The American Dream has been silently changing. I would argue that most college graduates these days don’t want to get a day job, live in a quiet suburb, and live a safe life. We want to escape the confines of our childhood and explore the world before we settle down.
We twenty-somethings are the children of the latest American Dream. Our parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents fought in the wars of the 20th century to give us the freedom to live the American Dream: The quiet house on a cul-de-sac where kids can play in the streets and you greet a new neighbor with cookies. Our forefathers worked jobs they most likely hated to put food on the plates of their children and a roof above their head. My generation is deeply grateful to everyone who fought for what we have. There is just one problem though.
The American Dream was supposed to have been reached by now. Parents always want a better life for their children than they had themselves. In most cases, their dreams have not been realized though. Their dreams have been exploited and our country’s people are struggling as much as ever to live the lives they want.
- Rampant unemployment for recent college graduates has them drowning in student loans and bills they can’t afford to pay.
- People that are close to retirement realize they don’t have enough to walk away and end up working ten years longer.
- Companies lay employees off without any regard for the fact that they are actual humans with lives outside work.
- People with no money to speak of live lives relying on credit cards and payday loans.
- Waiting outside a store at 3 AM on Black Friday to save $20 on the latest whatever.
- There are lines at the pumps for $4/gallon gas.
The American Dream needs to change.
How Much Do You Really Need?
Six months ago I signed up to be a member of a major warehouse store chain as a bit of a test for myself. I don’t like the consumerism culture of the United States. In the past few years I have been becoming more of a minimalist and have wanted less and less “stuff”. When I enter a mall, a Wal-Mart, or any other giant mega-store I feel physically sick. Everything about them screams “buy more stuff” to me. I am in and out of these stores as fast as possible.
A few years ago I went down to Honduras on a volunteer trip. Even under extreme poverty, the people I met there were filled with more joy than most people in the U.S. They had dirt floors, their children were malnourished, and they ate the same one meal each day, but they had huge smiles on their faces. They were satisfied with whatever possessions they had and they didn’t need go on a spending spree to make themselves feel better. They were happy to be alive. How many people do you know that could fit that description?
These third world children didn’t need a new video game or toy to stop a crying fit in the store. These twenty-somethings didn’t feel the need to lease a new car to try and impress the opposite sex. These parents didn’t need more than a single room home for their families to live in. Why do we?
Our stores, homes, and lives are filled with so much material junk. How can we make it stop?
The Solutions
How can we reinvent the American Dream to be more about living your precious life and less about figuring out how big a storage unit we need for all the junk we own?
Live a simpler life.
Do less.
Spend money only on what matters most to you.
Work a job you enjoy and get meaning from, even if it pays less.
Take the trip you have always wanted to go on.
Pay off your debt.
Live within your means.
Raise children that are conscious of how the world works.
Put the fate of your life in your hands only, not a corporation.
Own less.
Take care of your family when they need help.
Live each and every day, as if it was your last, with an undying passion for life.
My American Dream
The American Dream for me is simple: Live every moment doing what I choose to be doing.
Right now, my dream is not a reality, but I am working towards it. I work for someone else and the majority of my waking hours are spent attached to that work, but what I am slowly creating is a life filled with:
- Exploring the world and experiencing other cultures (my biggest passion).
- Changing how the world thinks about and treats their money.
- Changing the consumerist behavior that is threatening the sustainability of this planet.
- Being a part of the generation that stands up to all the “you have to’s” and says “no I don’t”.
I observe, plan, and work towards how I am going to change the world for the better over my life time. The first quarter of my life was just training. My next 75+ years are going to change the world.
That is my American Dream. What’s yours?
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{ 22 comments… read them below or add one }
Great post, Caleb. It’s refreshing to see this point of view coming from a finance blog- it’s a framework that the world could really benefit from.
“I observe, plan, and work towards how I am going to change the world for the better over my life time” — this is exactly how I view my life at this point as well. Like you, I am slowly creating the life that I want to live and the legacy I want to leave behind.
