First of all, let’s try to avoid American-bashing, and stay respectful to everyone.
I’ll start: for me it’s the tipping culture. Especially nowadays, with the recent post on [email protected] with the 40% tip, it just seems so weird to me to have to pay extra just so that menu prices can stay low.
There is so much that screams “stress” to me when I think of living in the US that makes me uncomfortable. To just mention that your job can fire you at will and your health care might be attached to your job, or that a person who can not drive a car for health reasons, like me, is basically fucked. Or no sick days and a very low amount of vacation days that you might have to take when you are sick and on top taking them at all is looked down on, while my boss reminds me to tell him when I prefer to take my vacation days, because by law I have to take them.
I could make a very long list of things that come with American life that I find stressful. Just one more tiny thing: I do not have much money, so I have to be careful not to overspent. In Germany the prices on the shelf in the grocery store are the total I will have to pay. In the US the total can be whatever, you just have to be really good at doing math in your head, have enough money to not care or walk around with a calculator. So it is not just the big things that add onto each other. If I am sick I can walk to the nearest grocery store and drug store in less than 3 minutes from my flat, the doctor’s office is inbetween both and the visit is free and medication either free or costs 5 Euro each for what I usually need. My gall bladder surgery was all in all 100 Euro, including ambulance transport on a Sunday because it was an emergency and aftercare with my doctor. My days in the hospital and at home afterwards were fully paid by my employer.
I wonder what America would look like if everyone would live on an European stress level. We do not have no stress of course, but the base line for many Europeans is way lower. On top there is a base line of feeling safer (less shooting, except for Ukraine of course) and more social secure.
It surprises me that despite all that, Americans do rarely complain and are as happy as they are. I admire them for that, but also wish they could have less stress in their lifes.
America is a developing country with a Guccu bag.
There are some rich areas, but even there, the vast majority of people are poor and live under not-great conditions.
I think the “pursuit of happiness” mindset is still very strong over there. You’re only poor because of yourself, not because rich people fucked you over. So you can’t really complain, because it’s your fault.
As someone who spent roughly half my life in the US and the other half in EU, this is very accurate as to my experience in each place. In the US my life constantly felt balanced on a knife edge like everything could fall apart at any moment. When I moved to the EU, even though I didn’t speak the language or grow up there, I breathed a big sigh of relief. I felt like my life was finally manageable.
I think this causes a ton of mental illness in the US that we just don’t see in the EU. Most people I know in the US are on the constant verge of a breakdown and basically just disassociating themselves from reality (usually using drugs, alcohol, religion, or some combination thereof). I think this is why Americans so badly need to put on a happy face. If they didn’t, they’d all have a simultaneous mental breakdown.
Lifelong American here - I do love it here, though as you point out there are definitely some stressful flaws.
Healthcare here is messed up. Not the quality (which is typically very high), but the price. Having insurance tied to employment never made sense to me either.
Personally, I actually love driving and owning a car. I just think cars are really cool and I like wrenching on them. Everything I could need is within a 10-15 minute drive and I never have to worry about there not being enough parking. That said, you are correct that car ownership is basically required - although I have been to cities in the US that have decent public transportation. Not European level good, but decent.
At my job I get 4 weeks paid vacation and “unlimited” sick days (they say unlimited but of course they have the ability to deny them if they find you are abusing them). My bosses will actually hunt people down who HAVENT used all their vacation days and encourage them to do so. They have realized that productivity is tied to employee happiness so they try to keep us happy. Now, none of that is government mandated but I just mention it to prove that not everyone here has a job that treats them like crap. I agree that this stuff should be guaranteed though. For reference, I work in IT and make less than 100k.
Tipping is definitely a weird thing and I would be glad to never have to think about it again.