{"id":453,"date":"2012-12-12T14:07:49","date_gmt":"2012-12-12T12:07:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/fascinating-america.com\/blog\/?p=453"},"modified":"2015-04-28T00:22:08","modified_gmt":"2015-04-27T22:22:08","slug":"journey-to-the-east","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/fascinating-america.com\/blog\/journey-to-the-east\/","title":{"rendered":"Journey to the East"},"content":{"rendered":"

“That’s such an American attitude!” my friend said, giving me a hostile<\/span> look. For a moment I wondered if our cozy rendezvous in an Erfurt caf\u00e9 was coming to a sudden end. All I’d done was offer a friendly suggestion, but it was one that clearly went against everything she believed in.<\/p>\n

Nadine (not her real name) had been talking about her job, which is handling paperwork at a bank. A recent merger<\/span> meant that the future of her job might be uncertain. So I asked if there wasn’t some kind of training she could get to become more valuable to the company \u2014 and possibly earn more money in a better position.<\/p>\n

“Of course there is,” she said, “but why would I want to do that? I love the job I do now. It’s the perfect work environment. I love the people I work with. And it’s all very flexible. I can take any day off, and not just in advance. I can call in in the morning and take the same day off, as long as someone else is there to do the work.<\/p>\n

“Why would I want more money?” she continued. “I have a nice apartment, take lots of vacations and travel wherever I want. What’s wrong with that?”<\/p>\n

That’s when she accused me of having an American attitude. My belief in being prepared for a changing economy came across as an inability to appreciate what one has, and a desire to always have more. I was being lumped in<\/span> with Dick Cheney, who seemed worried that his net worth of $160 million wouldn’t be enough, and Donald Trump, who, despite being worth billions, still goes to a job where he doesn’t do anything except earn more money.<\/p>\n

If there was an American attitude in my mind, it was the product of those people at the opposite end of the scale: the Walmart employees<\/a> who were asked to put work before family, and the Twinkie makers<\/a> who were asked to earn less and less while the cost of living continued to increase. Even though I live in Germany, I work in an industry with an uncertain future and have to plan for my own survival. I’m sure others do, too.<\/p>\n

So while I was in Erfurt, I got a second opinion. Another friend of mine, who like Nadine grew up in eastern Germany, is a journalist, and a very good one, except that he hasn’t been able to find a steady<\/span> job in his chosen profession<\/span>. I’ve known Christoph (not his real name) for several years, and I’ve seen this eat away at him. So when he confided<\/span> that he’d been offered a job doing something completely different, I was very happy for him.<\/p>\n

Christoph wasn’t sure it was right. To him it was a last resort<\/span>, almost an admission<\/span> of failure. But I saw it differently, and told him so. “This is your chance to get some real-world experience,” I said, “to talk to real people and hear their stories. You will be an even better journalist after this. It will show<\/span> in your writing.”<\/p>\n

He thought about this, and his whole expression changed. “You’re right,” he said, relaxing. “I feel a lot better about this now. I’ll do this for a couple of years and see where it takes me.” Again, American thinking \u2014 taking a lateral<\/span> and, if necessary, indirect approach<\/span> to things \u2014 but this time it got a very different response.<\/p>\n

My journey to the East gave me a lot to think about. Nadine does have the perfect life, the one the rest of us aspire to<\/span>. The question is whether we can ever stop aspiring and actually live that life. Maybe Christoph will be able to do that someday \u2014 and I hope I can as well.<\/p>\n

\n

Language note:<\/b> Journey to the East<\/i> is the English title of Hermann Hesse’s Die Morgenlandfahrt<\/i>, in which the author’s travels bring him new insights<\/span>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“That’s such an American attitude!” my friend said, giving me a hostile look. For a moment I wondered if our cozy rendezvous in an Erfurt caf\u00e9 was coming to a sudden end. All I’d done was offer a friendly suggestion, but it was one that clearly went against everything she believed in. Nadine (not her real name) had been talking … >><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[75,63,20],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/fascinating-america.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/453"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/fascinating-america.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/fascinating-america.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fascinating-america.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fascinating-america.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=453"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/fascinating-america.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/453\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1779,"href":"http:\/\/fascinating-america.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/453\/revisions\/1779"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/fascinating-america.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=453"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fascinating-america.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=453"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fascinating-america.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=453"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}