By Nicolette Dammacco
The philosophy of the American Dream has led to extremely inflated expectations.
Those who hold on to this crumbling belief think that working long and hard, day in and day out will eventually lead to whatever they see as a perfect life. What they don’t realize, however, is that depending on their race, demographic, and socio-economic standing, the obstacles in the way of this life can become harder (and sometimes impossible) to overcome.
For some, this life will come easy because they were born into a wealthy family, grew up in a nice neighborhood or got the best education. For most, this life will be a little harder to achieve, but they still have a family with a stable income and a decent education. For the lower percentage, people who are living paycheck to paycheck and have poor education and whose current ambition in life is to just survive, this life will be nearly impossible to achieve.
This has affected society because there are still those who believe we start with a clean slate and equal opportunities. It tells us that it is up to you and you alone to pick yourself up and make something of yourself, and that if you really wanted it you’d figure out a way. Instead, we need to acknowledge that there are people who are less fortunate and have little to no resources to break the cycle, and those better off need to be the ones to help.
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