I do not mean the “losers” part in the way you folks may be thinking….

We as Americans are losers in a different sense. Every year we are missing out  valuable time accumulated at our work by our employers. We as Americans think we are too busy and would not enjoy ourselves if we left for a few days.

A survey I saw conducted by Expedia (one of those mailer things) stated the average American worker earns 18 vacation days annually. Much fewer than our counterparts in most of the developed world, but that is not the problem folks.

The article tells us the saddest fact is the average American worker took only 14 of those days of the allotted 18 in 2010. Meaning on an average every working class American lost four vacation days yearly. Hey, they could have used those days doing something fun, like “living history” such as in our case.

In fact, the Expedia survey shows that only 38% of Americans use their allotted vacation time, think about this. Take (4) days and multiply it across the American workforce and you will have 448 million unused vacation days in 2010.    Poof - those days are gone forever, never to be gotten back, wasted opportunities for relaxing. They predict we will lose just as many this year as well.

Here is proof that those that knock the American workforce’s ethic are way off base. Yes, we all know a few slouchers, but overall we as Americans are hard working folks and carry more than our share of the load. Hell we feed and cloth most of the third world countries. We may be losing vacation time but we are not losers at work.

You may want to go look in the mirror at yourself, your thinking I left some vacation time laying on the table too. Would your office have shut down, would the work have gotten done, were the customers upset with out you  being there? We all knew the answer to this one, everything went just fine and everyone was glad to see you get some down time.

This year join us in pledging to not be a loser, as in, a loser of valuable vacation time. You earned it - use it, prioritize what and where you and the family would like to go, save for that adventurer. You’ll be a happier person and so will your loved ones, think about it.

Better yet plan to go to a North American Frontiersmen event, spend sometime and have fun folks.