OPINION

The most fulfilling debt

Let?s face it: We have gone bankrupt. Greece has gone bankrupt as a nation and along with it the Greeks have gone bankrupt as well.

The fear of such an eventuality has long resided in our minds. We tried to exorcise our apprehension and we turned a blind eye to the worrying signs of where the country was headed. But we did not manage to escape the disaster. And we all know now that the coming years will be tough — tougher, in fact, than we ever could have imagined.

The point now is what do we do next since we have gone bankrupt? Do we have a clear objective? Do we have a vision? Let?s be honest with ourselves: We must admit that we have absolutely nothing resembling a plan. From the early hours of the painful realization until the present, the country has failed to come up with a comprehensive plan for exiting the financial crisis — a well-thought-out plan based on our very own ideas and strengths.

Of course we can?t change what has already happened. We are being dragged around and sometimes manipulated by our European Union peers and international creditors. There is more than one reason for this — but it is certainly because we have been weak, sterile, unprepared, struck dumb by the hard fate that landed in our path.

Fate seems to have slipped from our own hands.

And disaster struck. Now we are faced with a massive debt, with inexorable figures and tough creditors, with the specter of poverty that is coming thick and fast, with necessity and, above all, with our own selves.

First of all we must face ourselves. Because it is our duty to stand firmly on our own two feet. This is the most important thing of all. Keep standing: proud and humble — this is the only way to be strong. Proud for what we are, as proud as we can be. Humble about what we aspire to be, about what we are striving to become.

Proud and humble, we can look our children in the eye. In their faces, we must see our parents, the heroes and the ordinary people of yesteryear, to see our obligations and responsibilities, our legacies and traditions, to see our future wide open, like an endless possibility. The biggest debt is the most fulfilling: the debt to our children.

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