I wish the United States adopted more of the cultural rhythms found in Europe—France, in particular, comes to mind.
I’ve always admired the European tradition of ‘the summer shutdown.’ In many countries, businesses collectively dial back or close entirely for a period in the summer so that employees can actually vacation with their families without the tether of work. Contrast that with the American ‘hustle’ culture, where taking time off often feels like a burden or a reward we have to earn through burnout.
Beyond vacation, the structural differences are stark. Most industrialized nations treat universal healthcare as a fundamental right, and many offer significantly longer, fully paid maternity and paternity leave. While I’ve heard of countries where new parents can take a full year of paid leave, we’re still fighting for basic protections here.
It reminds me of a line I first encountered in a G.I. Joe comic back in the ’80s, set in a fictionalized labor camp: ‘Work is its own reward.’ While the comic used it as a chilling, Orwellian form of control, I’ve realized that’s exactly the dangerous, unquestioned mantra we’ve adopted in the U.S. We’ve turned hard work—and running ourselves into the ground—into our own version of that propaganda.
I spent two weeks in France the summer after my sophomore year of high school. Even as a 16-year-old on a tour group, I noticed the pace was different. It wasn’t necessarily ‘carefree,’ but there was a profound sense of balance. The prevailing attitude seemed to be: ‘If I don’t get this done today, it’s okay. It will still be there tomorrow.’ In the United States, everything is a five-minute-ago emergency. We work far too hard for far too little, often trapped by the assumption that the American way is the only way to do things. We are a young country; there is so much we could learn from ‘old Europe’ about how to live.
Rebuilding a life takes grit, consistency, and a lot of ‘Option C’ thinking. Whether I’m on the road beyond 1,000 consecutive days of blogging or reflecting on the decade of work that brought me here, the mission remains the same: No glitz. Just the work. New to the blog? Start your journey here to see the blueprint and the ‘Tricorder’ perspective behind the rebuild.
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The article “a case for a slower life” first appeared on Rebuilding Rob.
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