Half a kingdom for a creative approach

Some time after returning from a business trip to San Francisco, I realized what a gulf there is between us and Americans. You can think whatever you like about Americans, but you can’t deny their optimism, creativity, and enthusiasm for what they do. We Czechs are a nation of perpetual grumblers. Our most common line goes something like “That won’t work,” or “There’s no way that’ll work,” or “You’ve completely lost your mind.” We’re used to saying the proverbial A and forgetting to add B, which is just as important. A Czech, with due respect to the exceptions, looks at most complications as insurmountable problems. An American may see the same problems but takes them as challenges and tries to find a way around them. I’d almost say a Czech usually makes problems bigger, while an American tries to solve them. In other words, Americans are much more constructive about solving problems than we Czechs are. Maybe it’s those damned forty years of communism, when we scraped by in gray drudgery, or maybe it’s just that school never encouraged much creativity in us, except perhaps when it came to writing cheat sheets and cheating on tests. I was no exception. Either way, we lose out. All that grumbling makes it look more like we’re unwilling to work than like we’re unable to handle the problem. Take this little observation as a nudge toward more creativity.