To me, the saddest thing about the US is that deep fundamental change needs to occur and that change is so massive I doubt it will ever happen. Our values are completely ass-backward. Our quality of life is really based in quantity. We ignore the successes of other countries just because they are not "American" and ignore truly fulfilling and content lives."

To some extent I suspect this is true. Wouldn't say our values are ass-backward in all areas but they certainly are in some. And that reflexive "cannot consider it because it's not American" (which is closely related to an American exceptionalism that I suspect will be less and less true as we move away from the American Century) could become a kind of myopia that will hinder us. More than "could" - probably will.