A "Tico" (feminin: tica) is an idiomatic term usually used for people native to Costa Rica. Sometimes the use is extended on to all latin american countries.
In a globalized world we see the whole of humanity as one - more or less. We often assume, that the person across from us thinks the same way we do. They have problems with the same issues, we have. They are dependend on the same things, we are. They appreciate the same things, we do.
Realizing, that in fact, those things may very well not be true, for me, is a very important step in our maturing process.
It helps us understand the reasoning behind the actions of the person sitting across from us. It helps us understand the needs or the borders. The actions or reactions.
I grew up in a small village of about 1500 citizens in the southwest of Germany. In June 2021 I set sails to Costa Rica. Me never having been out of Europe for all of my 21 years of age, did definitly not prepare me for this experience.
But extactly this experience brought me to the realization, which was talked about beforehand.
A big portion of Costa Ricans live in small houses. Mostly smaller than 50m2. Metal sheets as roofs. Mostly with holes. Those metal sheets make a whole lot of noise, when it is raining. Traditonally, the walls inside do not even go up to the roof. Meaning, that each and every sound will be heard in the next room.
Minimum wage: 2.50$ for one hour of work. Still, prices for groceries mostly more expensive than in Europe.
Usual food: Bananas, yucca, beans, rice, corn
Mostly no toys for kids to be seen.
Website all over the world wide web are constantly trying to calculate happiness. They all use more or less the same parameters like gross domestic product per capita or life expactancy. Two of those websites are worldpopulationreview or atlasandboots. The first one ranks Costa Rica at number 16 with 7.12 points out of a possible 10, compared to Germany at 17 with its 7.08 points. The latter website comes to a similar conclusion (CR: #16, 7.07pts; DE: #13, 7.16pts). At this point, the correctness of those numbers should be questioned. I am completely aware of my use of anecdotal evidence, given, that I will base the biggest part of my line of argument on my personal experiences. But I highly doubt, that any form of math realized by mankind can correctly calculate such an abstract thing as "happiness".
The following sentences will exaggerate my conclusion that firstly, those values are not to be trusted and secondly, why Costa Rica may, in fact ,be amongst the happier of the countries and Germany some way down the list.
There are simply way too many factores playing into that feeling, than there could ever be collected into one simple ten-point scale. Especially not if one wants to calculate this value for one country as a whole, even though there are vast differences inside a countries geographical or demographic distribution.
The concurbation area around the capital houses approximately half of the countriy´s five million citiziens. All packed on a rather small area. The outskirts feel more like slums than a city.
If you arrive from Germany, not much changes. Unpersonal, stressed out, egocentric. All driven by the call of work, revenue, prosperity.
- How high would worldpopulationreview score these people´s hapiness?
About an hour drive outside the city, the picture, which presents myself, changes for each kilometer, that I get farther away from San José. Two and a half hours after that, I take a turn left from the route 1, the inter-americana highway, onto a smaller road, which brings me up into the mountains of Guanacaste, where I live.
Here, it is a different type of mentality. A mentalitiy, which I must admit, mostly sits with the elder generation. It is like a magical thing, that these people have. It makes you comfortable in their presence, even though you never met them before. Even more sad, that this glow somewhere down the road, got lost.
It is hard to explain how this magical aura comes into existence and how one would be able to produce it himself. It probably is something each and everyone has to find out on his own. That is, if one is willing to seek something like it.
I am shure, those people would rank way higher on a happiness-scale, than the ones in the capital.
The stories I could tell of the serenity of Ticos are many. And I only been here for half a year! It starts from construction workers singing as loud as they can in the wrongest tunes possible, proceeds with them just sitting and staring for hours or sleeping in the sun and ends with things like these:
I once drove home from grocery shopping. It was already dark and raining heavy. There are no proper roads where I live, which means, that whenever it rains, there will be big puddles of water or straight up rivers running across the road. I was not alone and we were debating interesting topics, when we drove by an elderly women with an umbrella. Right, when passing by the women, we drove through a big stream of water, which my brain did not process quickly enough. Rain, dark, women, water, .. Aaand just like that she was wet to the bone. I felt so, so bad. So I jumped out the car and ran after her to apologize and maybe even offer here dry clothes. To my suprise, she was not even mad. I fact, she did not even seem having noticed it. She just told us "La pura vida" - the pure life with a big smile on her face and continued her walk home.
Costa Ricans have been like a field study to me. I would like to find out, how to remain calm in nearly all situations, that I could think of. Especially since I am one of those people, who spend a lot of time worrying about this or that.
We are constantly told, that it comes through things like a save job, a save income, a house, health care, a childhood with the wildest toys and constant activities. In contrast to that stands what I wrote beforehand, how their situation is. They do not have much, but still are truly happy and relaxed.
At this point we come full cirlce with the beginning and intent of this text. The lesson for me is, that you can never even dare to understand, what a person needs to be happy. It is a combination of their own mind, education and so on.
Understand, that happiness is a choice rather than a result of the way your life goes and you made a big step towards achieving, what we all grave so much.
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