{"id":6459,"date":"2022-10-09T00:51:00","date_gmt":"2022-10-09T00:51:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/?p=6459"},"modified":"2026-10-02T01:33:48","modified_gmt":"2026-10-02T01:33:48","slug":"hard-work","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/?p=6459","title":{"rendered":"HARD WORK"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><span style=\"text-indent: 0.5in\"><span style=\"font-size: large\">Author Jerome K. Jerome once wrote,\n\u201cI like work: it fascinates me. I can sit and look at it for hours.\u201d<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><span style=\"text-indent: 0.5in\"><span style=\"font-size: large\">My\nfirst trip to Ghana was fascinating in every respect. Unlike Jerome, though, it bothered me a bit that I was constantly surrounded\nby people working so much harder than I was!<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><span style=\"text-indent: 0.5in\">It wasn\u2019t because I was being lazy.\nIt is that <span style=\"text-indent: 0.5in\"><i>survival<\/i><\/span><span style=\"text-indent: 0.5in\"> is a powerful motivator.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><span style=\"text-indent: 0.5in\">And I \u2013 the relative slacker &#8211; even\nwent so far as to <i style=\"text-indent: 0.5in\">interrupt<\/i><span style=\"text-indent: 0.5in\"> their work, asking questions and taking\npictures.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><span style=\"text-indent: 0.5in\">I interrupted fishermen, pepper\nfarmers, traders, cooks, and hardware store owners. I asked them about their\njobs and how early they started each morning and when their workday ended. I\nasked about their families. Sometimes I asked them what would happen if they\ndidn\u2019t have access to Mission Resource loans. The typical response to that\nquestion was a shake of the head and the words, \u201c<i style=\"text-indent: 0.5in\">Big<\/i><span style=\"text-indent: 0.5in\"> problem!\u201d<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><span style=\"text-indent: 0.5in\">Lack of access to affordable\ncapital was <span style=\"text-indent: 0.5in\">the one thing<\/span><span style=\"text-indent: 0.5in\"> that could<\/span><b style=\"text-indent: 0.5in\"> <\/b><span style=\"text-indent: 0.5in\">slow or stop<\/span><span style=\"text-indent: 0.5in\"> their hard\nwork.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><span style=\"text-indent: 0.5in\">And these folks could not afford to slow down or stop.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Author Jerome K. Jerome once wrote, \u201cI like work: it fascinates me. I can sit and look at it for hours.\u201d My first trip to Ghana was fascinating in every respect. Unlike Jerome, though, it bothered me a bit that I was constantly surrounded by people working so much harder than I was! It wasn\u2019t [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6459","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6459","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6459"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6459\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6460,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6459\/revisions\/6460"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6459"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6459"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6459"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}