Blog Post #13: The American Dream

The American Dream is a far-fetched dream that people can strive for, but never really achieve. We defined the American Dream in class one day as something along the lines of "working hard to gain materialistic wealth and success..." The thing is, lots of people come to America in search of this materialistic form of wealth and never achieve it. Exhibit A: my own parents. My dad came to America in 1987 in search of a better life from his banking job in Bangladesh. Instead, he came to an unknown country with few friends and had to work odd jobs, such as being a line cook and a taxi driver, to maintain some source of income in New York. He also lived in a one room apartment in Queens with two other Bengali friends. It wasn't until he got married with my mom and moved to North Carolina that he got a steady job and moved up the management ladder to become a banquet manager at the Crabtree Marriott. My family is in the middle class, and that was definitely not my dad's initial dream. No one dreams of being a middle class American; because of the superficiality of the American Dream, they dream of being rich and living large and having whatever they want at their disposal.

My definition of wealth is having enough money and resources to not worry about bills or finances. Until that basic need of money is satisfied, my definition of wealth cannot change into something more sophisticated, like having an abundance of intellect. Society has placed such an importance on money that it is difficult to be happy until they are well off. Someone can have a dream job that does not pay a lot, but that person will always have a worry in the back of his/her mind about the bills or the rent. Until that worry is no longer present, it's going to be really hard for one to be truly happy. Lots of children claim they want to be doctors, lawyers and architects when they grow up because they know that it pays well to be one of those high-profile jobs. Even when those children do grow up, rarely do they say they want to become a social worker or a clinical psychologist because these jobs do not come with a big paycheck. Society has indoctrinated the idea that wealth is the only answer to a good life and thus, people only aspire for big, high-paying jobs as dream jobs.