When in "Crisis"..

Having spent nearly 3 weeks in Greece, I can’t help but wonder how Greeks manage to support their lifestyle. And yes I certainly am a proud Greek myself, always been and I truly deeply love and support my country. I was born here, grown up here, I attended part of my studies here, I have professional experience here and I always had an absolutely non-affordable lifestyle throughout my Greek life; but, still I don’t get it. I don’t get how I managed to do so and/or how people still manage to do so..

I mean, we all know that Greece has been seriously ‘hit’ by the economic crisis. Better and simply put, presumably during the last 30 years or more, the rich and powerful Greeks were gravely ‘hitting’ the median mass (that is the rest of Greeks) and here we are now, facing the consequences. I judge we are somewhat lucky that the breakdown of our country occurred at the same time with the global credit crunch. This way, our nation is able to present an extra-better excuse for our tough reality to the rest of the world; one that is less embarrassing than the truth.

It is established therefore, that Greece’s economy is anxiously sounding the alarm, begging to be rescued out of its dreadful current situation. And on top of all that I am out there every single day time wearing a smart suit, holding a pack of my well written C.V.’s copies handing them out at every single respectable company that I cross; I am looking for a sort of an impermanent job so that I can go on with my post-studies/adult life. On my way, I take the opportunity to watch people’s attitudes in order to appreciate whether this crisis has any form of impact in my city or not.

Weirdly enough, if you were to pass by the cafeterias (the most preferred activity for us Greeks), you would be impressed by the great amount of people that are laying there by the seaside chatting with their friends whilst sipping their coffees and smoking cigarettes. Subsequently, I can’t help but posing numerous questions to ‘just me’ without bothering to answer them at the time, such as: Do those people have a job? How do they manage to pay their rent? Who is paying for their coffees and cigarettes? Why do most of them look happy? What about the economic crisis?

Having analysed the issue carefully I got myself some facts and answers through constant observation and when I started writing this article I had the best of intentions to share them with you. Believe me I can easily write a small book explaining and comparing Greek society with different cultures’ realities around the world but giving it a wiser thought I decided to keep only the positive aspects for this article. Nevertheless, I figured there is no point in revealing our bad habits to the world. There’s no point in becoming pessimists or accusing ourselves for matters we are not responsible for.

Because even though we Greeks went through numerous wars and wrong governments we have the ability to pay attention to the small things in life and let the really important ones go or even make fan of them. After all, life is too small for worrying so much; and now in crisis we dare wearing the best of our smiles and live intensely, laugh loudly, love passionately, offer without asking for an exchange, albeit the circumstances and/or the resources available. So.. the situation might be fairly harsh but the romance in it remains solid, and I reckon these are just good motivational news.. right? J