60 Minutes / 90 minutes:

Yesterday in Danish class we watched the popular 60 Minutes clip on Denmark again being voted the happiest country in the world. In the clip, it is mentioned that Danes are the world's happiest people primarily because of their low expectations for life. Keep your expectations low, and you're never disappointed.



I hadn't really encountered any situations where the Danes were much more practical about their expectations than people would be in the US, but after watching the video, I started thinking again.

It had struck me as odd last weekend when in his pregame pep talk, my soccer coach talked about how important getting the win was for our future prospects. At the time we had four games left, and if we won all four, we'd be assured of second place and the chance to move up a division next year. Needless to say, getting the win on that particular day was of the utmost importance. He related as much. However, he followed it up with, "But in the event that we don't come away with all three points today, that's okay too. We will just have to work harder in our next few games."

That comment caught me off guard, and while it seemed odd, I couldn't quite figure out why. But as I realized while sitting in my Danish class, there go those famously low expectations again. I have been privy to many a pep talk in my time in the states, and they never end like that. To even consider the potential for a loss is like already admitting defeat. If we need to win all four of our next games, we're going to win all four of our next games -- even if we don't.

I think in this case, the American Way is far superior. After all, when have we ever been wrong? By ignoring the possibility of defeat, that possibility just goes away. For example, the war in Iraq. WE CAN'T LOSE IF DEFEAT DOESN'T EXIST.

I think language can tell you a lot about a society. For example, the Danes don't have a word for "please" -- a mark of the informality of their culture -- and when white settlers encountered Australian aborigines for the first time, they learned that they didn't have any word for "tomorrow." With that in mind, I think it's about time that the word "defeat" was struck from the English language. This could reflect our brash attitudes towards global discourse and would be emblematic of our unyielding faith in the American Dream. Sure, the connections between language and culture would be retroactive, but when you can't lose, why worry about that?