For the last three years, I lived in Libya. Grocery stores there tend to have limited stock: a limited range of products, and limited choices of brands within each product type.
Having returned, first, home for a holiday, and now to a new posting in Malaysia where supermarkets exist and are fully stocked, I have discovered that I’ve forgotten how to go about grocery shopping.
I become nonplussed by the products choices, both of brands, types and environment-related (do I want local fruit that came from 20 miles away but is double-wrapped in plastic and styrofoam, or fruit flown from the US that at least comes in a single plastic bag?). I get distracted by products I haven’t seen for three years. I have to read all the labels to work out which particular brand, type and flavour of hand-wash I want. I forget what I was doing and where I was going, and have to go three times down each aisle before I finally get through the shopping list.
It used to take me about 20 minutes to whip through a weekly shop; it feels like it’s taking at least twice that and I invariably forget something and have to go back again later…My ‘grocery shopping’ muscles have atrophised over the last three years.
The moral is simple: do something regularly, and it really doesn’t seem that complex or overwhelming because you are developing skills and knowledge to manage it. Don’t do it regularly, or don’t do it with a meaningful level of effort, and it becomes hard, time-consuming, and inefficient.
The lesson is simple too: Keep your writing muscle working by exercising it regularly.
