The American Dream... Something that everyone strives to live for every day. Everyone wants to wake up and have the best day of their lives. Go out, have fun, live life and enjoy their time in America. I would describe the American Dream as having many opportunities to become something great and do something great while you are living on earth. It is important that you take risks and make your dreams come true no matter what you have to do to make it happen. The main objective of the American Dream is to carry your main beliefs and core values that you have been brought up upon. This is key to living the American Dream because it is what you have grown up knowing that shape who you are and help form your personal American Dream. When defining wealth, it can be seen in two ways. You can have wealth temporarily or you can have a continuous amount of wealth during a certain time period or consecutively. When you look at wealth temporarily, you have wealth for a moment and how you chose to spend it or use it diligently. You will end up running out of money and your "American Dream" isn't such a dream, your dream just becomes cut short. When looking into consecutively having wealth, you are consistent, you pay bills or budget your wealth the right way. Leaving you with enough wealth to live the "American Dream" as long as you are on this earth. There are people in the world that live the "American Dream" every day they wake up, sometimes within their lifetime or some don't get to live the "American Dream."
Going deeper into wealth, some people take it for granted causing people that wish they could have these opportunities, they now can't. In contrast to people that look down upon people who don't have as much wealth and are judged for that. In comparison to The Great Gatsby, I see Nick as someone who is wealthy and has enough wealth to use it how he pleases, but even the people that he surrounds himself with, he still looks down upon them, but on a level that includes judging them to their inner characteristics. In some cases, wealth doesn't have a meaning and in an ideal world that is how things should be. But the world that we live in, this is not possible because if you are brought up with wealth, most times you can inherit it, and in some cases, if you don't do right by your parents... you are going to be left barokeee. In other cases, there are people that grow up with wealth and then it just gets slimmer and slimmer as they get older. Lastly, there is the case of people that grow up in poverty and don't make it out. A question that arises from this is, "To what extent does the environment you grow up in effect how you will turn out in the long run?" Some people are just comfortable and content/okay with what they are and how they are because that is how they were raised. Even then, it is hard to break out of that. And then there are people that do all they can to become something and make their past an influencer on becoming more than where they grew up or a statistic in the "American Dream." I think that it is important to see all aspects of the spectrum because we are all equal and some have equal opportunity to become great, with the selective few that chose not to and that is solely upon them not wanting change and in some ways we need people like that to balance out the "American Dream."
If I had the choice to change wealth vs poverty, I would for the simple fact that I believe that everyone should have the opportunity or chance to feel, see and experience wealth. In my case, I was fortunate and blessed to grow up in a nice home, with nice cars and be able to just go out and swipe my card without looking or worrying about the price. For instance being able to get Chick-Fil-A or Tropical Smoothie whenever I want. Those food places often run up a check each week when you can go out and get food. Sometimes we are closed off from the actual society we live in and that is because we are to an extent sheltered since we don't have to live that way. Our parents chose what they would like for us to see growing up because that is our prime time of growing and thriving/ turning into the person we will be when we get older. I take that for granted because I could easily have been brought up in a family that wasn't blessed enough to have nice things like Kate Spade, Tory Burch, buy groceries for the week like fruit from Publix or Target. Those things could easily be taken away and sometimes we as a society must be content with how we are in the world we were placed in. Lastly, I feel as though I am judged in the society we live in for the simple fact that I have money and have the capability to go buy those nice things and not worry about what will be for dinner. I think that no one should be judged based on what they have and what they can afford. In my case, with or without the money that my parents supply me with I would still make it work and be the Samara that I am. At the end of the day, there will forever be a judgmental side and the weird looks at people that are wealthy vs people that are living in poverty. Sadly, the only way to fix this is to slack off of labeling someone just as they appear or how much wealth they have or if they are truly living the "American Dream." We must become content with life.
xoxo samara
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