What is the American Dream?

When people think of life in the United States they achieving the American dream is one of the first things they will think of. But what is the American dream? How do we achieve it? Everybody has their own version of the answer to these questions. These versions will be different for people who were born in the United States and have lived here their whole lives and people who have never been to this country. Some people have hostility towards our country because of this concept. This dream is what encouraged the founders to fight for independence. It has also changed over the years and has become more of a slogan than a reality today making me ask myself what this dream actually is.

This country was founded on the idea that everyone’s voice matters. People are free to express their own opinions and ideas without being ridiculed. Their voice is able to be heard and we can contribute to how this country is run and how we live our lives. We are able to live in a country where we do not have to live in fear. People are able to live there lives how they want to without fear of prosecution. This in itself is a dream to many people.

Many countries prosecute people for how they live or express their beliefs. Many countries don’t have the freedom to say what they want to say. They are unable to live certain lifestyles because of the prosecution they will face whether it be from their government or from their communities.

Many people who were born in this country have a concept that feels the American dream means living rich. They feel the dream is achieving a lifestyle that very few live. The more possessions they have the richer they are. Being able to own a business of their own or work at a high paying job is what the American dream means to them and they spend there lives working to achieve it. Until they achieve it they have not reached the American dream and never will.

This viewpoint is very different for many people who have never been to this country. As I said earlier many people have very little freedoms in their country. They are prosecuted for the way they choose to live their lives. For people who live in this fear of being prosecuted just because of how they live dream of a world where they can live without that fear. America is a place they are able to do that. Being able to freely express themselves without fear is what they dream for.

Whether it be for monetary possessions or being able to express themselves freely people know America is the place they can do either. People are willing to illegally enter our country just to have a chance to be able to achieve this dream. However, the concept and meaning of the American dream has changed over the years and it no longer has the same meaning as it used to. The idea of America is starting to change and I no longer feel the concept of the American dream is what America is anymore.

How the Changing World has Affected The American Dream

Everything that people feel about what the American dream is a concept that is starting to change in this country. This country has always strived to improve and move itself towards the freedoms that it was founded on. This meant granting these freedoms and dreams to all people who lived in this country. It meant allowing people to immigrate to this country and have a chance at a better life. These have been issues that this country has battled since it was founded and we continue to battle to this day.

This country was founded on the aspect that the people had the power and the government had limited power. We were able to use our voice and choose our leaders. Democracy was what made this country great and is what people have fought for to keep. Democracy is what was able to make the American dream a reality for many people. It has become a major topic of debate to this day. Even though I do believe this country has made the American dream much more possible for many people I think we are beginning to move in the wrong direction.

This country is moving in the direction of making the dream less of a reality. Whatever your concept of the American dream is it is becoming harder and harder to achieve in this country. Being able to have the job you want or become rich in this country has changed. Having the job you want is becoming having a job at all. Being rich is becoming being able to pay your bills. Small businesses and entrepreneurship have become harder to achieve and be successful.

Being monetarily rich in this country has become a reason to be targeted. Many people feel that being rich means you need to be penalized for it. I hear “the rich need to pay their fair share” all the time. Even though the rich do pay more in taxes than anyone else, the more you make the higher the percentage you have to pay in taxes, people still feel they don’r pay enough. This has made being rich a target to be attacked and has hurt the growth of this country as well as the ability to invest in small businesses and entrepreneurship in this country. It is killing this aspect of the American dream for people.

The dream of the people having the power with limited government control is changing as well. One of the main contributing factors to the founding of this nation was that the people had the power and the government worked for the people. Our voices and opinions mattered and were heard. We weren’t attacked for expressing our beliefs. This has no longer become true. The government has continued to grow in power and control and people’s opinions are no longer heard as much as they once were.

The aspect of freedom of speech may still be here but is beginning to lose the power it once had. The world has changed dramatically over the last century and this has also changed how we live our lives. We now live in a world where privacy is no longer possible. Inventions such as the internet and social media has changed how people live there daily lives. In many ways this change has been for the better. It has made simple tasks in our daily lives much easier and more convenient. It has also connected people in ways we never thought were possible fifty years ago. It has made it easier to share our lives and experiences with our family and friends. It has made it possible to connect with people that you may have lost contact with and never thought you would hear from again. These advancements in technology has had its benefits.

These advancements however have not always been for the better. People no longer have the feeling of privacy we once felt we had. Our entire lives our always online or documented on the internet somewhere. You can type in anyone’s name and find out almost any information you want on them, including their phone number, place of work, as well as their address. This has taken away peope’s sense of safety and security. Some of the biggest people affected by this invasion of privacy who are taken advantage of are our young people. Many of your young and old people may not be aware of the dangers that can occur with having all of their information online and may fall victim to being taken advantage of.

Another factor that made this country great was that our privacy could not be invaded and that is no longer the case. These new advancements in technology have not only affected our personal lives but have also changed how businesses are conducted and operated. Information on companies are much more public and easily accessible and have caused them to change how they operate. Although it has increased competition it has also created more government oversight.

The more advancements that are made, such as AI, the more the government feels they need to have more oversight and regulate what occurs. This more regulated government oversight has also taken away from the thought of what people have for the American Dream. We are beginning to live in a society where people are afraid because of the government oversight, a society where people feel they are always being watched.

