I have been to London twice in the last two weeks. The first time, I booked a hotel room in the Covent Garden area and the second time in the Paddington area. There were many Romanians working in both hotels: at the reception desk, at the restaurant, as cleaning staff. I entered a shop in Covent Garden and came across an exceptional saleswoman, also Romanian.
I travelled from London to Paris and interacted with a few Romanian waiters in a restaurant. I was pleasantly surprised to see that all of them had a good attitude – they were kind, positive, energetic. It was as if the cloud above the heads of many fellow countrymen had disappeared; as if life wasn’t just a wailing wall. I thought to myself: “so, it can be done!” It is possible to be polite, respectful and kind when you talk to someone, instead of spitting venom, and to have a diplomatic attitude. Moved out of a context and into another, we can reveal other aspects of our being: the good ones, the bright ones, which attract others and which, I hope, can bring us in balance with ourselves and the world around us.
What is the context here? Which are the buttons that activate our dark side, that have us wear a cloud above our heads? I am wondering if it is about the locus of control (the extent to which people consider themselves in control of the events in their life or consider that those are due to external forces out of their control) or something else that contributes to our level of satisfaction, of performance. We have the tendency to highlight only the negative parts while overlooking the positive ones. A good chunk of this behaviour is due to our early education: our parents pointed out the bad grades, did not congratulate us when we got an 8 or a 9, and when we got a 10, they said it was normal. Another factor may be our tendency to hide our own limitations behind generic excuses, such as ‘I can’t because in this country nothing ever works/because the others…./because here it will never….’; ‘it is difficult here…’, and so on.
What is maybe worth remembering is that, if we go out into this world wearing a cloud above our heads, we will attract storms, wind and rain. If we bring out our bright side, the chances of drawing in good or favourable situations and sunny days, are higher. A lighthouse is like a guide for sailors; darkness brings fear and withdrawal.