In order to produce a readable piece of writing for you, I googled both the terms “taking risks” and “Risikos eingehen”. Interestingly, in English I got much advice to take risks, since life won’t get better without taking risks. In German most headings had the phrase “Kein Risiko eingehen” in them, because this would end in a disaster. Why is that?
The Peace Corps website claims that Americans are very willing to take risks. They think it’s always possible to start all over again and even if they fail, there will be new chances to get happy again. Failure is assumed to be an important part of life you can learn from. That’s one of the reasons, why people don’t save too much and there is a high level of personal bankruptcies.
Austrians, on the other hand, love to save their money. I had my first encounter with a bank employee at elementary school. Every year at the “Weltspartag” a man would come to school, open our piggybanks and count the money in such a speed that we were truly impressed. Then he’d write the amount into our bankbook and give it back to us with a “Sparefroh” present. What a day! And since then I knew that I had to save money, because “Spare in der Zeit, dann hast du in der Not”, right mom?
Overall, taking risks just doesn’t seem appealing to Austrians. We prefer to have a secure working place, a nice brick house and a supporting family. I’ve already told you about the Austrians’ opinion about change, which is similar to this topic. To sum up, taking risks is a big no-no, change is a big no-no and if we’re not sure about something new it’s probably the biggest no-no ever. It’s not that Austrians were cowards, but we are definitely highly skeptical towards taking risks, since that can make things worse. Nothing ventured, nothing lost!
The Peace Corps website claims that Americans are very willing to take risks. They think it’s always possible to start all over again and even if they fail, there will be new chances to get happy again. Failure is assumed to be an important part of life you can learn from. That’s one of the reasons, why people don’t save too much and there is a high level of personal bankruptcies.
Austrians, on the other hand, love to save their money. I had my first encounter with a bank employee at elementary school. Every year at the “Weltspartag” a man would come to school, open our piggybanks and count the money in such a speed that we were truly impressed. Then he’d write the amount into our bankbook and give it back to us with a “Sparefroh” present. What a day! And since then I knew that I had to save money, because “Spare in der Zeit, dann hast du in der Not”, right mom?
Overall, taking risks just doesn’t seem appealing to Austrians. We prefer to have a secure working place, a nice brick house and a supporting family. I’ve already told you about the Austrians’ opinion about change, which is similar to this topic. To sum up, taking risks is a big no-no, change is a big no-no and if we’re not sure about something new it’s probably the biggest no-no ever. It’s not that Austrians were cowards, but we are definitely highly skeptical towards taking risks, since that can make things worse. Nothing ventured, nothing lost!
No comments:
Post a Comment