Thoughtful comment, thanks!

As a piece of background, I am a Danish national, but while I was born there I didn't always live there. Of my first 20 years, about 12 were spent in Denmark, five in the south of Spain and three in the UK. Then I came to the States for University, but still went back and forth a lot for another five years. Since then, I've settled permanently here, although we do go back for holidays every few years or so... less frequently since the whole Corona circus. My mother was Danish, my Stepfather English.

My point being that some of the whole "busy-ness" tendency is likely cultural... and its extreme dwells here in the States. In retrospect, there was a certain joy to the Spanish way where so many things were done on the "mañana" principle... and the world basically rolled up at 1:30-2:00pm and everyone had "siesta" till 5:00... even construction sites, shops and so forth.

A friend of mine has dual citizenship US/Indonesia and he once pointed out similar differences. At one time — while helping US hotel chains get established in Indonesia — he had to explain local lore to western management. They were having a hard time keeping staff at the hotel, even while paying three times what anyone could hope to make locally. They would have really good workers who would then just quit and "for no particular reason." Turned out that when they had made enough money to not work for a year... they just stopped working and went back to their villages, never having changed their original lifestyles just because they had a well-paying job.

Maybe there's something to be learned there...