What Makes An American Dream Essay

Superior Essays
Everybody wants to achieve one thing in their life before they die. That one thing is their dream. The greatest example of this is the American dream. Millions upon millions of people flocked to the United States because they saw the U.S. as a place to achieve their dreams. All kinds of things make up a dream such as your job, family, education, experiences, lifestyles, and homes and everybody will have different things in their dreams. Basically, like the well known saying “If you can Dream it, you can achieve it.”, if you can dream it, it can be part of your dream. My American dream consists of getting married, having children, staying fit throughout life, becoming a doctor, and having music strongly incorporated into my lifestyle. This is a very successful dream as proven by the evidence and facts pertaining to each part of my dream.
Marriage is the most important part of my American dream, and it has proven to be a very good choice in life. Marriage has been shown to increase happiness in people. One study found that “compared the overall increased happiness experienced by the married to the boost experienced after receiving a $100,000 annual pay raise” (Stanton). Even if a person is poor they can still be happy without wealth if they are married. In addition to happiness, marriage can also make you healthier. Dr. Scott Haltzman, a clinical assistant professor of psychiatry and human behavior at Brown
…show more content…
For me to feel like I have lived a good life I have to fulfill all aspects of my American dream. I could be the richest man in the world but if I do not have children then I will not have succeeded. I could be surrounded by hot supermodels but if i am not happily married to someone I truly love, Then I am not successful. All in all, my American dream defines the exact person that I am. This is my dream, and this is who I

Related Documents

  • Decent Essays

    The American Dream can be plenty of different goals. The generality of people's American dream can be different. One person's American dream can be probably going to be different from someone else's. The American dream can range from having freedom, making an excessive amounts of money, being successful or just having opportunities. How people look at the American Dream can be based off of their perspective on the world and life.…

    • 421 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Superior Essays

    For many the American Dream is just that, a dream. It is almost inconceivable to some people that they could ever reach the goal of being successful and comfortable in the United States, but that has never stopped anyone from trying their hardest to achieve this feat. For some though that goal is not as unattainable as it is for others and the reason for this is because there is no set definition of the American Dream. The meaning of the American Dream varies for each person and therefore the road to someone accomplishing his American Dream can differ greatly. These alternate perceptions based on the person can lead to one person believing he has failed in his pursuit of the American Dream, while another may be convinced that he has accomplished…

    • 1417 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Decent Essays

    Everything has a meaning or at least a purpose that helps everyone work toward a goal. Like in the novel The Great Gatsby, a green light on Daisy’s dock that Gatsby always gazes upon is a great meaning to him and most of the characters in the book. It symbolizes an unattainable dream or like a hazy future that one must work toward to gain that goal. F. Scott Fitzgerald places the green light there to bring hope not just for him but for others who also read the book that what to reach a goal.…

    • 507 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Great Essays

    Coming home to a big house with a great wife and great children, or coming home to mountains of money, or even coming home to an RV that’s going across the country. This, in its many forms is the American dream. The American dream is the ideal, that every United States citizen should have an equal opportunity to achieve success and prosperity through hard work, and determination. This said, The American dream is in the eye of the beholder. One man’s American dream, can be living life on the road, leaving no street untouched.…

    • 1912 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The American Dream is a broad supposition in which it varies amongst many particular individuals. Many people conceptualize it as being successful and wealthy, meanwhile others hypothesize it to be content and stable. Most of the times, the cases of which the American dream is portrayed usually is dependant on the race, ethnicity, and age of that certain individual. Some latino US citizens would say that their American dream is to buy a house and be contently stable in a state of alacrity, meanwhile some white US citizens would say it to be prosperous and well-living. It varies on whoever the specific individual is.…

    • 1265 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The Broken Dream Now and days people dream of achieving their American Dream some emigrants come to america for a chance at the American Dream. for people the american dream is being financially stable to be able to buy a house and having a family. Being able to but your kids into good schools and being able to retire from work with no worries. But the American Dream has lately been very impossible to achieve because people are not financially stable. The American Dream has slowly started being impossible because people try to fulfil their dream can’t because they are living paycheck to paycheck.…

