Reflections on Life and the Dream

Every person has their own dream, and every person has the right to that dream. It is one of the few basics rights we have as people. It does not matter where you come from or who you are; we’ve all got dreams. I sat down and asked my mother one Sunday about her dreams, more specifically the American Dream. Throughout her life she has had some of the most ridiculous and impossible dreams, one of them was becoming the ambassador of Spain. Our dreams may not always be realistic, but they provide hope to guide us into something more than ourselves and encourage us into success.

Over the years, I have seen both of my parents’ dreams thrive and die over and over again. My mother always had the dream of owning her own home. I remember picking out all of the different things that were going to be in our home. The cabinents, the floor, the carpet, the windows, the bannister; I never knew how much it took to build a home. We watched them build it up, and I remember being so excited about having my own room. It was the biggest place we had ever lived in. It had about fifteen rooms and we had trouble filling the place with furniture. Unfortunately, during the housing crisis, we lost our home, and my mother lost her dream. To this day, my mother is still hurt by the loss of her house. It’s a hard thing to go through, when you buy into such a good promise, only for the door to be shut in your face.

As for my father, he always wanted to have his own newspaper business, and for about five or six years he was the editor and owner of The Wabash Valley Journal of Business. He still has quite a few stacks of old newspapers sitting in the basement of his house, that have accumulated over the years. I remember how he shut himself away and did nothing but type for hours on end. After he was satisfied with that month’s issue, we would go off to the printing press. Through hard work and dedication, my father was able to attain his dream, but it didn’t end successfully. During the recession and with the use of computers and the internet becoming a more common news source, newspaper businesses had hit hard. My father wasn’t able to keep his business, but still continued to have a positive outlook on the world around him. He came up with new ideas and new dreams for himself.

These two situations are about two very different people, but the dreams aren’t that different at all. Being in America, we all have very similar dreams. We all want something that we’ve built in our own heads, and that sprang up from our own hard work and determination. Although, both of their dreams failed, they looked at it two different ways. My father saw it as a new oppurtunity for him to do something else and to attain something else. My mother saw it as another thing that was taken away from her. However, both of them were able to continue on, and seek out new dreams with the optimisim and hope the idea of the American Dream brings. That’s one of the most amazing things about dreams; you can always find a new one.

The greatest part about the dream, is that it is so unique to each individual person. We all want to do different things. We all have different ideas of greatness in mind. My vision of the dream is of success and prosperity. I believe that if you are determined with your goals, then you can achieve them. My mother’s vision is to travel. She says, “One of the greatest things about this country is that you have the freedom to go wherever you want, and in some countries you aren’t even allowed to leave your village.” My entire life, she has filled my head with stories of the places she’s been and the places she wants to go. Through her stories, she has given me that same desire to travel, but I want more than just the experience. I want it recorded down for future generations, so they can see that this is where I’ve been and maybe they can get there too.

The American Dream is a timeless concept. It was something that my mother believed in, my grandparents believed in, and even I believe in. Everyone has their dreams, but there is a definite difference between the dreams throughout the generations. My mother said, “You think about (the dream) as all of the promises under the constitution. Most people think of the dream as life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Over the years it has been mangled and twisted into the pursuit of things.” I agree with my mother on this. My brother always has to have the latest phone. People of my generation, only dream of having the very best of things. They aren’t content with just going to the local community college; they want to go to Stanford and Princeton. They aren’t content with houses, they want mansions. They want all of these opulent things, but they are unwilling to work for it. Even my own dream is different from my mother’s. She just wants to travel, but I have to write my journey down in great detail. But it isn’t just that; I also want the entire world to read it, as though nothing else would matter until every single person read about what I have to say, and the journeys that I have taken. Even if every single person in the world, read something I wrote; I would start looking for people on other planets to also read my works.

That’s the thing about my generation, or really all Americans. We’re always looking to outdo what was done before us. There always has to be more to the story. We are never content with the things we are given, and we must be constantly making alterations and changes to the things we already have. We are never satisfied. I’m not content to just write peacefully about everything around me. I want to change the entire world with what I have to say; even if it isn’t that profound. We get these ideas in our head, and we won’t stop working until it’s more than perfect, and then we’ll still complain about how it wasn’t enough. It’s never enough. We’re always expecting more, even when we don’t deserve it. However, we never stop dreaming about the possibility of tomorrow. We never stop looking at what’s next. In the darkest of times, we still have the most optimistic nature of what’s going to happen next. As a nation, we might curse the government with the strongest of words, but we will still proudly proclaim that it’s the best one in the world. Even though our dreams may die, we will never lose the power of optimism to create a new one.