The American Dream - Stephanie Reynolds

The American Dream, in my opinion, is when an individual has an easy job that pays him/her considerably, or he/she has no job and little responsibility, but still has plenty of money. Many celebrities live the American Dream it seems, since they have enough money to travel and do whatever they want. I know I would want to just fly off to the Bahamas for the weekend whenever I wanted, but normal people like me have to work for a living.

The perception of the American Dream has both a real and an ideal aspect to it. The real perception of the Dream is that everyone can acheive it, but getting there is not always easy. Many Americans work hard day after day just to put food on the table and support their families. Forget about taking exotic trips, it is hard enough just filling up our car(s) to get to work on time. However, the ideal perception of the American Dream is that with hard work and perserverance, and with a little good luck, almost anyone can live the care-free life of the rich/wealthy. Discrepencies between the ideal and real perceptions of the American Dream certainly do exist, but that does not mean achieving it is completely impossible.

The major reason for the discrepency between real vs. ideal perceptions comes from how much times have changed during the genereations. In my grandparents' day, the American Dream meant something else. As the economy began to slowly decline, the American Dream changed as well. Instead of having just a nice house with a white picket fence; people dreamed of wealth and freedom of responsibility. With the money, a person could buy expensive cars, big houses, and travel to exotic places without worrying about getting time off for vacation. This may hold especially true if people had money at first, or worked hard to acquire it, and then lost everything as the Stock Market went down. Another reason the perceptions are so different is because people's expectations for the future have dramatically changed as well. About 10 to 15 years ago, the economy was going up and more people had more money to spend, so the American Dream was even more possible to achieve. As the economy changed, the public saw a less brighter future. As a result, the real vs. ideal perception of the American Dream changed as well.