I just boarded the plane to Zurich. Unlike most of my peers, however, I was fortunate to take the last couple of weeks off and spend my time with my sister and friends in Germany. In my personal trip, I quite enjoyed walking the streets of Berlin and Dresden, and hiking and biking tens of kilometers of the beautiful German countryside.

It is both wonderful and awakening to see what a few days of suspending the daily strife can do. Despite how hectic my vacation has been, I am feeling more energetic and excited than I had for the longest time. But I am also disoriented by the cognitive dissonance such contextual removal from the narrows of productivity I have been navigating for innumerable years. It almost feels like I, as an America, have been converted into a steam-engine pushing on the railways of “economic productivity and scientific achievement”.

It is amazing to see how different the German, or maybe European, social fabric is from that of the American’s. Walking the alleys of Berlin, the European counterpart of New York, one cannot miss the chill and relaxed ambience of the city. I had always had the misconception that Germany, being a major industrial country, is all about efficiency and progress. But I was quite taken by the greenery in Berlin and how laid back its residents sitting in the cute cafes, on the grass alongside the river, or on a bench in a park. I could not help but compare this experience to the grinding streets of New York where pedestrians walk like their lives depend on getting somewhere.

I would sum up my experience in one encounter. I asked my friends: What is the one thing for which Germans generally live? What motivates them to keep going? I was expecting something along the lines of career advancement or financial abundance. I was very surprised when my friends’ consensus was “Vacation”. Germans, on average, get 30 days of vacation per year. They also cannot be bothered with work-related conversations after work or even during lunch time. For me, as an American, I had to let that settle in to fully understand that there is actually a different western philosophy of life that does not merely treat my life as a commodity traded for economic production. There is a different raison d’etre than constantly overworking for the unattainable mirage-like goal of career fulfillment. A different modus operandi that does not require my life to be a stress-test of the human body and psyche and how much it takes to break them. Career, papers, bonuses, promotions… All of that can really be a means to an end.

If the Germans can do it and still be the most industrious economically in Europe, then productivity and self-realization cannot be an excuse. Respecting your own time and body is not in contradiction with efficiency or productivity. I hope this gives us Americans some perspective.