Applicant Tree

Many Americans are workaholics. Its part of our blood, we are just born with it. It rarely crosses our mind that we only get two weeks of vacation a year and that we spend way more than forty hours a week at work. Why haven’t Americans tried to adopt a more European approach to our work ethic? Have six weeks worth of vacation time, shut down business in the afternoon for an hour or two of lunch, and go to museums and have hobbies in our free time. Now that sounds like a better life to me.

I recently saw a story on “60 Minutes” about the happiest country in the world which was not some tropical island or beach getaway. The happiest country was Denmark. The Danes are happy because they keep low expectations and they realize there is more to life than power and wealth. Most of the Danes interviewed said they could never live in America because all of us are workaholics and greedy. If we can’t have the number one spot in our company we become depressed because we had such high expectations. Maybe the Europeans are right; maybe we do need to spend more time with family, friends, reading books, going to museums, and having hobbies.

In America we have yet to master the work/life balance that they have in Europe. Unfortunately work is our life. I wonder if companies in America suggested having an 8% pay deduction in return for six weeks of vacation a year if we would jump at that opportunity. I think that Americans need to adopt a more relaxed mindset so we won’t be stressed out all the time. Not everything is urgent. Europeans rarely respond to an e-mail on the same day they receive it and no one expects to get much work done in the month of August. We need to change our standards and open our eyes to the happier countries around the world. I think the Europeans are on to something here.