I have a guest round, showing them a few bits round my way. My guest comes from an island in the Med. Because we've been doing fairly touristy things in quaint country villages, I've been irritated with the occasionally less than snappy service and chatty old ladies, seeming to want to know every aspect of my life before serving me a fucking cup of tea and a slice of cake. However, when we got home, my guest remarked at how brusque and hurried English life was.
No wonder they live longer than us, it's got fuck all to do with the diet and the olive oil ... it's all about the pace of life.
5 comments:
Think you're right.
I've been thinking along those lines too. All this healthy eating, no smoking and drinking etc, and yet people are expected to work all the time, often with unpaid overtime, take work on holiday, be available 24/7 and generally act like a 15th-century servant.
I'm sure it's killing more than all that smoking and drinking and binge-eating, especially once the stress that causes many people to do those things is factored in.
Perhaps the recession has a silver lining - it'll give a lot of people a chance to cool off.
Not me.
Sure, I could put 16 hour days in and watch the bank balance rocket but fuck it. I've done 30 years of hard graft and am still raising 6 children.
Kick back. Enjoy a little of your time here. Money isn't everything.
And most of all, stop working for other people. Other people are cunts, programmed to get you to do the work they can't be arsed to do themselves. And then take the profit, whilst berating you for "lack of performance, failure to reach targets" etc.
In the end, we all end up dead. So stop working yourself into an early grave whilst your boss relaxes in the Caribbean on your labour.
I think the weather has a lot to do with it. When and where it's nice and sunny and warm, people are happier and more relaxed.
A sunny afternoon in the back garden or a nearby park or beach has an enormous value and doesn't actually cost much. Ergo, to achieve a given level of happiness, you need to work much less.
Which almost certainly extends your life span. And these Mediterraneans types all smoke like topsy, let's be clear about that. Olive oil, my foot.
Which is why I was really disappointed when it turned out that Global Warming was a huge great lie. I was actually looking forward to it.
This is in part why I am deserting Blighty for Mediterranean climes. The pace of life, the solitude, the climate And - despite Napoleonic law - greater personal liberty. There is just the one set of traffic lights in the local town and they are switched off, there are no CCTV cameras in the main street and no ANPR. Also, despite being a high tax economy, if I was taxed under the French system (I won't be unfortunately) my annual tax bill would be significantly less.
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