Asked in 90 countries of the world, the question “Can you trust people?” gave an amazing response in Romania

A gesture made by the champion David Popovici offered a term of comparison with public trust in other countries and in Romania.

David Popovici was contacted to advertise a large company. He was told that money doesn't matter. “You put the amount here, in white.” The 21-year-old champion did not want that association and his answer was “No”, the journalist Cătălin Tolontan describes the episode in an article in GOLAZO, the sports website of HotNews.

A champion like David Popovici is not a gift from the gods

Starting from this incident, the journalist says that our response to David's gesture could be: “Normally, David Popovici was able to refuse because he could afford it: he has the performances, the glory and the money.” Yes, that's right. But David Popovici was not born David Popovici. He is not a gift from the gods. He became He is here through work, training according to the world standards of his discipline and through the attitude of success.

It is not David's refusal that is at issue, the choice is his right. Maybe next time he will choose to accept. It is important, however, that he had the freedom, which he earned, to be able to choose autonomously, on his own feet.

“Sorry, you don't get top marks just for effort”

And this freedom is created only when society cultivates the idea that it makes sense to work and perform.

Kids today are often told that competition doesn't matter anymore. That it doesn't matter where they are in the ranking. An observation of teachers in several countries revealed that young people expect high grades just because they attend classes. “Sorry, you don't get the maximum grade just for effort!” wrote an exasperated teacher, quoted by the journalist.

In Romania, not only trust in merit is low, but also trust in others. The website Visual Capitalist recently published a graph in which people from 60 countries answer the question “Can you trust people?”.

74% of Danes say yes. 41% of Spaniards say yes, you can trust people, the same figure as in Germany.

Conversely, in Romania only 12% say that “you can trust people”. It is less than half of Hungary, France or Poland. Montenegro and Slovakia also have 22%, while we have 12%.

We are, as a society, at the level of Ethiopia and Iraq in the level of trust in people, with 12%. Romania is on the 70th place on the “map of trust in the other”.

Here you can read more about the incident with David Popovici and its significance.

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