This dream has nightmare tendencies

The American Dream is spoken of all around the world.  It is an idea based upon the possibility that anyone has the ability to succeed through hard work, determination, opportunity, democracy, equality and liberty.  As a result, many have chased after this dream like a greyhound chases a mechanical rabbit at the dog racing track. Like all dreams there comes a time when you have to wake up and face reality.

The reality that those who promised you access to the dream cannot deliver.  When the promise was a chicken in every pot by those supporting Herbert Hoover for president a century ago, the results were the Great Depression.  What will the promise of lower egg prices do in this century?

The reality that the pursuit of the dream is far more rewarding than attaining it. After you take the test do you remember the material?  When you do, you begin to understand things in a different way based upon the accumulation of accomplishments. A goal, once achieved, no longer moves us to keep going or growing.  So, we should set our goals very high and keep ourselves on the move.

The reality that the standards and rules are subject to change depending on who is interpreting them.  A democratic congressman received a censure vote this past week for an outburst during a joint session of Congress.  This was not the first time there has been such an outburst. Yet, when it was done by others no such censure vote passed.  Could it have been there was an obvious difference in this person from the others who disrupted?

The reality that hard work does produce rewards. But not always what you thought. Hard work leads to efficiency not the other way around.  How can you find what’s not working without ever having worked hard for anything you have?

The reality that we think that the dream is our collective goal, when it is really ideas.  Ideas drive us to search, imagine and create.  Ideas are founded in the things that we believe in.  Ideas give life to each day and the possibility that it holds.  It will take dreamers dreaming, creatives creating, workers working, and believers believing to accomplish the dream of America.

Don’t be a greyhound chasing a mechanical rabbit all of your life. Think ahead while learning from what has past so that your hard work is rewarded. The chickens did not get in every pot under Hoover and egg prices are going up now.