Is This What We Really Wanted??
The good ol American Dream!!
The dream where you graduate from high school and then take out massive loans to attend a great college.
Then after you earn your degree, you land that great job making $100,000.
Then now you can afford your $250,000 house and your $60,000 car.
You are able to purchase every new tech gadget to show off your status symbol.
Life is just wonderful.....until you peel back the layers and catch a glimpse of reality.
You suddenly realize that your degree cost more than you bring home in a year AFTER taxes.
That dream job making $100,000 turns out to be a nightmare.
You end up hating your boss and most of your co-workers because of the office politics.
Then you look down and what was once invisible, you can now see.
You finally see the chains around you wrist and ankles.
You are tied...tied to your house, car, and student loans and tech gadgets.
And just to keep up with all of these things you are forced to go to a job you hate.
A job you can't step away from unless another man or woman allows it.
A job where you are put into a box that kills all of your creativity.
A job that squeezes you into mediocracy.
Then you think back to when you were a kid.
You think back to that wild imagination that you had of what you wanted to be when you grew up.
And then you think back to your reality of living the American Dream.
And then you wonder....
Is this the dream you wanted or just a dream someone created for you?
I always struggled to figure out what I wanted to do in life. I thought that my future was laid in a management position at some job. It wasn't until I really started to think about life that my vision became a bit more clear. All of my life I heard that success is getting a good job, nice house, and car. Oh...you can't forget you 1-2 weeks of vacation, unless you been with the same company for 10-20 years then you get a whole nother week!! Yippiee!!
I learned that instead of working for money all of our life, we should make more work for us. And the great thing is that it's not even hard to do, it just requires changing some habits. I'm not bashing anybody with a 9-5 because I know plenty of people that love their job, but for me, it's something that I have to break away from so that I can become the best me that I can be. Oh and did I mention that I can be as creative as I want without having to get an idea approved by 10 people up the chain?
Look, the main point I want to make is to STOP working for money and make money work for you. Stop chasing a dream that was created for you and chase the dream of what you really want. Stop buying things that do not fulfill you in life just to keep up with the Joneses because at the end of the day, they are broke.
Also check out my video on this topic as well
I wish all of you well on this journey through life as well all try to figure it out.
Till next time Steemians...Steem on!!
man this is where I am right now with my own thinking. I work a good job, house, beautiful family and yet still left wanting. For a good chunk of my life title seemed to be the be all and end all that I was shooting for.
I have the title, and all it really means is that the buck stops with you, more responsibility. Now that I have it all I realise there is much more that is important.
The script was written for us long before we ever auditioned for the part. Who knew that not taking part was also an option.
I think many of us forget that we have options. When people do realize that there are other options I believe it scares them. They freeze up because the other path is "risky" or not as "secure"
investing time and freedom into what you want to do and it most likely pays off. the younger the better. a part of me wish i can simply comply to the 9-5 and be happy with that but sadly thats not me.
before, the goal was get a girlfriend and get through college but later it just expanded to being a content creator. sometimes i wish i was a different person
Why do you wish you were a different person?
BTW thanks for being consistent with your upvotes and comments. Much appreciated! I followed you too!
Cause for some people like so many people where i live its easy for them to follow that typical life from a to z and they are happy but i am not one of those types of people.
And that's what makes you, you! There's nothing wrong with that
I am much happier chasing my own dreams than chasing the American Dream. You see it all around you, the checkbox life.
Those are not life end goals, just checkpoints on the way to a happy life perhaps. If you check all those off and you are not in pursuit of your own happiness, you are likely living someone else's dream.
Finding a job that you love and pays you well to afford the life you want is very hard, but not impossible. Each of us has to decide what we are willing to give to get the things that truly make us happy.
I am very fortunate that through hard work, and lots of luck what I do for a career excited me to the point that I look forward to going to work. That is a byproduct of thousands of choices in a lifetime, and not all fully in my control. However it is up to each of us, to make the choices we are self empowered to make to define the life that gets us closer to our personal dreams.
I do wonder if life is easier to live those checkbox dreams though. To find happiness in the simple checkboxes, but then what?
