Cheshire Cat wrote:I would not know about USA or Spain or Portugal I cannot speak about places I have not spent time in, But like everywhere, if you walk away from the Cities and out to the villages you come across a different type of person, a kinder more relaxed person. This is where I was born and brought up.
I cannot make the money back we have lost because we are both retired, our lovely home in the Gers SW France is up for sale in order to try and provide some back up for the future. We will of course stay in this area, we all feel safer here than we have felt in any other place we have lived.
I'll tell you about some of the crap that goes on. A guy I worked with had a two boys. One evening, he looked rather upset and I happened to be around so I asked if all was OK. He mentioned that his wife was pressuring him to put their oldest in private school at a cost of about $20,000 a year. (They must learn that first grade crap
really well for $20K.
) Anyway, with an $8500 mortgage, $25,000 in property taxes, two cars costing about $800 a month each, food, etc, he couldn't afford it. His wife was pressuring him out of concern that they'd lose their friends if they didn't enroll their kids in the same place everybody else did (they'd have to enroll the younger one as well in a year or two). Enrolling them would mean that they'd have to go into debt and be left unable to pay for their college education and possibly affect retirement plans, etc.
The poor gutless bastard eventually caved into his wife. When he told me that, I guess I had a surprised look on my face - he said it was worth it to make his wife happy. I could tell by the look on
his face that he didn't believe what he had just said.
Here's another: Some lady wrote to an advice column regarding other parents that allowed their children to stay at a hotel on prom night. She didn't want her kid to do so, but she complained that because so many other parents allowed their kids to stay in the hotel, that she had no choice but to go with the flow. Again - gutless.
The bottom line is that people are not capable of saying "no." Corporations dislike people that stand up for themselves. People don't like letting other people down. Nobody gets trained how to tell someone "NO." When it comes down to it, grown people need to grow a backbone and do what they think is right. People won't always like you for it - this is merely a fact of life.
I also prefer a bucolic setting to a concrete jungle, but people are the same wherever you go (didn't Yoko pen that?
) The same thing will manifest itself in the country, just in a different way. Everybody has the choice to go with the flow - but everybody also has the ability to live within their means and by their values.
Hope you're well...
