So, the Greek Guru Guy hasn’t been completely on track with this website this summer. Posts aren’t coming out as often as they used to, the Thankful Thursdays and Saturday Sayings sometimes become “I forgot it so its now Thankful Sunday”, and in general content has slowed down this summer. I love my website and posting on here, but the reason things have slowed down this summer is because the Greek Guru guy was on vacation in…Greece! What a surprise right? He’s Greek and he’s on vacation in Greece. 🙂

Summertime in Greece has always been amazing. The beautiful mountainous lands, the breathtakingly blue waters in the Mediterranean,  and of course probably one of the richest areas in the world for history and culture. The food is amazing and the people are always welcoming and ready to have fun, drink some great wine, sing, dance, and enjoy life. I can go on and on and on and on about how great summer in Greece can be. Many travel sites already have. Many Greeks already have as well. But this post isn’t about that. Its about what I learned there this summer about people, society, culture, happiness, and a never give up attitude.

If you haven’t been living in a cave this summer, you would’ve heard about all the financial and economic issues Greece has been having. Banks were closed all across the country for 4 weeks straight. The only way to take out money was to go to an ATM, and good luck finding one that had money. If you did find one that had money in it, then have fun waiting in line for over an hour in the sweltering Greek sun to get your money out, and of course hope that it had money once you got to it. Greek citizens were under something called capitol controls, which meant that they were only allowed to withdraw 60 Euros a day, that’s it. People were not only concerned about having money, but about the grocery stores having food on the shelves if the government didn’t reach some sort of agreement and start finding ways to open up banks and create some money flow.

But you know what…this did not stop the Greek people from living their lives. In other countries, if something like this would’ve happened, outrage and panic would have occurred. Looting.  Riots. Paranoia. But in Greece? Concern? Yes. But panic in the streets and people freaking out? No. Some people probably did freak out, sure. But from what I saw, the overwhelming majority of Greek people did not let this get them down. They had a sort of courage about them. A sort of calm conviction that they would find a way to deal with this too. That they knew that they wouldn’t let the political pandering and power struggle of the elite few get them down. They were going to live their lives and enjoy their lives.

Basically, the one thing I’ve learned from being in Greece this summer, we have so much to learn from each other. Americans. Greeks. Etc… We each have our negatives and our positives. But no matter what, no matter how hard things get, economic crisis, long lines at ATM’s, Capitol controls, banks closed, don’t forget to still go out and be with people and enjoy your life. Go to the beach. Go see things. Go talk to people, anyone basically (or else you’ll wind up sitting on a therapists… couch talking to them only). Enjoy life. Be in the moment. No amount of difficulty or financial worry is worth being unhappy. Whether this is difficulty of your own doing because of past mistakes, or if it is a more generalized problem caused by those in positions of power. Be with those you love and take advantage of opportunities and live YOUR LIFE.