In the US, we are a collection of individuals (you nailed it) working, working, working to achieve an illusory future where we don’t have to work.

Many relatives from Europe come to visit and simply can’t understand a) why everything costs so much and b) why we’re working all the damn time. They can’t conceive of the amount we pay for healthcare and higher education, nor do they understand how little we know about our neighbors.

Our country has been so corrupted by the fallacy of wealth we can’t even dream of anything else. We’re so caught up in our individual “rights” and “freedoms” that we don’t even notice that we have precious little of either.