"Sounds like a pretty self-centred way to live," I said. "Perhaps, but I'm not just looking up at the sky and waiting for the fruit to drop. In my own way, I'm working hard. I'm working ten times harder than you are."

"That's probably true," I said. "I look around me sometimes and I get sick to my stomach. Why the hell don't these bastards do something? I wonder. They don't do a fucking thing, and then they moan about it."

Amazed at the harshness of his tone, I looked at Nagasawa. "The way I see it, people are working hard. They're working their fingers to the bone. Or am I looking at things wrong?"

"That's not hard work. It's just manual labour," Nagasawa said with finality. "The "hard work' I'm talking about is more self-directed and purposeful."

"You mean, like studying Spanish while everyone else is taking it easy?"

"That's it. I'm going to have Spanish mastered by next spring. I've got English and German and French down pat, and I'm almost there with Italian. You think things like that happen without hard work?"

Nagasawa puffed on his cigarette while I thought about Midori's father. There was one man who had probably never even thought about starting Spanish lessons on TV. He had probably never thought about the difference between hard work and manual labour, either. He was probably too busy to think about such things - busy with work, and busy bringing home a daughter who had run away to Fukushima.

- Except from Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami.

Things look different when viewed with the advantage of adult eyes. My single Mum struggling to raise a child alone, my grandfather cutting clothes to make ends meet, my grandmother spending her childhood in an immigration camp...

I don't work particularly hard at all.