Is The American Dream Still Possible?

I would like to say that I feel the same way. What happened to the American Dream ? I don’t really know its been hard on my family always trying to pay bills. No more after school activities that i love to do . Money running low. No b-day partys not enough money to visit our family in other countries. helping out the family. We seem to be losing the dream. Everything is going down hill and now the whole family is praying and hoping things will get better even though they get worst. The younger generation has it hard were struggling in school because we are always thinking about the problems at home. I can tell you now were losing hope on the dream but are still gona believe it will get better. The younger generation has it hard.

Yes. Just not in America.

The difference between a dream and reality is perfection; nothing is ever perfect – no matter how pretty the picture.

I know it was possible 15 years ago. When I lived in Austin, Texas. I applied for a bank account, a simple procedure, nothing out of the ordinary but what I got was the life story of the bank worker who processed my account and an insight into the “American Dream.” I think she was just so proud of her daughter and how things had happened for her and her family and we got to talking… anyway, the woman who processed my account was the daughter of Mexican immigrants, migrant farm workers and she grew up working in the fields next to her parents and brothers and sisters. But her parents wanted a better life for their children and made sure that they took advantage of every opportunity afforded them, they picked up aluminum cans when they weren’t working in the fields to provide extra income for the family. The made sure that the kids went to the school that the company provided for the workers’ families and when she grew up, she didn’t have to work in the fields anymore. She got a nice, well paying, middle class job at a bank. And she raised her kids and made sure they got an education and this was the juncture, this was where it stood when I was getting my account: her daughter had graduated from college and was going to medical school. She was so proud. And she and her husband were helping to pay for her daughter’s education and her daughter had some scholarship money and the bank was going to help pay for her daughter’s education too. And, wow! All I did was go in to open a checking account and I got this incredible lesson on the American Dream. I had been cynical about it up to that point, thought it was maybe a lot of bullshit, but there it was, right in front of me. In two generations, an immigrant couple, working in the fields produced a white collar bank worker and then a doctor. It is possible. I believe it.

It’s not about whether it’s still possible or not.
It’s the fact that more and more, people feel they’re entitled to certain things that, really, they should come to accept that not everyone can have.

lillycoyote, great answer and maybe the American Dream IS still possible?

Yes, of course. We should be glad that we got a Great Recession instead of a 1929-style Great Depression. Or think of all the Germans in 1945. All cities and towns were reduced to a heap of rubble. But the people had the dream of rebuilding it, which was exactly what happened. The people in East Germany had the dream to break free from their totalitarian system. Which was exactly what happened. Now compare that with what we’ve got to endure right now. America is not a heap of rubble. It’s a thriving society with millions of people full of great ideas and dreams.