Different Aspects of the American Dream

As I mentioned earlier in this article each person has a different beliefs of what the American Dream means to them. As someone who was born in this country and have lived here there whole lives I notice that many people don’t realize how much we actually have. We always want more and more is never enough. Many people, and I am not claiming all, but many are never happy with what they have. They always want more or feel they are entitled to more and they will never achieve the American dream until this is achieved.

This doesn’t mean that poverty is this country is not a problem. We have a large percentage of the population who live under the poverty line and are barely able to get by with the essentials. We also have a large portion of the population who are homeless and who have nothing. Everyday is a struggle for them. I always found it a discomfort knowing that many of our homeless population are also veterans who fought for this country. This never made sense to me, how can we not even take care of the ones who fought for us to enjoy the freedoms we have.

The American dream for these people is to always have more than what they have and they feel if they have more and achieve the dream than they will be happy. I am someone who didn’t grew up with money and I still don’t have money but yet I feel like I am the richest man in the world. For me I have achieved the dream. I do what I love and have a family who I live and a woman I get to spend the rest of they life with and that is all I need to satisfy me. It is not like that for most Americans. No matter what they have it will never be enough and therefore they will never reach the American dream. And since the world has changed in so many ways and we no have much more government involvement the dream is only going to continue to get harder to achieve.

For people who have never been to this country but have always dreamed of coming here that would be their American dream. This country has portrayed an image of how great this country is that people will do almost anything to come here and that in itself is the dream. Other countries are living in such harsh conditions that just coming to this country and being given that chance is more of a dream than they think possible. Just having a chance of living a happy life is their idea of the American dream and the only thing they need to do to achieve it is come to this country,

However, since the image of how great this country is has grown and technology has made it possible to spread this image much more quickly and to larger groups of population it has created it’s own set of problems. Many people live in such horrible conditions that once they hear of the possibilities of the USA they will do whatever it takes to come to this country. If they cannot enter this country legally than they will enter it illegally, as long as they can get in. This has created the problem of having an overwhelming illegal immigration problems in this country, one that the our country has seemed to welcome in recent decades.

With this problem of illegal immigrants entering our country so they to can live out the American dream it seems to many people that they enjoy more of the benefits of the dream than its citizens do. As our world has become more reliant on technology and has been experiencing changes never seen before the government has seized the opportunity to obtain more control of the lives of its people. With this new control and oversight it seems like they have made it possible for illegal immigrants to enjoy all the benefits of this country, even more benefits than many American citizens seem to enjoy. This new battle we are facing has also taken away from many people feeling like it is impossible to achieve the American dream.

Conclusion

This country was founded on a simple idea, the idea of an American dream. This idea of this dream was made so that is would be possible for any person to achieve it. Anyone who knows our history knows that this dream had problems right from the start. However, we have been fighting to right the wrongs this country was founded so that we can make this dream possible for anyone a reality. But once again the world has been changing and we now live in times that nobody could have predicted. Technology itself has created an entirely different world that has forced us to change how we live our lives. Many ideas of what people had for the American dream or no longer possible and many people feel that this country is no longer becoming the greatest country in the world to live.

The idea of the American Dream was to be rich, which meant something different to different people. While some people feel being rich means having things of monetary value others, such as myself, means it is being content with the things you have and spending your life with the people you love. No matter what it meant to you this concept has changed and the American dream no longer feels like it can be a reality. This country has made many changes during its 250 years and it now feels it is changing for the worse.

The fact that the people had a voice and there voice mattered made them like they were important and were contributing to the greatness of this country. It is what made people want to join the service and fight for this country, so it can continue to enjoy those freedoms that gave its people a voice. The concept was the people held the power and made the decisions and the government was there to serve its people. The changes that are now occurring no longer make this true. The government has been taking more power away from the people and making the dream harder to achieve. The government now penalize people who try and achieve this dream and to voice their beleifs about what they think is best for this country and seem to make the dream possible for people at a cost to its citizens.

The only way it seems possible to achieve the American dream today is do what the government says whether you like it or not. If you try and speak against than you will be ridiculed and penalized for your beliefs. This is a country where I never thought it would be possible to live in fear of violence for what speaking what you believe but we are seeing it happen every day now. Social media has given a platform that allows anyone to speak how they feel that will reach as many people as possible. Because of this we have seen the government try to censor what is being said on these platforms. The word fake news has been thrown around so much it is hard to determine what is fact and what is fiction. Decisions used to be made because they were debated and were able to come to conclusions that were beneficial to everyone. Now we just attack and ridicule if a certain idea is not agreed with, there is no debating it.

The government has began implementing socialist policies and other parties are attacked not because of their plan or ideas but because they are not the one making the decisions. Nothing is even given a chance anymore to work. There are no longer good ideas or bad ideas, just my ideas and your ideas. This last presidential elections showed how debates are now who attacks the other side more, who can do the most name calling. The idea of freedom of speech was made so that people can say what they wanted without that fear of being ridiculed. I have seen people get attacked not for expressing their own beliefs but for supporting someone whose ideas they don’t agree with.

So I end this article asking the question as to whether or not we still believe in the American dream or is the American dream even possible anymore. Is our country going to continue to get worse or can the people band together and bring the dream back. Will the power go back to the people or is it too late and has the government gained too much power over its people. I am old enough to remember when this country was great and people were proud to be American and we welcomed people into this country. I am also old enough to have seen people attacked for hanging the American flag outside of their home. When did the American flag become a symbol that welcomed hatred and violence from your own neighbors. How is this the American dream people had in mind and how can we achieve the American dream in a society like this one is becoming?