Avoid The Burden Of Living The American Dream
Living the American Dream can become an overwhelming burden in your life. Deep down inside you know this to be true.
The American Dream cited in the American Declaration of Independence is harmless enough. Hell some say it has become a beacon of light shining around the globe.
“Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”
Those words are legendary.
Has living the American Dream evolved into something sinister?
Are you chasing the American Dream?
Are you living the American Dream?
Are you happy?
Learn to avoid the burden of living the American Dream.
What Is Living The American Dream?
What is living the American Dream?
Living the American Dream for me means having the ability to pursue a happy life that is uniquely your own. The choice is always yours.
The American Congress completed The Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776. The document forms the foundation of the idea of living The American Dream.
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”
-Declaration of Independence
The most iconic image of living the American Dream is the white picket fence, a large home in suburbia, and at least one luxury car or truck in the garage. Accompanied by weekends off, paid holidays, and yearly vacations.
Professionally the iconic image of living the American Dream is a corner office for white-collar jobs and pride for well-paying blue-collar jobs and large yearly bonuses.
What Happened To Living The American Dream?
Beyond the iconic images of living the American Dream, it has evolved over the years and may not be what the American founding fathers originally had in mind.
I believe living the American Dream has evolved into making a lot of money (how does not matter) buying a big house, fancy cars, and owning all the latest must-have junk.
What do you think?
It has become common for people to work themselves into the ground to achieve this new American Dream. Buying things you don’t need has become a sign of success.
I don’t believe the American founding fathers meant living the American Dream to evolve into acquiring as much stuff as possible. Does that even make people happy?
Is the new American Dream driven by greed? Has it evolved from helping the poor and unfortunate become independent as symbolized by the Statue of Liberty to exploiting them to obtain more wealth?
Is living the American Dream for you?
I often wonder if its for me or has left me behind.
Is it just me or do you find that more and more Americans live for others to point out how fancy their homes, cars, clothing, latest electronic gadgets, and the like are?
Is the sole purpose of Social Media?
Is that living the American Dream?
The Burden Of Living The American Dream
Most Americans are taught by society that being successful means graduating college, landing a great job, working hard, paying bills, saving money, and retiring early.
Does that sound good to you?
To achieve today’s American Dream it’s customary to believe you must practice this daily grind. That may consist of rush-hour traffic, working more than 8 hours a day, cubical farms, overflowing email inboxes, and regularly completing mountains of paperwork.
What do you think? Are many people following this path so they can acquire more things? Is that living the American Dream?
Is the pursuit of acquiring more and more stuff killing us?
The average American home includes an astonishing 300,000 or more items and spends more than 1.2 trillion dollars on useless stuff.
Is it a coincidence the current generation of Americans is the most stressed out, medicated, and depressed in history?
At this very moment over 253 billion dollars are being spent on advertisements trying to get you to spend more and more money to achieve the American Dream.
As a result, more than half of Americans don’t use all of their paid vacation days. Even when they do take time off, many find it difficult to disconnect from the office, continue to check emails, or even take calls.
The Bible talks more about materialism almost more than any other topic in the scriptures. Jesus often spoke about the trappings of money. The new American Dream says you acquired all of your unnecessary stuff because you earned and deserve it.
Ironically that belief helps mentally numb us to the horrible burdens of living the American Dream.
Minimalism and Living The American Dream
As a living simple Minimalist my idea of living the American Dream is more traditional.
I believe that all men are created equal, that we are all endowed by the Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.
Yes, I believe living the American Dream is the pursuit of Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.
I don’t believe in acquiring more and more stuff and Hustle Porn has anything to do with living the American Dream.
I don’t really care about stuff. I like quality stuff but not the stuff in general. I like doing the things I like most, free time, and creating great memories with family and good friends.
That seems unusual and even impossible but a constant barrage of advertisements 24 hours a day 7 days a week leads us to believe we can buy products to achieve living the American Dream.
Unfortunately living the American Dream has evolved into nothing to do with being happy. Even worst being successful has nothing to having nothing to do with being happy.
You are even applauded for giving up some of what people are now calling the American Dream just to be happy. Duh!
I thought seeking happiness was intuitive, natural, and our default position. For me, the need to applaud it is like praising someone for choosing to eat a few times a day.
It should be the natural thing to do.
How much stuff have you sold or thrown out every time you have moved homes? Just Imagine if the next place you move to will only allow you two s small boxes of stuff.
The world would not come to an end. You would survive and even thrive because these would be the only items you actually use on a daily basis anyway.
You would not be burdened with the stress of moving, storing, managing, and maintaining all of that other junk.
That is how I compare living a Minimalist lifestyle and living this new American Dream.
What do you think?
Conclusion
Parents, schools, social media and the constant barrage of advertisements tell us living the American Dream means acquiring more and more stuff to be successful.
I believe we can keep the original idea of living the American Dream and keep our quality time with family, good friends keep our freedoms.
The simple reality is after we die all of our material possessions will just become someone else burden. Some people believe they will be passing along a legacy.
Would that be a legacy of living a happy life or a legacy of acquiring more, being unhappy, having mental therapy, and having depression?
There is nothing wrong with being successful and owning stuff but how much does it have to do with living the American Dream?
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