what does this saying mean?

Question

my friend has this icon that says life sucks when your spoon is to big. and there is a boy holding a huge spoon and there is a small cereal bowl. and she nor i know what it means. could someone please tell us?

Answer 1

It refers to the hunger situation in the world--the spoon represents the problem of hunger and the bowl represents the food that is available or accessible to the people that are hungry. The problem is bigger than the solution.

Answer 2

One way to take this is as a metaphoric or symbolic way of saying don't be too greedy with the opportunities that present themselves. Most often our will sometimes way outdoes out ability to apply ourselves to the task at hand. So if your desires are out of proportion to what is available i.e. your spoon is too large than you'll never have access to the obtain the goals you would otherwise reach which is represented by the bowl. One way of getting to your goal would be by throwing away the large spoon and picking up the bowl in your hands or getting to your soup or cereal with a smaller spoon. These are other more successful ways of getting to your food and of getting to your goals in life.
Another way of understanding the proverb is that the smaller boal represents the food available to feed the world's population and the larger spoon represents the demand. Here the demand outways the supply and that is why every year as the population grows there is an ever increasing amount of undernourished and starving people. The irony is that there is enough food to feed these peoples it is just that bureaucracy is such that we make it difficult for those needy populations to get access to those supplies. And that can be further understood by the image of a smaller person being able to use the larger spoon to his advantage. It is difficult for him to lift and even if he did manage he would never meet the demand.

Answer 3

okay, think about it. You have a bowl that is too small for your spoon to fit into. How are you going to get your cereal? Assuming the only way you're able to eat cereal is with a spoon, if it's too big to fit in the bowl, you'll starve.

Answer 4

The spoon is too big for the cereal. You won't be able to eat your cereal if your spoon is too big. What I make out of it is that if you think too much of yourself, the things you think are small will forget you.

Answer 5

I assume having the will and eagerness to do so much in life but only a few opportunities to accomplish what you want.