Comment by smsm42

You could easily afford same vacation time - work only half a year, consume at the level of medieval peasant (no TV, no internet, no modern medicine, no car, no fancy foods or clothes, one clothes change a decade, no electricity, no running water, no sanitation/WC) - and you'll have plenty of money left to live the dream second half of the year. I'm sure if you forgo the modern civilization, you can get through pretty cheap. In fact, if you qualify for welfare, you could probably give up working altogether and still live better than medieval peasant (they had no free healthcare, free housing, no foodstamps and no free cell phones). So if you wanted, you could live much better that medieval peasant with 100% "vacation" time. Most people, however, want to live even better, so they work to make this "better" happen. Modern civilization doesn't fall from the sky, you know - people make it.