Echoes of ‘Sylvia’ in Couple’s Story

One of my favorite comic strips is “Sylvia,” and my favorite “Sylvia” strips are about the “Woman Who Does Everything More Beautifully Than You.” What a thrill, then, to see the idea expanded to article length in your piece about Lee and Cherie Gruenfeld (“Trading the Fast Track for Fulfillment,” April 4), who courageously traded three houses for merely two, high-powered corporate jobs for a $1.2-million book advance, and have found happiness in their newly simple lives as highly paid author and world champion triathlete.

I particularly liked how the article, in true “Sylvia” fashion, then acknowledged the more mundane reality of the rest of us by reassuringly offering a career counselor’s wisdom that anyone can do as the Gruenfelds, at least in some pitiful way. Even janitors, says the article, may dream of becoming lab technicians (Oh! Be still my beating heart!), “provided [they’re] willing to do the homework and persist, [and] not look at obstacles as barriers.”

Well, enough entertainment for the day. Time to get to work.

--BARRY CARLTON

El Cajon