In the past two years, I've spent six months living in Germany. The quality-of-life difference between that country and the US is striking.
In Germany, it appeared that ordinary people could both afford to, and were inclined to, partake often in small pleasures such as having a Bier and a bite at outdoor cafes in the summer. The streets were lined with these cafes and restaurants, most doing a brisk business. I never saw so many cut-flower shops in my life. The small pleasure of flowers was both affordable AND something that was on the minds of ordinary people, something that one would never encounter in the US.
Here, such things are looked upon as frivolous luxuries, and financially they are that for the 99%. If you can afford such things as cut flowers, then, we're told by our betters, you can also work for less money or work more for what you're earning currently. Why do you deserve luxuries, peon?
Despite what the pro-workaholic, GDP-flaunting people in the US would say, Germans on the whole seem to be quite materially prosperous. But with that, they are culturally prosperous in a quality-of-life sense too. They seem to expect it, whereas in the US a high QoL is reserved for the wealthy.
Obviously I'm not saying that every German lives this way, necessarily. But I think that this cultural observation is accurate. I think if average people in the US would be brought to understand that they too could have a modest life containing a big helping of everyday pleasures and without life-sucking, excessive work expectations, there'd be a revolution.