If, like me, you’re struggling with hard work you can either remember that there’s always someone worse off than you or rise up in revolution. I’m obliged to lay an underground electrical cable at the moment. It’s a real graft. Insurrection is not really an option, unless I want to end up in the divorce courts. Instead, the voice of Voltaire’s Candide gives me comfort, although I strenuously remind myself that I should avoid that doughty traveller’s penchance for constantly becoming the person who is worse off than his any given moment. Not sure that I could keep that up for long and keep smiling. My electrical work is directly related to my own search for Eden. Like Candide and his companions, my wife and I have realised “we must cultivate our garden”.
Meanwhile, here’s some fellows undertaking a far more dangerous and difficult electrical cable laying task than mine. You wouldn’t catch me dripping molten lead from spoon onto my hand, even if I was wearing a heavy duty glove. These mean were as hard as nails.