American Dream Essay

Submitted By bonefox
Words: 1016
Pages: 5

What is your dream? Is it to have a perfect family? Or live in a two story house on a very green lawn, with a white picket fence? For years, we have had this impression of the American Dream, to live on that very same house in a community of friendly working neighbors. Though this could be your dream, for many people of America today, it isn't enough and we are wanting more. Instead of looking at the cliche 50s version of this dream, we should be focusing on the needs of the individual and not generalize the dream for the entirety of America to meet. The individuals happiness of meeting our own personal goals, will increase Americas endeavor to let us stop this madness of this unsatisfying workload and accept what we can achieve. All in all, the American dream needs to be redefined to better promote personal fulfillment.

The myth of the American dream is related to certain aspects of the well off. We have all seen the olden day scenario related to the picture perfect family with no money problems.This idea has grown into a phenomena where we want to be even better than those hypothetical families and further live out this idea of the American dream."Over generations of prosperity and growth, the American Dream has become an American Expectation--a version of happiness achieved by entitlement and equation: Two fat incomes plus a two-car garage plus two master-bathroom sinks plus two-point-something kids equals one happy family." This alone redefines what it means to be successful in a marriage, as a parent and employee. We look up to the popular faces of society, famous celebrities and models seducing us to the glamorous lifestyles they portray. These impressions are becoming more like being successful is a self-gain experience in which the money and material items comes along with the happiness. This actually takes away from the families overall satisfaction since you are working to live a lifestyle that we can't ever obtain. The price is too high to obtain the lifestyle we have turned the American Dream to be. This price takes a physical and emotional tole on the American people which causes them to not fully achieve the life that they are working and spending themselves dry. The truth is, money will never equal happiness. The cycle never ends as money turns into material possessions which gives short term happiness which causes dependence on the consumer that they need to keep consuming to be happy and end up wanting more than they actually need. People are even turning the material possessions into a "need" instead of the rightfully placed word "want". " The more people focus on a materialistic pathway to happiness, the less happy they tend to be, and the less happy they make others." This overloaded spending to be happy, is really making us feel like we can't livevwithout new technological advances or whatever is a "must have" at the time. People are putting themselves in a debt, paying off their expenses. In overworking ourselves we think we are providing for our families, giving them the best. We actually are hurting the family because its not the money that we need to grow, but family and friend relationships. It seems like a faint aspect in this culture today, because a parent we think that are children need to be raised with a strong focus based around immediate family. The facts point to the opposite direction. This causes families to be unhappy, over working themselves and making sure they have time to spend time with their kids and on top of that, planning more events to take them out for family time. This could all be changed if we turned to what we actually wanted to do. We still want to enjoy ourselves and connect with