The Happiest Place on Earth (No, It's Not Disneyland)

On Saturday, Kerri and I were at EPA here in Costa Rica. When leaving the store, there is a store employee that stands at the front door and compares your receipt to the items you've purchased to make sure you haven't stolen anything. Just like at Costco. Checking the person's stuff in front of us was taking a particularly long time as the clerk was checking every piece in a 100-piece tool set. As a result, a line of about 15 people formed trying to get out of the store.

Kerri and I looked at the line and--in true American fashion--started to get impatient. Kerri started looking around to see if we could call another clerk over to help out. As she was looking around for the clerk, I looked at the line and noticed that everyone behind us was standing patiently talking to one another. Not one of them had even noticed that a large line had formed--and they were in it! I turned to Kerri to call off her search for another clerk--"Babe, I don't think these people mind that there is a line."

The next day, I picked up the Tico Times--basically a newspaper in Costa Rica written just for the ex-pats. There was a column written by an American woman who had just returned to San Jose from Liberia. She had taken the bus back and--because it was a holiday weekend--the bus was overcrowded. So crowded that many people didn't get seats and had to stand. For 4 1/2 hours from Liberia to San Jose. And the point of her article was that--while she scrambled on to the bus to land a seat--the local Costa Ricans around her stood for 4 1/2 hours and not one of them ever complained.

When you travel to a foreign country, the culture is always different. But I sometimes fail to remember that a core part of culture is attitude. And Costa Ricans have an entirely different mindset than we in the northern half of the Americas. They don't mind waiting. In fact, they'll do it patiently. They are on Tico Time.

Maybe that's why Costa Rica is the third happiest country on the planet.