Are the Greeks blameless? Of course not. Many of us haven't been paying our taxes, which you may recognize as a less-than-brilliant idea. But we're also working our asses off to try to fix things. The average Greek puts in 600 more work hours per year than the average German. The true reasons for a financial crisis are massively complicated, and in no way lay on the shoulders of the average citizen. Do you feel at fault when the S&P 500 takes a nosedive? Of course not; you just Googled it to make sure that wasn't some sort of NASCAR race.

Jerry Markland/Getty Images Sport/Getty Images

NASCAR crashes are way less dangerous.

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It's like seeing a homeless person in the streets and trying to convince yourself that their situation isn't something that can happen to you. People who can hardly find our country on the map suddenly become experts in our economy. It's easier than admitting that there can be something bigger at work, that the well-being of your entire country might be out of your hands, and that if things go badly and you want to maintain your same quality of life, you may have to volunteer as the meat in a malaria-ridden hump-sandwich.

Dimitra Nikolaou is a Greek journalist and writer, currently doing her PhD on Role-Playing games. If you speak Greek you can find her work here.

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