Anyone who's seen "Revolutionary Road" probably feels a little shook up. You can read about it in the Movie Review section if you haven't. There's a line in the movie which I'll paraphrase, "In Paris they really live life- not like here".
It's absoloutely true, for most of western Euope anyway. If you haven't had the opportunity to live in Europe, you may have the automatic knee-jerk reaction that this is bullshit or you may say something you've been drilled to say like : "Why don't you move there then!." As if saying such a thing is an act of betrayal to the United States.
It's my point of view that it's impossible know anything about another country, about another way of life, until you live there. That doesn't mean four days in Paris or a student visa in Prauge. It means moving in, communting to work, working, sharing holidays and food. Even so, I'm of the belief that it takes two full years to really begin to understand a country or a people. Every place seems great when you're on vacation.
Europeans think we americans are stupid. Not intelligence wise, but with what we put up with. Many of us haven't had a vacation in years. If we have, it esd a hurried week driving 500 miles to spend three or four harried days with our wife's parents or the like. It' not a recharge, it's not time enough to pursue something we love, it's not restful.
Europeans have a saying that they work to live and Americans live to work.
I can't put it any better. Most europeans have 5 weeks vacation by law, they have state health insurance. That's just a couple of twenty odd points I could rattle off.
The price: less money in your pocket. Maybe only one car, maybe a 40 inch plasma instead of a fifty. Often both parents have to work to have any kind of financial surplus, but a lot of us americans have to do the same.
See, we've allowed ourselves to be faked out. Allowed ourselves to think 60 hour weeks and five years without a vacation shows dedication and that will lead, one day, to being noticied and promoted so we can work even more hours but have a bigger house and stay in 4star hotel instead of a two.
Much of what makes life more enjoyable has been stolen from us by the very corporations that we work for. If, in 2009, you don't believe that, then you are truely deluded. I could write about how we've passively given so much away, but that's another article.
Everybody makes choices. Here's hoping we make the choice to live in a metaphorical Paris. And make the choice to really live.
