The European style of living is seductive: fewer hours worked, more hours at the cafe, less concern over self-betterment. But that style of living does not produce a purposeful life.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
Lack of courage or means often deters the European woman from more independent business activity, and this in spite of increasing freedom to choose her occupation, in spite of brilliant examples of successful undertakings of women, in photography, hotel or boarding-house management, dress-making, etc.
We don't live with the community of yesteryear. And we don't enjoy the public services Europeans do. So we turn to the market. Once we do, we find that service providers raise the standards of personal life, so that we come to feel we need them to live our 'best' personal lives.
My life is European.
Europeans fought for shorter workdays, more vacation time, family leave, and all these kinds of things. Those haven't been priorities in America: it's been about money. You see, in the countries that fought for time, they cook more often; they have less obesity. There are real benefits to having time.
Together with a culture of work, there must be a culture of leisure as gratification. To put it another way: people who work must take the time to relax, to be with their families, to enjoy themselves, read, listen to music, play a sport.
Europe has what we do not have yet, a sense of the mysterious and inexorable limits of life, a sense, in a word, of tragedy. And we have what they sorely need: a sense of life's possibilities.
Living life as normally as possible gives you a richer well of experiences to draw from.
I'm more interested in life than life-style. Life-style means you have to drive a certain car.
In Europe life is histrionic and dramatized, and in America, except when it is trying to be European, it is direct and sincere.
Life for the European is a career; for the American it is a hazard.