So growing up, I had this idea that the American dream was about that if you put in an honest amount of work, you would be rewarded with a good life. This would mean you would be able to take care of yourself and your family, afford a car and a house. In my view, working one job would probably be enough.
Nowadays, I get the idea that the American dream has become about working your ass off in order to have a chance to become a millionaire. Somehow glorifying “the grind” appears to be a part of it too now.
The american dream was for the boomers who were promised pensions and social securitybin an era where the dollar had some semblance of value. We will never ever have those things. Even the boomers who get 800$ in SS are eaten alive with rent and forced into starving or living out of their cars in today’s economy.
The american dream is called that because, you have to be asleep to believe it. We are much more awake as a society to the systems reality. Most of us are wagies that only exist in the eyes of the govt and corpos to pay taxes and generate profit until we get too old then put to pasture. The average life expectancy is 75, most of the boomers who retired at 65 maybe had 10-15 ‘golden years’ they couldn’t enjoy cause they were too old
You don’t need the american dream. You don’t need to work your whole life to pay off a 500,000$ mortgage on some shitty suburbanite hellhole with a terrible hoa. You don’t need to go the common path most people do. I feel pity for anyone who got tricked into being an indentured slave to the banks/economy because they were a thoughtless monkey in their 20s who signed the dotted line on 50k in debt for a worthless degree and another 300k debt on a house because “family/kids”. The only way to really be happy is to gibe the finger to the normal path and do something alternative.
Work hard, learn to save/invest in actual assets, don’t squirrel away your money in a bank account forever since inflation will eat away its value if you just have it sit there. Have an e-fund of 3k to 6k, buy a van and convert it into a semi-living/camping space. Develop hobbies with actual skills, start your own small concession business. Don’t buy a house buy land and develop the skills to build one yourself while living in a canvas tent. Plainly put, most people are too stupid, lazy, and unwilling to go without modern convinence. It takes a surprisingly little amount of money to live a comfortable lifestyle if you are intelligent, creative, driven, adaptive, and open to new experiences even if the outcome may be uncertain.