De ce moldovenii nu trebuie să se compare cu alţii, inclusiv cu Europa

(prezentare la Toastmasters în limba engleză)

 I love this country...  I realized how true is the saying of professor Preobrajenskii, in The Dog's Heart... Devastation of a country starts in people's minds. In the evening I looked for the list of the worlds' countries with the index of life satisfaction. If the people of a country feel happy, they are in the first 10. I found Moldova at the end of the list. What makes it be there, on the 175th nivou, together with Zimbabwe, Congo, Burundi, but also with Ukraine, Armenia, Belarus, Turkmenistan? Is Moldova the poorest country in the World and this influencing the life satisfaction index? I analized the situation, and found three important questions that may clarify Moldova's state of unhappyness:
      1. What make a country to feel unhappy? 
      2. What make a country to feel happy?
      3. What to do?
 1. So, what makes  a country unhappy?

Iceland, Denmark, Bahamas, Switzeland, Austria, Finland, Sweden... are in the first 10 happiest countries of the world. What linkes them, what do they have in common? Usually here in Moldova we believe that their richness is the answer. It is true, the GDP of each of this country is huge!
        Denmark - 35 000 USD, Brunei - 39 000 USD, Switzerland - 43 000 USD, Austria - 46 000 USD, Finland - 49.000 USD. What is happenining in Moldova? Having about 3 500 USD, Moldova is at least 10 times poorer than Denmark, Finland, Austria... People from Moldova emigrate, have a look at the richness and confort of european countries and complain with: oh, we are so poor, we are so unhappy, we have a shitty life! We want to be like europeans, we want to be in europe, we want a european life. We compair ourselves with others!

2. What makes a country happy?
      I believe that the crucial factor of the unhappyness lays not in the quantity of money, because happyness or unhappyness are not economic concepts. In other words, a country can be as poor as Moldova and be one of the 10 happiest countries in the world!

      Bhutan!, In 2005 Bhutan, a country found between India and China, with aproximately 1 mln population, had the same GDP as Moldova!
      So, it is a quite poor country, with a very happy population. What is the trick?May be they smoke three times a day? In any case, my conclusion is that the first 10 happiest countries in the world cannot be associated by their richness!
    
  So, what associates all of happyest countries? I believe it is about the way they perceive themselves, their way of living, their traditions, having thereown pace of life. At the same time, I believe none of these countries are very good in looking in the neiboughrs' court. They don't care about others, because they care about themselves, preserving and perpetuating what they like and what value. And what is more important, they do not compair themselves to the others.
      For instance, Bhutan's king decided to explore every possibility to make itsown people happy, refusing to explore this thing from the economical point of view. And, as Victor Frankl sais, it is a matter of being not having! So, instead of compairing Bhutan with other countries, they did their way!

3. What to do?
      Let us see what Bhutan did?
·        Preserving traditions. For example, every citizen would wear a national robe, a kaftan
·        There is a program of preserving the temples.
·        Common activities - Archery. This is merely not as a sport, but a tradition!
·        Growing flowers, keeping the streets clean
·        Until 1999 the country had no TV and Internet. At all! It was prohibited
·        Teaching English to all children
·        The best students are sponsored to study in US or Europe. return to help Bhutan
·        Preserving the nature. About 50% of the territory is a national park
·        A social program for taking care of old people
·        EVEN smoking prohibited in the whole country!
    So, what they did in Bhutan, is to have a National Idea, and every citizen is involved in realizing this NIdea.

    So, it is not about how rich is a country, and not about being better or worse, comparing yourself to the others. Our country may live differently if it decides to be different.
To be as it is wants to be, caring about its own identity, about its people.
I wish I new what is the national idea of Moldova.