Dreams
When you're a kid, you're allowed to dream. Not just dream, but to really dream. I've heard kids say they want to be doctors, lawyers, astronauts, engineers. Kids even say they want to be teachers, pro athletes and, probably, drug dealers. When you're little, there's no concept of money, unless you don't have any. There's no concept of responsibility, unless cleaning your room is considered responsibility. A kid's life revolves around school, homework and playing. Seriously.
You hear that a good education will open doors for you and, more importantly, will take you where you want to go. So, most of us hit the books, do the homework, do the reading, do the best we can in order to make our young dreams come true. Somewhere along the school track, we learn what we are and are not good at. Maybe we wanted to be an astronaut but science and math are foreign concepts to us. That little kid who wanted to be a basketball player has his world turned upside down when there isn't enough money in the family budget for the basketball or athletic fees. That means the dream dies.
Armed with your education, the younger versions of ourselves deluded themselves into thinking we're going to land high-paying jobs we love. Those jobs would enable us to get the things we want: a car, a house, a dog, fancy furniture. Then, again, when those resumes start going out in college, reality hits even harder than it did before. It's a near impossibility to fulfill the dream you had. Fifteen dollars an hour isn't enough to support a house, bills and a little spending money. So the dream gets scaled back. Instead of a house, the living accomodations get downgraded to an apartment with a roommate you may or may not get along with.
Society kills dreams, to be blunt. No little girl dreams of being a Meijer cashier making $10 an hour after five years working there. That girl, I'm sure, didn't dream of being a single mother of two kids who has to work 20 hours a day just to put food on the table and a roof over their heads. None of those little kindergarten boys imagined they'd be living paycheck to paycheck in a job they hated in a state they hated. The money flows out faster than it flows in for all of us: clothes, gas, food, bills...the necessities.
We all have grand dreams. Whether it be the kind of relationship we have with a significant other or the type of job we go to every single day, we all dream and fantasize. Sometimes, though, circumstances conspire to put you in a position you don't want to be in. It is easy to blame the circumstances or the world or whatever other entity is out there. To a certain extent, the media in all its forms are to blame. They sell the image of a cushy ivory tower job to anyone who wants it. They (along with institutes of higher education) sell the idea that an education is the key to anything in the world. They say if you don't have that three bedroom, two and a half bathroom house in the suburbs with a front and back yard and three kids, you're a failure. If you don't make $50,000...$100,000 or whatever dollar amount you want to use, you're a failure because you can't buy that plasma television.
So most of us put our dreams on the shelf--the dream of a long term relationship where the two people are equals; the dream of a safe and comfortable house in the suburbs; the dream of a job that we legitimately get excited about on a daily basis. They're all pipedreams. Yes, to be fair, some of us do get exactly what we want. For the greater percentage, though, it's a case of settling for what is available as opposed to looking for exactly what we want.
Society has taught us that it is more important to have what we don't need rather than searching for it. It is more acceptable to be in a destructive relationship because you can parade someone on your arm at the bar than to go out alone. It is more acceptable to have a house and mortgage payment you can't afford rather than be in an apartment with loud neighbors. It is more acceptable to show off the new Express jeans at Meijer you charged on the credit card than it is to wear classic Levi's from JC Penny which didn't put you into debt.
We--American society--bases the worth of a person on what they have, not who they are. We ingrain that idea in the heads of every single child in the country from the earliest of ages. Society pretends that if you follow these three simple steps, you're going to get everything you want. You'll get your dream.
By the time you're a ripe old man of 26 years old, the dream is dead. Deader than a proverbial doornail. And the shit part is there's no way to rekindle the spark.
You hear that a good education will open doors for you and, more importantly, will take you where you want to go. So, most of us hit the books, do the homework, do the reading, do the best we can in order to make our young dreams come true. Somewhere along the school track, we learn what we are and are not good at. Maybe we wanted to be an astronaut but science and math are foreign concepts to us. That little kid who wanted to be a basketball player has his world turned upside down when there isn't enough money in the family budget for the basketball or athletic fees. That means the dream dies.
Armed with your education, the younger versions of ourselves deluded themselves into thinking we're going to land high-paying jobs we love. Those jobs would enable us to get the things we want: a car, a house, a dog, fancy furniture. Then, again, when those resumes start going out in college, reality hits even harder than it did before. It's a near impossibility to fulfill the dream you had. Fifteen dollars an hour isn't enough to support a house, bills and a little spending money. So the dream gets scaled back. Instead of a house, the living accomodations get downgraded to an apartment with a roommate you may or may not get along with.
Society kills dreams, to be blunt. No little girl dreams of being a Meijer cashier making $10 an hour after five years working there. That girl, I'm sure, didn't dream of being a single mother of two kids who has to work 20 hours a day just to put food on the table and a roof over their heads. None of those little kindergarten boys imagined they'd be living paycheck to paycheck in a job they hated in a state they hated. The money flows out faster than it flows in for all of us: clothes, gas, food, bills...the necessities.
We all have grand dreams. Whether it be the kind of relationship we have with a significant other or the type of job we go to every single day, we all dream and fantasize. Sometimes, though, circumstances conspire to put you in a position you don't want to be in. It is easy to blame the circumstances or the world or whatever other entity is out there. To a certain extent, the media in all its forms are to blame. They sell the image of a cushy ivory tower job to anyone who wants it. They (along with institutes of higher education) sell the idea that an education is the key to anything in the world. They say if you don't have that three bedroom, two and a half bathroom house in the suburbs with a front and back yard and three kids, you're a failure. If you don't make $50,000...$100,000 or whatever dollar amount you want to use, you're a failure because you can't buy that plasma television.
So most of us put our dreams on the shelf--the dream of a long term relationship where the two people are equals; the dream of a safe and comfortable house in the suburbs; the dream of a job that we legitimately get excited about on a daily basis. They're all pipedreams. Yes, to be fair, some of us do get exactly what we want. For the greater percentage, though, it's a case of settling for what is available as opposed to looking for exactly what we want.
Society has taught us that it is more important to have what we don't need rather than searching for it. It is more acceptable to be in a destructive relationship because you can parade someone on your arm at the bar than to go out alone. It is more acceptable to have a house and mortgage payment you can't afford rather than be in an apartment with loud neighbors. It is more acceptable to show off the new Express jeans at Meijer you charged on the credit card than it is to wear classic Levi's from JC Penny which didn't put you into debt.
We--American society--bases the worth of a person on what they have, not who they are. We ingrain that idea in the heads of every single child in the country from the earliest of ages. Society pretends that if you follow these three simple steps, you're going to get everything you want. You'll get your dream.
By the time you're a ripe old man of 26 years old, the dream is dead. Deader than a proverbial doornail. And the shit part is there's no way to rekindle the spark.