Perspective for Your Bad Day

It's generally on Saturdays that I find myself reading the next chapter or two in Fergus Fleming's great book, Off the Map: Tales of Endurance and Exploration. Most recently I read about Gordon Laing's search for Timbuctoo in 1824-1826. If you're having a bad day, it may help you put your troubles in perspective to read Gordon Laing's report of what happened to him when attacked by thieves in the Sahara Desert one January afternoon in 1826. In a letter to a friend, Laing writes:

"To begin from the top: I have five sabre cuts on the crown of the head and three on the left temple, all fractures from which much bone has come away; one on my left cheek which fractured the jaw bone and has divided the ear, forming a very unsightly wound; one over the right temple and a dreadful gash on the back of the neck, which slightly grazed the windpipe; a musket ball in the hip, which made its way through my back, slightly grazing the backbone; five sabre cuts on my right arm and hand, three of the fingers broken, the hand cut three-fourths across, and the wrist bones cut through; three cuts on the left arm, the bone of which has been broken and but is again uniting; one slight wound on the right leg and two with one dreadful gash on the left, to say nothing of a cut across the fingers of my left hand, now healed up."