It takes Eric, the mail carrier, an hour and a half each way to drive to work. He wishes he could instead spend that time with his family, and even though the drive is becoming expensive given the price of gas, he considers himself lucky. There are 6 people in the station where he works that have commutes longer than his. And never does Eric complain about his heel. The doctor told him the only way to make it stop hurting and stop the damage would be to stop walking, which is of course not possible. Mariza, another mail carrier can’t lift her arms above her head due to the heavy loads she’s been carrying and lifting. She had her hair cut almost to a shave so she wouldn’t have to comb it since she can’t. My neighbor Rachel met a woman at the park who spends most of the day there waiting for her husband who works nearby. They live about 2 hours away and have a small child. By the time he would get home the child would be in bed and not see his father. This way they drive to and from work together and have their family time then, thinking that in the car is better than no family time at all. Sometimes they can even have lunch together. Keena, who works in my dentist’s office, has no car in a city like Los Angeles where public transportation is so inadequate it takes quite a long time to get anywhere. She leaves home with her two young children, takes a bus to drop one off to school, then another to drop the other off to day care, then takes 2 more buses to get to work. The dentist told her it would be fine as long as she wouldn’t get to work later than 10am, but she makes sure she gets there by 9am otherwise her salary would be even smaller. Working people can’t help to be inspiring, ordinary human beings who in order to work do things that are far from ordinary.