These are two of my favourite things

I was pondering what is my very favourite thing about living in America, and I think it is this. I love what has come to be known as the 'can do' attitude of Americans. But it's more subtle than that. The 'can do' attitude is often used as a blunt instrument, to beat us all into a 'try harder' mentality. I get irritated when I hear stories about the man who started selling running shoes out of the back of his truck, and ta-da, a few decades of hard work later, he's CEO of Nike! I hate those stories, and they do abound here. Abound, I tell you. What they fail to recognise is all the thousands of people who sold running shoes out of the backs of their trucks, and quack quack oops, a few decades of hard work later, they're still selling running shoes out of the backs of their trucks. Or they've found other ways of making small amounts of money and scraping a life together. And of course it begs the question, do we all want to be successful business achievers? Is that the highest aim?

So the 'can do' attitude has its rather thumping approach to life, but its finer side is worth a second look. I didn't know the word 'intentional' before I lived here. I like the word. It speaks of attempts to live life in meaningful ways. Who wants to look back on their allotted span and think "well, that was kind of fun"? Wouldn't we rather look back and see that we expended our energies seeking out what was important, what was meaningful, what was good, and pursuing those things? Intentionality in the small things of life can make a huge difference. Americans are much less shy than we are of living life in a way that says "this is what I'm about". You see it in the way they talk about family, friendship, bringing up children, hobbies. They don't just want to see what life brings. They want to find what they want in life. I love that. I used not to know the word 'intentional', and now I seek out opportunities to use it. (Geddit?)

Then I thought about what I miss most about life in Britain (as a generality, not the obvious issue of specific people, places or things). I decided it was the humour. That wry, dry, dark, self-deprecating, witty, hilarious, sarcastic, ironic, squirmy humour that is in my bones. It has to lie a little dormant here. It just does. It seeps about quietly in my marrow.

I'm guessing that if you haven't grown up with it, British humour can be negative, sarky, detached, and downright odd. Perhaps it reveals our stoicism. "Pack up your troubles in your old kit bag, and smile, smile, smile" - that kind of attitude. "You have to laugh, or else you'd cry." So why do I love it; why do I miss it? I think it's because it speaks of the ability to hold lightly to life, to take ourselves with the lack of seriousness we deserve, to walk across the top of the difficult days instead of trudging through them, to deflect what life throws at us instead of catching it, to enjoy the loopiness of it all, quite literally to laugh things off.

I realise that what I like most about here, and what I miss most about there, are two sides of the same coin. I hadn't seen that when I started writing this blog post, but it's obvious now. I like taking life seriously, and I like taking it not too seriously. That's a bit weird of me isn't it?

Come on then. Fill up my comments box with the things you like or dislike about the place you live, and the nationality you are. (The first person to say "a nice cup of tea" wins a virtual prize.) Or do my generalities annoy you? Do they say more about me than about the two nations I dare to stereotype?