    • 1052 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The American dream is one of the most sought after items. Thousands of people flock to the united states in hopes of making it big and getting the American dream. What is the American dream and how can it be so desirable? The very definition is that every person would have an equal opportunity to achieve happiness through hard work and determination. But what is the measure of true happiness now?…

    • 822 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The American Dream, or promise of freedom and equal opportunities, is still accessible to all Americans because America rewards hard working citizens that can better their lives by going through pain and hardships to achieve success. To begin, the American Dream gives all Americans an opportunity to achieve freedom and success, but citizens have to be determined to put in hard work and go through pain and suffering to accomplish it. In the poem “Europe and America”, David Ignatow explains how the father went through misery and torture, but fought through it to try and make his son’s life better. Throughout his life, the father faced many difficult challenges compared to his son, who explains that “While I am bedded upon soft green money…

    • 1126 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The American Dream varies between each individual. Everyone has a different goal that they would strive to achieve. Some may think the American dream is accomplishing great actions or events, such as obtaining a countless amount of money or living in a mansion. Another perspective is that others would want to get more out of life then what they have previously, such as not being homeless or being financially stable. The American dream can become a reality if the person can motivate themselves to keep going even with one or multiple obstacles in their way.…

    • 1072 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The American Dream can be summed up into a couple different things. The American Dream is different for everyone and that makes is so unique. Not everyone has the same dream so not everyone achieves what others do. The dream itself is just an idea of how successful one might want to be. It can be hard to achieve your version of the American Dream but everyone can achieve it.…

    • 1068 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Decent Essays

    The American Dream Everyone has their different way of describing the american dream. Some want to have a nice house, car, and a family. While others want to live their lives to their lives to the extreme by wanting to be famous, rich, and have lots of fun. For example The Great Gatsby’s american dream was like the ones of today to the extreme bigger houses more expensive cars big parties. He wanted the more the bigger the better.…

    • 431 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Great Essays

    American Dream Dbq

    • 1537 Words
    • 7 Pages

    Another part of the dream for many Americans is being able to have the freedom and opportunity to set goals to achieve their own personal definition of success. “Today, the American Dream continues to place a heavy emphasis upon economic prosperity and financial security, along with other ambitions as well-finding and pursuing a rewarding career, leading a healthy and personally fulfilling life and being able to retire in comfort. But regardless of the time or place, America has always been about the hope and promise of a good life.” (Source B) The latter is what differentiates America from other countries.…

    • 1537 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The American dream is the ideal that every U.S. citizen should have an equal opportunity to achieve success and prosperity through hard work, determination, and initiative. It is a life of personal happiness and material comfort as traditionally sought by individuals in the U.S. The Death of a Salesman and The Atlanta Exposition Address both tell a story of men striving to achieve the American dream. In The Death of a Salesman, Willy Loman strives to make it rich by being a salesman. We are never told what Mr. Loman is selling and maybe this is so all individuals will relate to him.…

    • 948 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The American Dream is often defined as the ideals of freedom, equality, and opportunity traditionally held to be available to every American; its is also defined as a life of personal happiness and material comfort as traditionally sought by the individual citizens of the U.S. (Dictionary.com) This so-called dream has been around since before the founding of the country; its main purpose in the beginning was to allow people to flee from European countries that supported religious freedom. Now the vision of the American dream has shifted not just once, but billions of times every individual has his or her own personal dream now and more often then not, no two dreams are the same. According to an online article titled “America as a Religious Refuge: The Seventeenth Century, Part 1,” most of the British North American colonies that eventually formed the United States of America were settled in the seventeenth century by women and men, who, in the face of religious persecution in Europe, fled to America because they refused to compromise passionately held religious convictions.…

    • 1061 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Decent Essays

    The American Dream, The milk and honey of America The American Dream is one of the most famous ideas that people have of America before travelling here. Some see it as a land where all of your problems are solved, and where everything goes your way, but it’s not. America is a land where you have the opportunities to make things go your way, with a little hard work. Anything is possible with a little hard work, and the end-goal of the American Dream is to have a better life with your family by your side.…

    • 370 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Decent Essays