The taxi driver that takes me to one of the companies where I teach asks:
‘What’s the weather like in Belgium?’
Only an introduction to ask the real mothership of all questions:
‘Is life in Belgium expensive?’
I give my usual speech on how services are more expensive in Belgium, but that lots of products in supermarkets are cheaper and that salaries are higher.
If you have an average salary in Belgium I’m sure you can afford more things than if you have an average in Slovakia. Slovaks are not happy to hear this. What they want to hear is: salaries in Belgium are higher, but everything is more expensive, so it’s not better there.
They think both salaries and prices are astronomically higher in Belgium than in Slovakia, but that’s not the case.
You never get the question: ‘Are Belgians happier than Slovaks?’
The question you always get is related to purchasing power.
It gets very tedious and predictable.
I meet way more people who are asking themselves questions on how to make more money (usually they are clueless), but I rarely meet people who ask themselves the question: ‘What can I do to be happier?’
I have exactly ONE student like that, and she doesn’t know the answer to the question. She’d like to do something to make the world a better place and would like to have a job she actually cares about, but she’s so comfortable in her present position that there’s not a big enough incentive to make changes. At the same time she’s eager to learn new things about almost any subject.
An other daily event in Bratislava is to hear people say that in Slovakia you don’t have opportunities, that education sucks, that it’s only possible to be succesful in business if you have political friends in high places. Yet Slovakia is booming, it’s full of activity. It’s kind of a paradox. You hear people say nothing is possible here, but everywhere around you see evidence of entrepreneurship, of innovation, of activity.
What’s true about human life is the truth you choose to believe. We humans are wonderfully capable of perceiving reality the way we want.
Project authenticity 
Oh true. But arent Slovaks generally like that? That feeling, when you are not completely satisfied with your life, job, social life, etc, but hearing someone else is in worse situation is making you somehow ok with that? I got caught up for this feeling in various situations, even if I understand its just silly. Also, most of slovaks have still fixed in their heads that life is expensive in west EU countries, well, yes and no. A lot would be suprised from prices of food and cloths there, which are often lower then here. While services are way more expensive then in Slovakia, but we slowly getting there.
Slovaks do not check prices of stuff of other countries, just to compare with ours. We getting feeded from our politicians how we grow fast (true), but hey, they never say about salary comparision here and in west and prices.
It is hard to compare level of happines of slovaks and lets say belgians. Generally, we are happy. We are satisfied with our lives, jobs – because we have to work, society. At least we think this. We did not try something else, for example belgium lifestyle. As well as most belgians did not try slovak lifestyle. I am more then sure, both nations missing something in their lifestyles to say oh yeah this is it.
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I agree neither country is perfect. In Belgium I met way more people who were depressed, suicidal or had tried to kill themselves and were scarred for life because of it. So far I’ve never met a Slovak who seriously claims wanting to end his or her own life. Belgian life seems more about enjoying, but without a trace of spirituality, in Belgium I get the feeling that the only point of human existence is to have some fun. In Slovakia I get the feeling life is about struggling to make money and have some babies, in a substantial number of cases all in the spirit of the Catholic church. If I were younger and single I would probably consider moving somewhere else and trying something new. Yes, Slovaks tend to look for cases worse than their own to have a good feeling about themselves. I’m writing this from Aupark, so I’m kinda digusted by the rampant consumerism. So many people buying stuff that won’t make them happy. We’re a crazy species
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