As a Brit (That is legally entitled to have 28 days paid holiday a year) I find the idea of working in the US quite scary, from an outside perspective is seems to be such a stressful 'workaholic' culture, long hours, low pay, high cost of living, you can get fired without warning, and then escorted out your building by a security guard (whats the deal with that anyway?), is there no three strike system in the US for employees before they get fired? And companies can go under without even giving notice to their employee's, number of times I've heard of people just turning up to work to find their building locked down without a clue, never heard of that happening over here, and people scared to take holidays.
It does scare me sometimes that our current government might and probably does looks to the US for inspiration with regards to it's work ethic but I think it's dangerous to do so.
Top five regrets of the dying -
http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2012/feb/01/top-five-regrets-of-the-dying
"Bronnie Ware is an Australian nurse who spent several years working in palliative care, caring for patients in the last 12 weeks of their lives. She recorded their dying epiphanies in a blog called Inspiration and Chai, which gathered so much attention that she put her observations into a book called The Top Five Regrets of the Dying.
Ware writes of the phenomenal clarity of vision that people gain at the end of their lives, and how we might learn from their wisdom. "When questioned about any regrets they had or anything they would do differently," she says, "common themes surfaced again and again."
Second biggest regret,
2. I wish I hadn't worked so hard.
"This came from every male patient that I nursed. They missed their children's youth and their partner's companionship. Women also spoke of this regret, but as most were from an older generation, many of the female patients had not been breadwinners. All of the men I nursed deeply regretted spending so much of their lives on the treadmill of a work existence."
You only live once, the pride of working hard all your life doesn't carry across to your death bed all that well.