- Graduating college with a degree and going straight into a high paying job
- Making tons of money without doing much actual work
- Finding the perfect significant other
- Having children with said significant other
- Living in a house with a white Pickett fence
- Happily growing old as your grandchildren take care of you until you die peacefully in your sleep
Unfortunately for most of us, in order to live the American Dream you have to be pretty dang wealthy. Being wealthy means having not just enough money to fulfill your needs, but also your wants, and sometimes the things you didn't even know you wanted.
You can be like this dude! After all money equals happiness right?
WRONG!
It's unfortunate that in our society people believe that in order to be happy you have to have expensive things and a perfect life. The truth is that as long as you are happy, does it really matter if you house has two bathrooms instead of three? Sadly, the commonly held belief the people who have less money have worse lives. Americans see the 1% as the high and mighty and the people living in poverty as the dregs of society.
I prefer to hold a different opinion than this one. I see it that in most cases you are in control of your own happiness. There are rich people who were born into their money, but there are also people who put in the hard work everyday to make a living. There are the poor people who waste all of their money on drugs, but there are also people who are just caught in a bad situation. No one has any right to judge a person based on the number in their bank account. Not everyone wants to live the American Dream. If someone chooses to live in a tent by the highway because it makes them happy, then more power to them.
After all, in the words of the East High students: We're all in this together!
