giving up and giving up giving up

In recent weeks, the energy levels were so low that even the green bliss tea was having no effect. Actually it was having an effect - the bastard tinnitus levels were at screaming pitch, and the crabbit levels were abnormally high, even given that I had plenty to be crabbit about.

Caffeine is known to aggravate tinnitus and probably crabbitus too, so I decided to give up the green tea, to give my system a rest from the all that invigoration.

Pretty soon the levels dropped nicely, but there's no such thing as a free lunch or free tea, and so the tiredness levels rose to balance things up. Work was torture - I kept needing to lie down on the floor and rest or sleep. At home, I couldn't be bothered doing stuff. And in the community, I said goodbye to my volunteer relief work in the prostate health area and the Ching Release Programme.

Life was in a downward spiral, and I couldn't see a way of getting out of it, not while I'm having to work full-time at the institute (thank the Piddledorf Pension Fund for that).

As a well-brought up bavarian bourgeois, I am fortunate to have strong willpower and deferred gratification skills, so giving things up comes naturally to me. But as I patrol the blogosphere I notice that, for some people, giving up things is closely followed by giving up giving up.

So to try to fit in, I finally decided to try that.

This morning I gave up giving up tea. I had a double dose of the green stuff, and every cell of my body thanked me for that, starting with the lining of the large intestine. After abluting, I went for a 90-minute power walk through the bush track with dog and pod. What a fortunate person I was!

The sun is out, and there's trees to be lopped. Against safety regulations, I am going up a ladder with a chainsaw, and I may be some time. Here come the adrenalin levels!