Alright. It's basically went down like this. Growing up, I was always told by teachers and other adults that I could be anything that I wanted to be, as long as I worked hard and stuck to my goals. I was told to study hard and take good notes, pass the test, do my homework, and get to bed at a decent hour. As a kid, of course I never wanted to do any of these things. I wanted to not go to school, hang out with my friends, and go to bed whenever I felt like it. Of course I had aspirations of growing up to hit the lottery, just like any other kid. I figured it would be the best, easiest way to live a happy life. It wasn’t until I managed to graduate high school that I realized how unlikely this dream was. All of a sudden, now I have to have a job so that I can take care of my bills and keep a roof over my head, feed myself, so on and so forth. Looking back now, I can honestly say that I wish I would have studied harder, done my homework, went to bed at a decent time, all the things I was told. These days, it is very difficult to get a job that will actually provide the means to sustain a worry-free life. Living a successful life of minimal worry surrounded by the people that you love and that make your life worth while, to me, would have to be the best definition of the American Dream.
I grew up in a broken home. My mother became pregnant at the age of seventeen, just a junior in high school. After finding out she was pregnant, my father decided that he would gracefully duck out of the situation all together. I didn’t meet him until the age of six, so the most crucial parts of my learning and growing as a child were all in the hands of my mother. She did her best to make sure that my brother and sister and I had everything we needed, but we still struggled. She worked three jobs just to make sure we had food to eat. A single mother of three very young children, she did what she had to do to survive. Being the oldest, I was obligated to cleaning, helping with the younger children, and often dinner and lunch. This would sound more like a nightmare than a dream to most. I look at it this way: how are you to know how high you’ve climbed unless you started at the bottom? Of course it was very hard to live like that as a child, but I feel that I have gained a very important understanding of how hard you have to work in order to be successful, but more importantly, to survive. Life isn’t always sunshine and rainbows.
The text book American Dream has went through some drastic changes over the years. Back in the 50’s the typical perspective of the American dream was quite simple. A father would have a good suit-and-tie job. Wake up every morning, pour a cup of coffee, get the newspaper, eat breakfast, go to work until 5 o’clock, come home, then kick back and relax for the rest of the evening. The mother would stay home to cook and clean and pretty much cater to the family’s every need, so on and so forth. It was a very wholesome scene. These days, most people aspire to have an easy job that will pay a lot of money, live in massive estates with 487 bedrooms, each with a bathroom to fit 20. This, however, is only most. Some people do still stick to the wholesome fifties-style dream. It may be a little bit updated, but it still holds the core idea. Even still, there are others who hold little to no aspirations towards bettering their situation, or even trying at all. One might go as far as to say that this is the cause of the social classifications that are in place. It would be very easy to argue the fact that people with similar goals and aspirations tend to “congregateâ€, if you will. You know what they say: Birds of a feather.
Somewhere throughout history, the dream took a twist. It’s hard to say what really caused the shift in perspective, but one thing is for sure: It definitely is not what it used to be. It almost feels as if people have given up hope. It’s not an easy task to hold onto your dreams in any situation, but even more so in a society of people that are only concerned about themselves. It is easy to just take life two seconds at a time and have no real goals. That just means that someone else is footing the bill. On top of that, what will that teach our nations youth? These will be the young men and women who will be the ones running our country when we are all old. It’s scary to think that we will be under the leadership of people who have no real goals aside from getting by today and not thinking about tomorrow. Everybody feels like they are in a bad spot now, but it will be much worse if that is what happens. As adults, it is crucial that we set a good example for our children by motivating ourselves to succeed, no matter the cost.
In a world as cold as this, it is hard to keep faith in yourself, and your situation, for that matter. We must break away from this mindset. We must all take a step back and look at the things that are the most important to us. If not for ourselves, we should do it for others. I’ve been from the bottom of the world, climbed my way to the top, only to be thrown back down again, but I’m still climbing. It is the hardest thing in the world to overcome the life you were born into and make another that is better. Every aspect of the world will work against you. You will have to start over time and time again. I believe that a problem will continue coming back to you until you find the right solution. Once you find the right way, it will disappear. It will seem impossible, and will wear you down all the way to the breaking point. It is at the breaking point that you will find the power and the courage to overcome anything that the world could ever throw at you. I’ve been to the breaking point, but I am still here fighting for my dreams, and for what I believe in. I am the first person in my entire family to graduate high school, I am the first to attend college, and I WILL be the first to receive a college degree. Any person who will say it is impossible to survive in this world, I will call a liar. It takes a large amount of determination, an iron will, and a lifetime of blood, sweat, and tears to hold onto your dreams, but nothing is impossible. If you give it 130%, you will achieve your dreams, and so much more.
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