Is the American Dream a lie? What do you think?
—-
The older I get the more I see waves of young people in America come to terms with the reality that the dreams they have been chasing might be a lie. It usually starts in their mid-to-late 20s when they’re either passed over for promotion, are frustrated with their rate of professional growth, or are cut loose altogether for things outside of their control in the corporate world. And while this sobering realization could be a wake up call, for most people it has the opposite effect. They succumb to the system and accept that they’re just cogs in a big machine. They take what they can get and invest in a retirement so that one day they’ll finally be free. At least they have a job. And insurance. And a TV to keep them company. And alcohol to help them forget about the passion they once had when adults with dead eyes would smile at them and say that they could be anything they wanted in life as long as they were willing to work hard for it.
Maybe they’ll meet someone and get married, then buy a house in the suburbs and have a couple of kids. Yes, that’s a real life. A good life. The American Dream in full.
You really can’t ask for much more than that.
***
Originally published on Obsessed with Conformity by Jim Mitchem, author of Minor King–a book about the facade of the American Dream. Follow Jim Mitchem on Twitter @jmitchem
Photo: charlene mcbride / Flickr / Creative Commons
We’re having a conversation about what it means to be a man in the 21st century. Care to join us? Receive our daily or weekly email. Sign up here.
“Is a dream a lie, if it don’t come true, or is it something worse?”
Yeah, I stole that one.
Any your point is? There aren’t enough companies for everybody who wants to be a CEO to be a CEO. It’s true that we don’t tell kids–should we?–that a lack of talent, possibly even then manifest is going to keep them from being, say, an acrobat.
My daughter, when teaching high school, had a student who was not a disruptive kid. He simply, cheerfully didn’t do any work. He didn’t need to. He was going to Hollywood to be a celebrity manager. Is it America’s fault that that probably won’t happen? {ed. Of course it is. Everything’s America’s fault.}