Granted: the weather was extremely cold, grey and miserable on my last trip to Germany. But it was not only due to the sun that I took a deep breath of relief after returning to California. It happened the morning after coming back. I took the bike to the market to pick up some essentials for breakfast. And there it hit me: strangers smiling at me, a senior passing me on a skateboard and a guy wearing an oversized funny hat greeting me enthusiastically: “What a nice day for a bike ride!” How can you not be happy about that? Unfortunately I am pretty sure some Germans would not even smile but instead complain about this stupid superficial cheerfulness. Unlike them I had missed this friendliness and slightly crazy individualism. I felt a sense of optimism in the air that is hard to put into words and essential for my love of the ‘American Way’ .

Of course: a smile does not give the 24 million people without a job in the US any work and the 46 Million who live at or below the poverty line cannot buy anything with it. And it hurts to see that thousands have reduced the ‘American Way of Life’ to buying more and more stuff even if they don’t need and can’t afford it and to being entertained nonstop avoiding stillness and eliminating critical thinking.

But smiles make life easier even in an economic crisis.

I did enjoy a lot of things in Germany like ‘schunkeln’ with family and strangers at a traditional Christmas concert in the Black Forest, dodging fireworks with friends on New Year’s Eve in Berlin and spending long evenings eating, drinking and talking without a TV screen anywhere close. But I realized: in my almost ten years of living in the United States I got very used to the ‘American Way’ which has a lot to do with a general attitude.

If you claim your right to pursuing happiness Germans will find a lot of reasons for your forthcoming demise. In The US lots of people will cheer you on. When I quit a well payed and secure job to follow my dream of working self employed in California the comment I heard most from Germans was: “What is going to happen to your retirement plan?” Friends and strangers in the US congratulated me on that decision and wished me the best of luck. Of course it has gotten a lot harder to make it from dishwasher to millionaire but can you name a country other than the USA where a muscleman from Austria can become Governor? Sure: the modern ‘American Way of Life’ means driving a mass production Toyota rather than a customized Humvee a la Schwarzenegger. Dreams of owning a house are ended by hundreds of thousands of foreclosure signs in front yards some of which you might find in my neighborhood. And still people here smile at me, take their skateboard to the supermarket and put on silly hats. They hold on to their belief that with hard work and perseverance you can lift yourself up by your own bootstraps.

Even if it is an illusion - this attitude for me makes the ‘American Way of Life’ simply irresistible.