Striking the right note for Christmas Eve 

It’s always difficult to strike the right note when it comes to churning out a column which falls on Christmas Eve. 

You don’t want to sound too depressing at this time of year, so you try to steer clear of all the negative issues; but you also don’t want to sound too falsely cheery either. 

In a way, it is not dissimilar to how we take stock and analyse our own lives when we ask ourselves whether we are truly happy and content. Do we look for the silver lining or do we constantly find fault with everything? Glass half empty, or half full? 

Granted, it is easy to scan through the headlines and fall into the pits of doom and gloom. Good news rarely hits the front pages, and even when it does, it doesn’t get as much traction as bad news. I have often noticed the same pattern on the popular FB page Are You Being Served… a complaint will keep getting reactions and comments for hours on end, and sometimes even days. However, when someone praises a service, it gets just a handful of likes and dies a limp death. Maybe, as some like to say, we are intrinsically a nation of grouchy people (Maltese gemgem) who revel in grumbling for its own sake. 

This is precisely why social media is not the ideal place if you want a balanced view of the state of the nation. It is either people “living their best life” (to use that tiresome phrase) with images of picture-perfect families and picture-perfect Christmas trees, or else it is replete with the moaners and groaners who can’t seem to find a single positive thing to say about anything. 

The dichotomy is evident on a regular basis, particularly on expat groups which have as many people ruing the day they came to Malta and telling everyone to stay away, as there are those saying they love it and are planning to relocate here. It is as if each group is living in their own little world, and never the twain shall meet, despite the fact that all the information one needs is online and public, at the touch of a keyboard. 

Obviously, I can understand how a terrible experience will make you hate a country and describe it as hell on earth, but I think it is also true that those who migrate here need to be realistic about what they are expecting. When uprooting and moving to a new country, you might be making physical changes in your surroundings, but you are still the same you. Along with your assorted luggage, you are lugging your emotional baggage too.

I can see how Malta can be cripplingly lonely and harsh for those who come here alone with no friends or family or someone to show them the ropes… but isn’t that true of just about any other country? At the very least, one must carry out plenty of research about the cost of living and the bureaucracy involved in settling here and, above all, a safety net is essential just in case things go pear-shaped. When it comes to the crunch, you will not really know whether a place suits you until you have actually lived there for some time, which means weighing the pros and cons and taking a calculated risk. 

People move and migrate for a variety of reasons and it is always fascinating to me how those who are here want to be elsewhere while those who are elsewhere look at our island and yearn to be here. 

It is the wistfulness of human nature about wanting a fresh start, a clean slate, where no one knows you and where you can start over. 

Then there is the belief that other places always seem better, the grass is greener syndrome. The factors that contribute to what it means to be happy with one’s lot in life, as always, are very subjective, which is why I find those Eurobarometer surveys that come out from time to time highly misleading because one can pick and choose from statistics to mean whatever you want them to mean, depending on who is reporting them. 

A recent survey was conducted among 504 participants between 23 October and 11 November - one media report said that 90% of Maltese residents have expressed satisfaction with their personal lives while another report said “the majority of Maltese are unhappy with how things are going in the country”.  Yet another report said that “The public mood in Malta has taken a turn for the worse, with half of the people now saying that things are heading in the wrong direction.” 

Of course, one could argue that both these facts could be true, i.e. people could be happy with their own lives but unhappy with the way the country is being run. 

65% of the respondents said they are facing major issues such as rising prices, inflation, and cost of living, while the environment and climate change was mentioned by 26% of respondents. Yet, again, according to this survey, there is still optimism among the majority that their lives will either remain the same or get better over the next year. 

I think this is rather symptomatic of the often-contradictory way the Maltese look at life: on the one hand, everywhere you go you hear about how expensive everything is and yet, this festive season will see people spending a lot of money on gifts, dining out, socialising and taking children to various pricey Christmas events. 

“What can you do?” They tell you with resignation while shrugging helplessly. Of course, you do find people who have cut back, either through choice or necessity, but most attractions and venues still draw the crowds. It’s a mindset which perhaps explains how the wheels keep on turning in this country in spite of everything you read or hear about how bad things are. 

One could say that it is this blind optimism that “everything will be alright” which is necessary for the human spirit to keep going. And, I suppose, that is not a bad way to go through life rather than being pessimistic and angry all the time. 

We all saw the viral video of the entitled woman making a scene at McDonald’s over some French fries, and the other video of a man who went ballistic on a bus, using every colloquial blasphemy in the book, because the driver did not stop where he wanted him too. No one wants to be that person – that much bottled-up rage cannot be good for anyone. But neither should we be the ones filming these meltdowns either, just so that they can be shared for public consumption and “entertainment”. 

As we continue with this daily balancing act of working hard to be able to have enough money to live a good quality of life, the challenge is not to lose sight of what it all means. It is difficult to remain grounded in such a materialistic world which often prefers buying gifts or handing over cash, to actually spending time with people… yet, ultimately the cash is spent and the gifts are forgotten or set aside. But the time we fail to spend with each other can never be regained. 

Wishing all our readers a peaceful Christmas.