I don’t know about you but this American dream thing we used to hear about hasn’t been mentioned a whole lot in the mass media.
At least not in any positive light. Some consider whether the American dream is even possible anymore, what with how difficult it is for Americans to get work. Let alone foreigners and college graduates.
Let me first start off by explaining what the American dream is:
The American dream is primarily centered around the idea that everyone can achieve success so long as they are willing to work hard and get their hands dirty. Figuratively or literally.
America has offered this dream up to anyone who applies, pretty much. Foreigners often save up an entire lifetime of their resources just to send their children to America. Pursing the dream is less about the United States and more about the opportunity that the country represents.
These days though, unemployment is at a high and minimum wage is at a low. Workers can work their fingers to the bone and never see more than a couple of dimes. Literally or figuratively.
Foreigners are coming in from all over the world, hoping to find opportunity for work and success, and they’re not all finding it. The US primarily gives immigrants the lower end of the stick, with janitorial or yard work. It’s even become increasingly impossible to obtain a work visa, which is absolutely required to work legally.
The American dream looks like it’s crumbling, but who knows if it ever even existed outside of those who were born into it?
And yet, even American students are graduating from college and having a hard time finding work too, with entry-level jobs at big name corporations requiring years of experience right out of the gate. It doesn’t make any sense, and they’re getting away with it. The way of the college campus is going away too, some analysts believing the University as we know it to be mostly eradicated by 2050.
Time is going to tell, but ultimately what it looks like is with less opportunity offered straight out of college, would-be students are more likely adhering to their own rules of success.
In other words, the bright side is that there is a bright side.
With the advancement of digital media, now is the time, more than ever, to make a name for one’s self.
With a good idea and a whole lot of determination, it’s very possible that the meaning of the American dream has evolved over the last several years. Start-up companies are opening on a daily basis, some becoming massive successes such as Facebook, Snapchat and Instagram are companies that started in the figurative garage and worked their way to the ivory tower.
All it takes, to put it simply, is a whole lot of effort. Just as the American dream has always asked of us.
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