Enjoying life while you can: Expat who moved to Lithuania shares a key lesson Americans can learn

Bernard Meyer moved to Lithuania from the U.S. simply over a decade in the past — and says he is discovered one key life lesson dwelling within the nation: tips on how to have higher work-life stability.

Lithuania, positioned in northeastern Europe, was named the world’s happiest nation for younger folks within the 2024 World Happiness Report, and the nineteenth happiest nation total.

After rising up in Miami and going to varsity in Indiana, Meyer moved completely to Lithuania’s capital metropolis Vilnius in 2012 and nonetheless lives there together with his spouse and two daughters.

The 39-year-old, who’s a senior communications and artistic director at advertising and marketing automation platform Omnisend, mentioned he is observed a profound distinction between work tradition within the U.S. and Lithuania — the place folks get pleasure from a extra “relaxed” and “slower tempo of life.”

“I feel the work-life stability is one thing that’s controllable inside every particular person,” Meyer instructed CNBC Make It in an interview.

“So at 5 or 6 p.m. when folks flip off, they go away, they usually go chill on the bar in the event that they’re comparatively younger or even when they’ve children, they take the youngsters they usually stroll across the metropolis.”

“There is a sense of really having fun with your life now when you’re nonetheless younger, when you’re nonetheless succesful, I feel that is one thing that they [Americans] can be taught simply to understand,” Meyer added.

Individuals are identified for being work-obsessed which can lead to a tradition of overwork and burnout. Comparatively, Lithuania ranked because the eleventh finest nation for work-life stability in 2021, in response to the OECD.

“Personally, I am not in opposition to 25-year-olds or underneath 30s who’re spending 12 hours a day at work, as a result of it is a interval when you are able to do that. However when you get previous that stage, you must learn to have a bit extra of a life exterior work,” Meyer mentioned.

“If in case you have household, a very powerful factor might be your loved ones since you’re working at a spot the place in 5 to 10 years, if you’re gone, nobody goes to care that you simply have been even there, however your loved ones does,” he added.

One purpose folks in Vilnius get pleasure from switching off after work is the abundance of “inexperienced areas” within the metropolis, Meyer famous, and in addition how walkable it’s.

After work, “persons are relaxed … they’re within the streets just like the Previous City, they usually’re simply strolling, or on the scooters, or simply sitting at a restaurant,” he mentioned.

“Right here, they grew up in an atmosphere the place nature is necessary,” he added. “They grew up appreciating nature in order that they have a metropolis now that could be very nature-focused. Meaning they’ve this cultural, important want to be with nature, they usually discover it right here in order that makes them joyful.”

One other key distinction he has observed between Lithuania and the U.S. is how folks really feel about taking holidays.

“I bear in mind after I was within the U.S., I by no means had a trip and I by no means knew anybody who took trip willingly,” Meyer mentioned.

Nevertheless, he now discourages his group at Omnisend from engaged on the weekends or on holidays.

“One factor I inform them, which I feel could be very European, is that we do not work within the emergency division within the hospital. There’s fires however there’s at all times fires, it does not imply it’s a must to hand over your trip,” he mentioned.