> Americans just don't want to engage in this kind of "unproductive" lifestyle. It's all about work, career, money.
It’s not that we don’t want to, it’s that our society’s design discourages this. For the most part, if you don’t have a GOOD job in the US, you don’t get healthcare or retirement. And even the employers at those good jobs can and do fire employees at any time, for any reason. Given the cost of healthcare without insurance and lack of social safety net, l I don’t think it’s hyperbole to say that for most Americans, even upper middle class, holding on to their jobs is a matter of life and death.