Guess who’s losing faith in the American Dream? Everyone.

[davidthegnome]

22. I'm not sleeping right now.

So, I don't actually believe it. Not in general, as a concept that applies to everyone, in any event. The very rich are already living it, the rest of us... not so much.

Say you are born into a middle class family, even upper middle class. You have a college fund already setup, your parents and family overall instill within you the notion that hard work will make you successful, perhaps one day even more so than they are.

You go to high school, you get decent grades, which takes you to college, perhaps even a decent school. Of course, that college fund your parents setup about 18 years ago and worked to add to, while a significant amount of money, is no where near enough to compensate for the rising costs of living. So you pick up a job while going to school. This (for a great many of us, anyway) requires either decent public transportation (not widely available in America) or your own vehicle. Most of us have to get our own vehicles. So you've got work, maybe 25-30 hours a week, school and classes and homework take up most of the rest of your time. Perhaps you are an excellent student, you never stay up too late, never go out and party, you are far more focused on your future career than on your social life, friends, significant others, whatever.

Then one semester you get sick. It's a flu that leaves you bedridden for days, or something even worse. That job you picked up at a local retailer quickly went to someone else willing to work for nine dollars an hour or so - your boss needed someone NOW. You start falling behind on those car payments a little. Through hard work and diligence, you find another job, and just when you're almost caught up with all of your bills again... damnit, that car breaks down and needs a new alternator - and a new transmission too. Finally, it's time to apply for a student loan or three...

It doesn't take long, before someone in even seemingly enviable circumstances can fall off that track for the so called American dream. Even if they are responsible and make every effort to do everything right. The vast majority of us don't have the advantages mentioned in this hypothetical - but I know a few people who had very similar opportunities. Of those few, almost all of them broke their American dreams over the hard American reality.

I do not believe in the American dream because I have lived an American life. The people I know who work the hardest are not wealthy - even those in the middle class are hanging on by a thread. I'm talking about people who work 80-100 hours a week, went to school, have degrees, and generally behave responsibly.

Overall, I know of perhaps two or three "well off" people who actually work for a living. The few millionaires I know were either born into wealth or inherited it - and are not very decent people.

The hardest working person I know earns forty thousand dollars a year. While the laziest, most narcissistic, most unpleasant shit I have ever met brings in millions through a history of family investments, property ownership, and so on and so forth.

The truth is that, generally speaking, people who work hard can get by - usually, if they're lucky and have good people around to lend a hand. But the idea that they end up living some kind of American dream fantasy? I don't think so.