Do you feel like the UK has less pressure to be "successful" than America?

The US has an insane hustle culture - and if you didn't succeed you just weren't trying hard enough. Here (as with most of Europe) we have a far healthier work/life balance. Perhaps the fact we don't have to fear losing everything if we get sick also helps, the older I get the more terrifying and cruel the US system seems - especially given that healthcare is often tied to employment which just feels like an abusive level of power for a company to hold over its workers. Healthcare, social security, and social care are all more or less there for us, as patchy & imperfect as our system is I haven't seen anything to suggest it's any worse overall than what even fairly lucky Americans pay huge amounts for - especially as we get it "cradle to grave" and there's nothing they won't at least try to fix. The keeping up thing is for the middle-class Hyacinth Bucket types and other climbers (or these days - f\*\*\*ing influencers), I remember Billy Connolly describing working in the dockyards and in the evening everyone would be in the pub, the workers would be chatting to the owners all getting along fine while the middle-management would be sat in the corner *furious* that the high-ups would be talking to people "beneath them" and \*not\* talking to them instead. That pretty much sums up the middle class climbers.