A great documentary on this topic is "I'm fine thanks" which you can see on YouTube, the trailer is below:
That moment you think back on life and realize you were living a life someone made for you. I have to check this out. Thanks for sharing!
Very true words. :) I don't think we can ever be reminded of these things enough. We should live our dreams no matter what. By doing that, the money follows as well. And if it doesn't - well, at least you're probably happier than if you were slaving away at a 9 to 5 that you do not enjoy. (Except, of course, you enjoy that, in which case all the power to you! :))
You hit the nail on the head! When you live your dreams the money will follow. When you do what you love its not working anymore.
When I got this part, for some insane reason, I thought "a pot belly" would be the next line.
Seriously though, this is an important insight. Humans are social animals and a great part of that is imitating/mirroring each other. It is surprisingly hard to make that different choice and strike that path away from the norm, even if that norm is killing us.
It's like when we were being punished in school as kids, it wasn't so bad as long as you were suffering alongside your guys. Being chained doesn't seem so bad when you're chained to the familiar.
I believe a pot belly is officially a part of the American Dream 😂😂😂
On a serious note what you wrote was deep! Especially how suffering is not as bad when you're with others! When you choose the untrailed path you become the black sheep until others catch on and see that you took the better route.
Beautiful post! It pretty much describes joe every american person. Its sad and this countrys children suffer from neglect because we are in so much debt as a country and both parents have to work two jobs it seems anymore even here in Las Vegas.
It's crazy how two jobs has become the norm. There is no reason why we should have to work two jobs just to live comfortably. And Vegas is expensive!!!!
All of my life I heard that success is getting a good job, nice house, and car. Oh...you can't forget you 1-2 weeks of vacation, unless you been with the same company for 10-20 years then you get a whole nother week!! Yippiee!!
The scary part is having to work for that many years to take time off from work. That means you don't get to take time to smell the roses enough!!! We need to look deeper into our lives to know what we are destined to become and work towards that dream or goal. Thank you for sharing! very encouraging.
No thank you for taking the time out to read!!
But yes we work so much that we are not connected with nature anymore. Some of the most simple messages pass us by because we are so wrapped up into the daily grind. We are destined to be more than just a worker at some company, even though nothing is wrong with working a job. Its just we miss the bigger picture because we're so tied up.
The American Dream has nothing to do with the Average American attempting to pursue it. The American Dream is a social control mechanism that is meant to keep the population cohesive, marching in line and serving those in power so that THEY are able to realize their very achievable goals of more wealth and power. Take Jordan Pierson's pareto ideas, mix in a little narcissism and voila, you have a recipe for an elitist class that will squeeze the essence out of the workaday folks...if those workadays let them. @byrondallen is right here, choose your path very carefully. Why do you want the material things you want? Where did your goals originally come from? What does independence mean to you? How do you define personal sovereignty? I think there are many people starting to wake up to the illusion of the consumer society. We can live better, more free lives, IF WE CHOOSE TO.
Like you said it there for us but we have to CHOOSE it! I'm going to start asking people to put themselves in Will Smith's position when he was in I Am Legend, minus the zombies things. What would you really care about then?? Just an extreme view.
I'm not an american so I am utterly confused why are college tuition there are so expensive. Of course, there are expensive universities where I live at but there are state Universities which are usually free or super cheap ( unless you take medical ). There are also other options like vocational schools and stuffs.
But other than that I agree too about the 'dream' part. I'm currently working in the office and I know this isn't what I wanted. I feel like everyday is the same routine yet we are chained by money cause everything now are costly and wether we want it or not we need to work at the place we dislike and I keep wondering, if giving at least 8 hours a day for 5 - 6 days is worth the money I make. To those who are able to live their dream job, they are really fortunate and sometimes I envy them.
You too can live the dream you want but it will take sacrifices. Some people are not willing to take the necessary sacrifices in order to position themselves to go after their dream. Do envy them but use it as fuel to get to where you want to be. You can get to where you want to be in life, just believe and take massive action!
I love this post! This is so true. So many people believe that the American Dream is still a possibility, but honestly, it’s not. Maybe 40 years ago there was, but today, no. Now you get a job, and your stuck in that position forever. I wish there was a way to change this, but sadly, there isn’t.
There is a way to change it. There is always a way!