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The American Dream Is Lacking
And what we can do instead.
I used to identify conservative Republican. I used to listen to Rush Limbaugh and Jason Lewis. I cringe and am afraid to admit those things out loud. Things are so different from the nineties when I saw things differently.
Then I went to college. I encountered economics, psychology, and history. The great American Dream was something I have always heard about — that if you just work hard enough or long enough, you can have a family, a house, a life. You can pursue happiness. But nothing in our Declaration of Independence said that we will ever achieve it.
It’s an important distinction, of course, but one that serves people in the US poorly. There are only 24 hours in a day, 7 days in a week, and 365 days in a year. We can sacrifice our health, our mental well-being, and our time in the pursuit of something that is ephemeral and untouchable like the morning mist. And then we will have lost all those things that make life bearable.
The American Dream also doesn’t address the lives of people who have no choice but to labor endlessly just to keep themselves fed, clothed, and housed. How can one even think about pursuing nebulous happiness when they can barely provide for their basic needs? The answers to those questions are always that they must have chosen wrong, done wrong, lived in the…
