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.
We must be living in very different countries, because the things you describe, I know very few people who can't afford simple things like cut flowers whenever they want them, or to go eat out at a cafe.
Average / middle class people I knew while living in LA did these things constantly.
Maybe you do live in a different country. In my decades-long residence in Washington State, my upbringing in Vermont, my considerable time in Sacramento, my years in Eastern Mass, and my trips around the US and Canada, I've never been somewhere where people "did these things constantly". If they did, every block would have a cut flower shop. These are a relative rarity, you'd usually have to look them up if you wanted one.
Average people I've known in the places I've lived most definitely did not frequent flower shops or cafes. And by "average", I include Target employees and Walmart employees and the clerical employees of most companies large and small. That is to say, most people in the US.
Apart from the financial issue, my point was that there's a cultural phenomenon going on. In Germany my feeling was that the residents had a joie de vivre that is largely missing in the US, something which is probably both a cause and effect of the cult of overwork.
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.