the american dream.

"Purposeful effort comes to mean, primarily, effort directed to or resulting in a more creditable showing of accumulated wealth"

We live in the United States, which has now coined a term that we all love to hear: The American Dream. This "dream" can be achieved by a motto that says "If you want success, you can get success." In one way or another, we all live in some sort of facilitated "American Dream." We all want to be successful, so why deny that we want to be a part of it? "Follow your heart, follow your dreams, follow your passions..." These are all statements that fall under the American Dream. It's become so popular that it's the ideal that anyone would want to reach, as if you reach this point, you will achieve true happiness, true wealth, and true success. But success for who?

This is all focused inwardly. I want success. I want wealth. I want fame. I want attention. I want it. It's as if they have no regard for what others want or need. No matter what one does, it's just a means for them to climb up the ladder.

So to that I say this.

Screw the American Dream.

It's just become another boring cliche. No one cares about anything anymore except for themselves. Celebrities only join non-profit organizations and donate millions of dollars to poor children because they know it would be good PR for them. They don't care about who they're helping, because they only help themselves. The same can be said about anyone, anywhere today.

People only want to be heard and people only want to put in their two cents because they want to make a name for themselves. That's the reality of today's world, and it's ugly. Success is only achieved selfishly, and most of the time it's not even looked at as a bad thing. We look at successful people and say "I want that for myself." Successful people, in turn, only make for more selfish people.

What's in store for me? That is the question we all ask, no matter how much we give. That's our human condition. But I find that most people are successful not because of how much wealth they acquire and give away. More successful people are people who genuinely forget about themselves and their fame and their wealth and their own names even. And give that success to someone else.

But then, we are in a conundrum. Because that successful person will help someone to be successful, and in turn they could either grow up to be genuinely successful, or live the cliche "American Dream."

Success is failure.

-a