LinkedIn discussion

Michael C. – leader in nonprofit management and development with multiple degrees including a M.S. from Lesley University

I guess beauty is in the mind of the beholder. The American Dream to me is freedom. Lest we forget what a short supply of that commodity exists around the world now and how much less there was when the concept of an American Dream first blossomed. I could be wrong but I think it is what causes people to flock to our borders and take their lives in their hands to get here.

Freedom is our natural state as individuals.

That took hundreds of years for philosophers to articulate, back when almost no one actually owned or was allowed by the state to own property. I am in no position to disagree with them. If people decide that they are going to use that freedom to plan on getting rich, so be it. That in itself is a values statement. But no one in my family tree ever dreamed of being rich. Going back 300 years that I am aware of, they dreamed of living in a country where that dream as well as a million others were a possibility. The dream was that neither the state, nor anyone else could prevent you from pursuing home ownership or a million other dreams. Some in my family tree have grown financially secure enough to donate very large sums of money every year to those less fortunate.....another values statement, and a bi-product of the American Dream.

Everyone in my family tree, Irish and German immigrants all, simply wanted to live in a society where home ownership was an opportunity, if we were willing to work our asses off for it. My great grandmother could only speak Gaelic and she never dreamed of owning a home but she did dream that her children would be able to carve out a better quality of life than the one she met with when she landed here. No one in my family was duped into wanting a home when they didn't really want one by some evil Wall Street cabal. I think perhaps owning your own home may well be something many/most rational people would aspire to as they establish themselves financially. To someone from Ireland in the 1840's whose home was owned by landlords they never met but who could evict them for no reason plunging them into poverty and destitution, owning your own home must have been quiet the wild dream indeed. Could today's immigrants not share that common yearning?

Her son, my grandfather went to high school - the first ever in my family to achieve formal education that we know of. He went to war for the American Dream as he saw it, and worked his ass off when he came back so that his son could go to college - the first ever to achieve that level of education in our family. With that degree, my father was able to buy a house. He also worked his ass off so I could have the opportunity to dream about financial security. I have an advanced degree- the first ever in my family, and I chose to buy a home...no one had to convince me it was a good idea, but it was an option.

Someone said that Baby Boomers are "The Grasshopper Generation". Our ancestors did all they possibly could to plant and grow the field for us, and we have spent our lives consuming what they grew.........We stand on the shoulders of giants. I hope every day I can do justice to their memory, hopes and aspirations...and to still live in a country where I am free to work my ass off if I choose to, and that embraces personal freedom to dream about home ownership,… or selling hot dogs on the corner, or living a cloistered life of poverty, and every other dream in between.