Haters

The last few days I've been between Brighton and my friend's house in North London trying my best to avoid job interviews, responsibility and generally things that aren't fun.

There were some family friends at my mate's house from New York, and they had a lot to say about the British attitude to life. Sure, British people regard Americans as obnoxious, lacking in sense of humor and more often than not overweight, but at the end of the day, at least they actually do stuff.

One of the key British attitudes to come under the microscope was negativity; and since coming to University I've seen it in a number of different forms. Coming from a suburban town with a lack of amenities and loads of white people, I figured that University would be a place oozing creativity, positive like-mindedness and a generally better atmosphere.

However, the negative attitude to life that we adhere to as a nation has appeared in an almost inverted manner. It seems that at University, people love to sit around and criticise other people more than anything. If someone achieves or creates something, rather than respect such activity and perhaps try to emulate or even better it, it's cooler, and quite naturally a lot easier to just be like 'Yeh, well it wasn't that good anyway.'

It seems that in America, there is a wider sense of self belief. 'If you can see it, you can do it' as I heard last night, and everyone seems a lot more willing to help each other out.

One thing that I think people forget in Britain is that you have to actually make things happen for yourself; sitting around dismissing everyone else is a one way ticket to a desk job, weight gain and a mid-life crisis.