Thanks Mike - LOL
Joyce

--- In cheal@yahoogroups.com, "Michael Meredith" <enquiry@...> wrote:
>
> Life is Wonderful!
> -------------------
> [Original by Anton Chekhov 1885 - I have added some footnotes for
> clarification]
>
> Life is quite an unpleasant business, but it is not so very hard to
> make it wonderful. For which purpose it is not enough that you should
> win 200,000 roubles in a lottery, or receive the order of the White
> Eagle, or marry a beautiful woman - all these blessings are
> transitory and are liable to become a habit. But to feel continuously
> happy, even in moments of distress and sorrow, the following is
> needed:
>
> (a) To be satisfied with your present state;
>
> (b) To rejoice in the knowledge that things could be much worse
>
>
> NEED CONVICING? Here are Anton's EVERYDAY EXAMPLES...
> =====================================================
>
> **1** When your matches suddenly go off in your pocket, rejoice and
> offer thanks to heaven that your pocket is not a gunpowder magazine!
>
> NOTE 1: "matches" = 19th century version of a lighter - you remember
> lighters? - the things that smokers carried in the old days before
> smoking became dastardly antisocial.
>
> NOTE 2: "gunpowder magazine" = a dastardly antisocial device in the
> old days, before suicide bombing was invented.
>
>
> **2** When your relatives come to pay you a visit during your
holiday, don't turn pale, but exclaim triumphantly: "How very
> lucky it is not the police!"
>
> NOTE: "relatives" and "police" can be swopped over if that would make
> this example more meaningful for you!
>
>
> **3** If you get a splinter in your finger, rejoice that it is not in
> your eye!
>
> NOTE: "finger" and "eye" can be swopped over if you could really use
> a sick note just now.
>
>
> **4** If your wife and sister-in-law practises scales on the piano,
> don't lose your temper, but be grateful for the joy that you are
listening to music, and not to the howling of jackals, or to a cat's
concert.
>
> NOTE: Yes, you are getting the idea now - "howling of jackals" can be
> swopped over too!
>
>
> **5** Rejoice that you are not a tram-horse, nor a Koch bacillus, nor
> a trichina [a parasite of pigs], nor a pig, nor an ass, nor a bear
lead by a gipsy, nor a bug.
>
> NOTE: Scratch this example if, like me, your income tax return is
> overdue to the point of being severely fined.
>
>
> **6** Rejoice that at the moment you are not a prisoner in the dock;
> that you are not interviewing your creditors, and that you have not to
> arrange the question of fees with Turba, the editor.
>
> NOTE: This could be deemed a trifle insensitive for those of us who
> are in the terminal (insanity and seizures) stage of advanced
> syphilis.
>
>
> **7** If you can live in a place not so remote as Siberia, can't you
> feel pleased at the idea, that by mere chance you might have been
deported there?
>
> NOTE: An excellent point for Russians to take on board! - with the
> possible exception for those who dwelt in the neighbourhood of
> Chernobyl.
>
>
> **8** If you have pain in one tooth, rejoice that it is not all your
> teeth that are aching.
>
> NOTE: ...and that you are saving lots of money on those horrendous
> private dentistry bills!
>
>
> **9** Rejoice that you can afford not to read the 'Daily Citizen';
> that you do not have to drive a sewage cart, nor to be married to
three women simultaneously.
>
> NOTE: The 'Daily Citizen' was of course bought out by Rupert Murdoch
and renamed "The Sun", but the linking to sewage carts is probably
still valid.
>
>
> **10** If you are removed to a police cell, jump for joy that it is
> not the "Fiery Gehenna" that you have been taken to.
>
> NOTE: According to the Holy Russian Orthodox scriptures, the "Fiery
Gehenna" is a very nasty formulation of "hell"....
>
> "...With their precipitation into Gehenna will end all seductions,
violence, lies and every evil in the world, and eternal blessedness of
the saved will begin."
>
> NOTE: Presumably this is a reference to the ending of the TV
> series "Big Brother"?
>
>
> **11** If you are flogged with a birch rod, kick your legs in
> rapture, and exclaim: "How very happy I am that it is not nettles I
am being flogged with!"
>
> NOTE: A century after the Marquis de Sade, the popularity of S&M was
> still growing, but not yet, it seems, totally out-of-hand. Nowadays,
> disciples of the Marquis would no doubt choose one of these as the
> main course and the other as (just)dessert(s).
>
> The Marquis, it should be remembered, spent 32 years of his life in
> various prisons plus an insane asylum and at death went to eternal
> damnation in the "Fiery Gehenna" - still, everyone needs a hobby -
it's your choice!
>
>
> **12** If your wife has been unfaithful to you, rejoice that she has
> betrayed merely yourself, and not your country.
>
> NOTE: Oh dear, Mr. Chekhov, you would be shocked at how times have
> changed!
>
> The 2007 version of this is: "If find out that your partner is a
Russian spy, and you of course work for MI6, then be extremely glad
that the company healthcare plan included a check on your genital
polonium level!"
>
>
> [The original text above is from "Plays and Stories by Anton
Tchekhov" (aka "Chekhov"):
> http://www.Amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/B0000CK273/sunflowerheal-21]
>