“Sometimes it’s important to work for that pot of gold. But other times it’s essential to take time off and to make sure that your most important decision in the day simply consists of choosing which color to slide down on the rainbow.” — Douglas Pagels

Many will be heading our early today… after all, it’s a long weekend for most of us. Po Bronson at Time recently penned a commentary about Americans and their inability to relax. He believes that we have begun to prefer brief snippets of what he calls “stolen time” to the long stretches of authorized vacation.

He notes, “According to travel agents, the growth trend in travel is the half-week sneak-away built around a weekend. Families still hit Disneyland and Paris, but we cram the experience into three or four days. We don’t get to relax, but we come away feeling as if we got a bargain for our precious time. Fewer workdays off means less catching up.”

Why are so many Americans not taking their vacations? He concludes, “One of the top reasons given for not taking a vacation is that it’s too much extra work. We have to get ahead of our workload in order to leave, and then we have to catch up on our workload upon our return. The longer the vacation we take, the bigger the stumbling blocks appear. So only 14% of Americans will take a vacation two weeks or longer this summer. Bottom line: it’s simply become too stressful to relax.”

Expedia.com did a survey and it found, “That Americans are the most vacation deprived compared to other Western countries; Americans earn the least number of annual vacation days, and are the most likely not to use them all; Americans are estimated to pass up more than 574 million vacation days in 2006.” Even God couldn’t use up all those!

After being in Europe this week, I think we could learn more from our working friends across the pond. Ian Harrison gave a good comparison between the two cultures in an article at AskMen.com. He writes, “The point is about that ever-elusive balance of work and life. U.S. business has a reputation for being all work and no play, while business in Europe is less intense and more holistic.” He goes on to make some good points.

Anyway, I find it ironic that this post comes on the cusp of a holiday weekend where we’re celebrating our independence. Independence from what, I might add.