Romania is not as bad as Romanians think it is

This is a commentary I wrote on Vice to a guy who complained about how bad life was for him, being gay and living in the suburbs of Bucuresti:

I'm Norwegian and lived in Bucharest for three years between 2006 and 2009.

It's true that it's tougher now than before, because of the reduced wages, the increased VAT, the inflating prices and the raw and naked capitalism that is allowed to rule, especially due to the continuing corruption.

BUT – I live in Bali now, and man, Romanians are lucky, compared to the average Indonesian. The salaries are very low in Southeast Asia, there are almost no rights for workers (and certainly few labour laws), and the lack of opportunities seems to make most people powerless and take away their ambitions.

Remember that Romania is in the EU, and you can get an education that will give you a decent salary and opportunities, even if those are not in Romania. Bucharest is a pretty cultural city, with tons of festivals (many of them free), enough nice clubs to give variety, and generally enough happening most of the time.

Also, your English is so good that you can read literature and Internet articles written about developing yourself and your skills, which will in turn give you ideas and strategies on how to improve your quality of life.

If you are Romanian and are not satisfied with the development in your country (and I can completely understand that), at least make a decision to either become a positive and proactive person (and thus do something about that development), or decide to move to another country. And then make actual steps toward that goal.

I would actually say that one of Romania's main problems is the inherent negative attitude of its inhabitants – so many Romanians I know always talk about how other Romanians can't be trusted, how they are stupid etc. And by doing so they actually get what they expect.

In other words – they expect other Romanians to be bad people, so their behaviour towards other people reflects this. Then the people they meet feel this attitude, they behave coldly back, and not much warmth and positivity is exchanged. And people will always maintain the same belief that "Romanians are bad", because their own attitude and behaviour is actually creating this situation. And when you have a whole country of people doing it...

If you want to do something about all of this, I can recommend reading most of the articles on Steve Pavlina's site, and by Brian Tracy I would recommend especially the ebook "Eat That Frog" and his audio book "The New Psychology of Achievement". Also read this summary of Stephen Covey's "The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People". These are all very good starting points.

Good luck!