The Moaning Nation

A couple of years ago there was a research about the most unhappy and depressed nations in the world. Guess who was number one... The Bulgarians! And even without this research, everybody could easily name them to be the most depressed and miserable people in the world. There is always something wrong in their life, something to moan about, something to blame on the others. It's never their fault - it's always either the vicious politics, or the wicked boss, not to mention the bad parents and the crazy neighbors.

Right now I have the chance to watch a few Bulgarian students who came here with the Work and Travel programme. What do you think they do most of the time? Yeah, they moan. They moan how stupid the Americans and Amerca are (so, what are you doing here?), they moan about their social life here, they moan about their employer, about everything. You can get mad only listening to them. But don't think they will become happy when they go back to their country. They might stop moaning for about 2 weeks when they will be partying with their friends most of the time, but after that they will start complaining about their professors, their employer, the bus driver, the cafeteria waitress, the politicians, their parents...

I was an exchange student in Finland in 2004 with about 300 foreign students just like me from all over the world. Everybody had a lot to do and only 24 hours a day. We all were busy. We all were dropped in a completely new environment requiring much more efforts from us. One day I realized that I was the only one who was complaining around about that, no one of my foreign friends did (except for my German roommate, who complained even more, but she was just stupid). Then I told to myseld, "Shut up, be a big girl, don't be Bulgarian". And I did, I stopped mouning. And it was great. Because when you don't think of all the bad things and the impossibilities, you just forget them and find a way to cope with the challenges.

So, dear Bulgarians, stop moaning, stop feeling depressed and down just because everybody around you does so. You don't even know how lucky you are - to have food, to have a home. Can you imagine what it would be if you lived in a third world country?



Iva