Word Origin Comics: Life Rubbing You the Wrong Way? Time to Get to the Root of It

Having trouble making it through the day? You're probably caught up in the daily grind. The grind occurs when you push yourself to attain a certain goal but end up being caught up in the particulars, as in "I've been on the grind lately trying to pay my bills." It's closely akin to gears grinding when working beyond their capacity.





"Life was not to be sitting in hot amorphic leisure in my backyard idly writing or not-writing, as the spirit moved me. It was, instead, running madly, in a crowded schedule, in a squirrel cage of busy people. Working, living, dancing, dreaming, talking, kissing -- singing, laughing, learning. The responsibility, the awful responsibility of managing (profitably) 12 hours a day for 10 weeks is rather overwhelming when there is nothing, no one, to insert an exact routine into the large unfenced acres of time -- which it is so easy to let drift by in soporific idling and luxurious relaxing. It is like lifting a bell jar off a securely clockwork-like functioning community, and seeing all the little busy people stop, gasp, blow up and float in the inrush, (or rather outrush,) of the rarified scheduled atmosphere -- poor little frightened people, flailing impotent arms in the aimless air. That's what it feels like: getting shed of a routine. Even though one had rebelled terribly against it, even then, one feels uncomfortable when jounced out of the repetitive rut. And so with me. What to do? Where to turn? What ties, what roots? as I hang suspended in the strange thin air of back-home?"

― Sylvia Plath, The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath


Learning something new is a fabulous way to be refreshed. When work can grind you down, something about learning a new activity thrills the soul. It reminds you that the world is bigger than your desk and your to-do list.

---John Ortberg

Something new for today is that the Urban( slang) Dictionary also lists a "grind" as a "group of lesbians."

"A gaggle of geese...a herd of elephants...a grind of lesbians."

"I went to the coffeehouse to grab an espresso, but a grind of lesbians was protesting for fair trade coffee, blocking the door."








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