there’s a craze among us mortals that is cruel hard to name;
wheresoe’er you find a human you will find the case the same;
you may seek among the worst of men or seek among the best,
and you’ll find that ever person is precisely like the rest:
each believes his real calling is along some other line
than that one at which he’s working–
take for instance, yours and mine.
From the meanest “me-too” creature to the leader of the mob,
there’s a universal craving for “the other fellow’s job.”
there are millions of positions in the busy world to-day,
each a drudge to him who holds it, but to him who doesn’t, play;
every farmer’s broken-hearted that in youth he missed his call,
while that same unhappy farmer is the envy of us all.
any task you care to mention seems a vastly better lot
than the one special something which you happen to have got.
there’s but on sure way to smother Envy’s heartache and her sob:
keep to busy at your own to want “the other fellow’s job.”
–Strickland W. Gilliland “The Other Fellow’s Job”
