Maybe sometimes determination is enough

Sometimes, things are just different, for whatever reason, and sometimes determination is enough. Like today.

For the past several weeks, I’ve dealt with extreme fatigue, bad enough that I haven’t felt like doing much of anything—including blogging or podcasting, obviously. While I try to force myself to get things done, for the most part those efforts failed. But sometimes things go differently, and it began yesterday evening.

I went to my mother-in-law’s for dinner, yesterday evening and also fixed her Kindle (and, of course, Nigel would’ve been surprised (mostly joking). On the way home, I stopped at the New World supermarket to pick up a few bits and pieces. It was interesting.

There were a lot of prices throughout the store that were obviously higher (like a bottle of cooking oil that was on special at a higher price than it’s regular price only a few months ago). But a lot of store specials brought the prices much closer to what they had been—still higher, but not as bad as they’d be otherwise. On the other hand, all the most affordable items (including things on the chain’s “price freeze” list) were really low or sold out.

Today I was planning on going to The Base shopping centre to run errands, so I thought I’d go to the nearby Countdown supermarket on the way home so I could see for myself what their prices are like. It turned out that today’s errands were 2/3 successful. I’m absolutely fine with that.

First up was my much-delayed haircut: I’ve probably needed one for “some time now”, but lately people have been fleeing in terror at the sight of my unruly locks, and pitchforks and torches were being readied. The threat to the mob is now sorted. Bonus points, today I got the young guy, and he was really interesting to chat with. The older guys I’ve had usually talk about sport, work, very superficial stuff. But today we talked about, among other things, how making YouTube videos because it’s what you want to do is more important than monetising them, unless that’s a business you’re running (seriously!).

My next stop was a nearby shop to pick-up something I ordered through click ‘n collect. There’s a story there, but it’s involved and includes a cleaning project I’m doing on Saturday (more about that afterward). However, as I walked back to my car with my purchases, the skies opened up and I was completely drenched. I changed my plans and went directly home, much to Leo’s delight. I didn’t need to go to the supermarket, anyway, so it’s no loss, but today’s soaking made me think that maybe I should keep an old towel in the car. It rains a lot in winter, after all.

While all of that is perfectly ordinary stuff, for a guy who’s had a lot of trouble getting stuff done, it’s a lot of activity in a short period of time. I don’t know that it suggests any sort of change or improvement or anything, but a good patch is always welcome, whether it hangs around or not.

Maybe tomorrow will bring more extraordinary-yet-ordinary stuff. Maybe sometimes determination really is enough?

This is revised and expanded from two posts I made to my personal Facebook. Because sometimes ya gotta do what ya gotta do, especially, for me, these days.