I'm personally in favor of working long and hard though - just not doing it stupidly. If you program, time you spend learning a new language is "working." Work's gotten a bad rap these days - it implies something we don't want to do.
But it's not mandated anywhere that you have to hate your work. The sweet spot for me is doing something that I greatly enjoy, that doesn't feel like work, that provides value to others, that I get compensated for. "Playing around for the benefit of society and getting paid for it" - sign me up for as much of that as I can get.
Some of the other things, AFAIK, are true. Switching jobs and moving, for example. They're probably more important than working long hours. Flexibility, not hard work.
I totally agree. I now believe that all progress in life and society is the result of informative failures. A job that didn't work out or a company that didn't work out are examples of such failures. The country that tries more things faster will learn and progress more. The US leads the world in innovation and job churn. I don't think it's an accident.
Are you sure those others things are true? Americans don't seem particularly likely to move house or switch jobs more than other modern societies. In fact I would have expected less whimsical job-changing in the absence of a more socialist country's safety nets.
This whole article stinks of "folk wisdom" and meaningless platitudes. The very first "fact" he stated was demonstrably wrong, why give him a pass on the rest?
"Over the centuries, the United States has been most conspicuous for one trait: manic energy."
Meaningless nonsense. Centuries, as in several centuries? What rubbish - the industrial revolution was in Britain, not the USA! Yes the 20th century belonged to America, everyone knows that, but trying to claim it's some kind of 500 years tradition is pretty rich.
"In short, the United States will never be Europe."
More cheap populism. Growth in GDP per capita over the last century was often higher in Europe, and it's mainly European countries in the 16 places ranked above the USA in GDP per capita.
And Europe is the old enemy anyway. Asia is the new enemy, curiously missing from the author's predictable cheerleading. If you want manic energy and appetite for wealth, Chinese make Americans look positively lazy.
Not saying I hate America or anything, far from it, I'm a big fan. However, no need to pretend the place automatically scores #1 on any conceivable list of positive traits as a country, because it doesn't.
Americans might be in need of a pep talk right now, and this article certainly delivers, but it could have left out the tiresome exceptionalism, especially when it's flat-out wrong.
