Sometimes when I feel a bit hard pressed, I like to read from a book called Pioneer Women, one of an old Time Life's series about the Old West, or Frontier Family Life by Marianne Bell. I gain a more measured outlook on my own daily grind by considering the tensions of pioneer life -- the determined hopeful pursuit of a better life and the often grim everyday experience. For example, in one picture, the phrase "To Do And To Bear is the Duty of Life" is written on the wall of a one room school house. (Imagine trying to give that as copywork in schools today.) Or I like how one Wyoming pioneer woman noted that self pity is "the lowest state to which a woman's mind can fall." Ahhhhh, my perspective feels broader already.