For me, it’s about bringing wisdom & advice to twenty-somethings and other young people in a “language” that they can understand. Whether it’s in relationships, in work, or in “life in general,” so many people are lost and trying to find their way, and yet there isn’t much (good) advice out there that speaks to their “pop-culture” worldview- instead, they turn on MTV or read Cosmo magazine. I believe that a deeper truth CAN be compatible with the mainstream if it’s fashioned in a way that fits with their worldview. That is the movement I’m starting.
Cheers to the “new” American dream
That is a wonderful movement to be starting Therese! If you think of anything we can do to help each other, let me know.
The moment when I realized I had way too much junk was when I came back from a two month trip to Taipei. I lived with whatever I could fit into a couple suitcases. I had my laptop, my iPad and my iPhone as well.
When I came back, I just had this sudden feeling of “Wow I have so much stuff in my house!” Stuff that I don’t really need. I didn’t have it the last two months and did just fine. Yet I’ve added all this stuff over the eight years I’ve been living at my house.
Now I’m more conscious when I make a purchase. Do I really need it or just want it? Can it wait? Usually if I wait long enough my desire for it goes away.
My American dream? Living a life where I wake up excited every day. Free time to spend with my fiance and our family in the future. The power to make my own schedule. Work hard when I want and cut back when I want. Only working on projects I love to do. Enough money to pay off all our bills, buy what we need, travel, donate and then save. Living a simpler life than I am now. Having a great group of friends that share our same ideals.
Long trips and even just weekend getaways make me do the same thing Benny. When I live out of a backpack just fine for a while and then I come home I see all these possessions I didn’t miss at all. And then it is just so easy to go back to your routine of using all of them.
I like the sound of your American Dream.
This is a great post and I’m so glad for you that you are able to see you don’t want the typical American dream this early in your life. I didn’t come to that realization until my husband and I were in debt, tethered to jobs we hated, had two storage units of crap, and had three kids with way too much junk of their own.
When I finally snapped out of the “dream” and realized I wanted a change, thankfully my husband came on board shortly after. The hardest part so far is retraining our kids. But I’m convinced that THAT is the vital piece of the puzzle. They are the next generation after all. If I can help express to them that they don’t need the latest and greatest gadgets or the big house and expensive cars, then that’s a great first step that I missed along the way.
I’m still working on accomplishing my new goals as well but every step of progress along the way feels pretty darn good. Best of luck on achieving your goals as well.
Having a teammate of sorts to help you along the way really helps with creating a life you really want. And teaching children about living within their means has something I’m thankful my parents taught me.
I see people that never learned that lessons and spend money that don’t have on things that don’t matter. It makes me sad to see that.
You all talk about living a simpler life and not trying to make too much money, then say you want to travel. Well, travel costs money. Large sums, often with 3 zeros. As do other things we like and which would help us be better (classes, workshops). For instance, I would really like to go to a conference in London in September. But it costs more than 1000 dollars, plus almost 500 for transportation, hotel and other expenses. That’s a lot of money. If it were possible to work more and gain enough money for the trip, I would. Money is important to me. It doesn’t mean I’m some sort of “victim of consumerism”.
Those Honduras people are happy in spite of having very few possessions. They would certainly prefer to have more, but they’re used to being poor, so just being alive and not hungry is good. While we should all follow their example and be happy with what we have, it doesn’t make a life without possessions an ideal to strive for (unless one is a monk or a nun).
I don’t think there is something inherently wrong with buying expensive things or “too many” things (assuming of course we don’t neglect people in need). What is luxury to me is probably a necessity to you, so what? If some buy a lot of unnecessary “crap” then maybe they are addicted to shopping, chose the wrong objects or they’re too spoiled to truly appreciate them. But this is people’s fault. If a child is having a tantrum because of a game, the problem is with the child’s education (and parents should stop placing the blame on others, they’re supposed to be educating their offspring), not with the object, not even with advertising pushing the object. You talk about “material junk”, but objects are made to be useful and to be purchased. If people feel objects take over their existence, maybe it’s because they have given their life and their freedom to this world (http://www.orthodoxresearchinstitute.org/articles/misc/stamatiou_out_of_world.htm). Having lots of objects is just a symptom and curing the symptom will not eliminate the cause. See Viktor Frankl’s “Man’s Search for Meaning”.
