought patterns, relational dynamics, or coping behaviors, even as they drain us. Why? Because familiarity masquerades as safety.

And so, like Silverstein’s narrator, we spend “all afternoon” trying to consume what can never nourish us this way.

Old Tools, Old Outcomes

Many clients come to counseling after years, sometimes decades, of trying to think, feel, or behave their way out of distress using tools that once worked but no longer do. The problem isn’t that they’re not trying hard enough. It’s that they’re using chopsticks where a spoon is required.

These old tools often take the form of:

• Over-analysis (“If I could just understand why I feel this way, I’d stop.”)

• Emotional reasoning (“If it feels true, it must be true.”)

• Avoidance disguised as insight (“I’ll just wait until I feel ready.”)

  
  

The reality is that effort without awareness reinforces exhaustion, not growth. What’s needed isn’t more trying, but different thinking.

The Power of Critical Thinking, Not Critical Self-Talk

Here’s where the real shift happens. Healing begins not with self-flagellation, but with self-observation. Critical thinking, in the therapeutic sense, is not about tearing yourself down; it’s about stepping outside yourself long enough to see clearly.

It’s the moment you catch yourself mid-pattern and ask:

• “What am I actually doing here?”

• “What do I believe this behavior achieves?”

• “Is there evidence this works, or am I just used to it?”

  
  

This kind of reflection is uncomfortable because it requires intellectual honesty. It forces you to look at the internal machinery driving your choices. But discomfort is not the same as punishment; it’s the birthplace of wisdom.

Wisdom: The Fruit of Observation

Wisdom, contrary to what many believe, doesn’t come from suffering alone. It comes from examined suffering. From the willingness to analyze, adapt, and evolve.

When you begin to engage with yourself critically, rather than reactively, you transition from participant to observer. You begin to see your patterns as data, not identity. You start to discern which “tools” belong to your past and which will carry you into your future.

In therapy, I often describe this as “moving from emotion to evaluation.” Emotion provides the raw material, but evaluation refines it into insight.

The Risk of Envying the Familiar

There’s a subtle danger in envying the familiar. When we hear the word envy, we often picture jealousy: wanting what someone else possesses. But envy, in its truest psychological form, can also turn inward. It’s the longing for our own former comfort, even when that comfort was built on dysfunction.

To envy the familiar is to grieve change. It’s the ache for the safety of what we once knew, no matter how ineffective or painful it was. It’s a whisper that says, “At least I understand this chaos.” And in that whisper lies the reason so many people struggle to let go, not because they don’t see the harm, but because the harm is predictable.

This kind of envy doesn’t always show up as nostalgia. It often hides behind defensiveness, projection, or criticism of others who’ve chosen growth. The person learning to think differently, set boundaries, or question assumptions becomes a mirror, reflecting back the possibility of change that one part of us desires but another part resists.

Carl Jung said it best:

“Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves.”

That irritation, that subtle judgment of another’s transformation, is often the ego’s way of saying, “Don’t go there.” It’s a psychological sleight of hand, redirecting attention outward so we don’t have to confront our own stagnation. In this way, envy becomes the gatekeeper of the familiar. It convinces us that what we’ve always done (eating soup with chopsticks) isn’t so bad after all. It rationalizes inefficiency as loyalty and stagnation as identity.

But growth demands betrayal of the familiar. It asks that we set down the old instruments of survival and risk picking up something new, even when our hands shake.

So when you notice yourself criticizing someone else’s progress, pause. Ask whether it’s envy of their freedom or fear of your own capacity for change. Both answers are honest. But only one allows you to finally taste the soup.

A Call to Reflection

So, this week, consider this question: Where in your life are you still eatin’ soup with chopsticks?

Maybe it’s in how you manage conflict. Maybe it’s the story you tell yourself about your worth. Maybe it’s the belief that emotional chaos is a sign of depth, rather than disconnection.

Whatever it is, notice it. Observe it without shame. And then, with the clarity of a wise mind, ask what tool you might need instead. Because once you set down the chopsticks, the soup: your growth, your peace, your healing, becomes much easier to taste.

So Consider:

“We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.”—Albert Einstein

Let this week be a practice in observation, not condemnation. Be willing to think critically about the self, not cruelly toward the self. That’s how wisdom begins.

Industry Mirror

Curious how clinicians are still eating soup with chopsticks? Learn how below.

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