Bernard Meyer moved to Lithuania from the United States just over a decade ago – and says living in the country taught him an important lesson: how to achieve a better work-life balance.

Lithuania in northeastern Europe was named the happiest country in the world for young people and the 19th happiest country overall in the World Happiness Report 2024.

After Meyer grew up in Miami and studied in Indiana, he moved permanently to the Lithuanian capital Vilnius in 2012 and still lives there with his wife and two daughters.

The 39-year-old, a senior communications and creative director at marketing automation platform Omnisend, said he has noticed a profound difference between the work culture in the US and Lithuania, where people enjoy a “more relaxed” and “slower pace of life.”

“I think work-life balance is something that every person can control,” Meyer said in an interview with CNBC Make It.

“At 5 or 6 p.m., when people finish work, they go out and relax in the bar if they are relatively young, or, even if they have children, they take the children and walk around the city.”

“Today, you feel like you can really enjoy your life while you’re still young and still able to. I think that’s something they (Americans) can just learn to appreciate,” Meyer added.

Americans are known for being work-obsessed, which can lead to a culture of overwork and burnout. In comparison, Lithuania ranks 11th.^th According to the OECD, the country with the best work-life balance in 2021.

“Personally, I don’t mind 25-year-olds or people under 30 working 12 hours a day because that’s a time when you can do that. But once you get past that phase, you should learn to create a little more of a personal life outside of work,” Meyer said.

“If you have a family, your family is probably the most important thing because you work in a place where in five to 10 years, when you’re gone, nobody will care that you were even there. Your family will,” he added.

One reason why people in Vilnius like to unwind after work is the many green spaces in the city, notes Meyer, and also that it is so easy to reach on foot.

After work, “people are relaxed … they are in the streets, for example in the old town, and they just walk, ride a scooter or just sit in a cafe,” he said.

“Here they grew up in an environment where nature is important,” he added. “They grew up appreciating nature, so now they have a city that is very nature-oriented. That is, they have this cultural, fundamental desire to be in nature, and they find it here, and that makes them happy.”

Another important difference he noticed between Lithuania and the United States is people’s attitudes toward vacation.

“I remember never having a vacation in the United States and never knowing anyone who voluntarily took a vacation,” Meyer said.

However, he now advises his team at Omnisend not to work on weekends or during holidays.

“One thing I tell them, which I think is very European, is that we don’t work in the hospital emergency room. There are fires, but there are always fires. That doesn’t mean you have to give up your vacation,” he said.