Also, it’s not so much the consumerist behavior that is threatening the sustainability of this planet as it’s the criminal socialism destroying economies and countries and people’s lives (your own country’s problems are basically caused by socialist, assistential measures).
Thank you ioana for your comment.
I agree that travelling costs a lot of money, but so does living anywhere in general. There are ways to travel frugally and if they are your only expenses it can actually be a cheaper way to live.
I don’t think that having minimal possessions is the life for everyone, it is just the life I want.
I also don’t think that liking money means that you are a “victim of consumerism”. I like my shiny, expensive electronics as much as the next person. There is a line between having enough and excess though.
As for the criminal socialism vs. consumerism being to blame, I think there are a lot of variables involved with the sustainability problem we are facing. Not just one.
I want to be able to see the world. I want to interact with different people, become educated on different cultures, try different foods all why taking great pictures of all of the places I go. When I have kids I want them to be cultured as well. I don’t find anything wrong with having nice things, I would like a few, however I refuse to put myself in a hole to keep up with the Jones’. Hopefully God puts me in a position where I can help young kids follow their dreams because I know how it feels to dream and feel like there is little help to make that dream a reality.
Those are all great wants Aaron! I don’t think there is anything wrong having nice things that you care for.
What I don’t like it is clutter.
Caleb, this is a thoughtful post and am happy to see you investigating these questions. I share some of your thoughts. But it seems to me that there is a deep socio/political element that you are flirting with but not going with further. This may not be the venue for that.
There are metrics beyond GDP and Gini Coeffecients to calculate well-offness. Why is the US trapped in the over consumptive cycle?
I have thoughts on the matter but it seems like you are at the top of the rabbit hole. But as Lewis Carroll said “how far down the rabbit hole do you want to go?”
There are definitely socio/political elements at play here, but I am the last to point fingers or blame others for what my life is all about.
I’m focusing on what I can to do life a different life than others.
Hey Caleb,
Awesome post dude!
I’m loving where you wanna go and have a plan in action to get there. Yeah being around a “you have to” type of surrounding is just a Debbie Downer, No I don’t is definitely where it’s at. Hope to hear the progress as time goes on man.
Keep rocking bro!
Thanks Eric. Being around others that want similar things out of life helps inspire and motivate.
In total agreement Caleb. We’re stuck in a consumerist mentality.
Over the past year, I’ve adopted the habit of not buying anything new until I find something equivalent to throw away - thus keeping the number of possessions I own at a somewhat constant level.
It’s been working out great. A lot of times when I want to purchase something new, I’ll realize that I don’t have anything equivalent to throw out and that I don’t need it.
And this extra money has been better spent seeking new experiences and spending time with friends and family, like you’ve said. Great post!
I like the “one in, one out” philosophy of stuff as long as you are down to a manageable number already.
I don’t think you have to count all your possessions, but keeping them from growing out of control helps a lot.
I totally get what you’re saying on the big box stores. I avoid them for a variety of reasons, and I just hate even just be in those stores even if I’m not buying anything.
I definitely think my dream is a lot like yours. I think that “changing how the world thinks about and treats money” is an essential step for the American dream to become attainable by the majority instead of a small minority. There are so many conventions that need to be broken for that to happen, but I’m confident it will with time.
I think that time and education are two big factors in the spread of financial literacy, but I don’t see how consumerism will come to a complete end.
I recently went through a 30 day blitz of paring down my possessions to the bare necessities. Now 2 out of the 3 bedrooms in my home are empty! And I have to admit. . . it feels great.
My dream is freedom. I’m working on reducing my possessions and obligations to the essentials so that I don’t “have” to do work that I’m really not happy with. I’m all for making money (and lots of it!) - but I want to be able to use the money for things like travel, education, and charitable donations instead of “stuff”.
I’ve been following your journey through your blitz and I’m quite impressed Vic. I still have trouble parting with “keepsakes”.
Having less stuff really is freeing.
I know I have it good when my problem of the day is that I accidently ate the sticker on my apple. I think the best advice here is to stay out of debt.
That sounds like an awful day…