A short, spoken lecture (YouTube video) presenting a simple model of the American dream as a three-part life arc: childhood dependency (parents provide upbringing/education), an independent working phase (career/business where you earn and make life choices), and retirement or the ‘golden years’ (leisure, modest comforts, and personal pursuits). The speaker uses an informal drawn-circle metaphor and everyday examples to illustrate expectations and notes that many people’s lives don’t ultimately follow this idealized path; a subsequent video will address common problems that disrupt the model.
I don't know if you've ever consciously thought about it, but there's an underlying dream that most people growing up in the United States have. And you could call that the theory of the American dream. And that's how it relates to how you expect your life is going to work out. And here's, here's one way of looking at it. Let's just say if I could draw something approaching a circle here. All right, that's as close as I'm gonna get. Anyway, you go in and this, whatever shape that is is supposed to represent your life and the way your life really works out. You start here, you know, you drop into the world, you look around and the first 25% of your life is set up where it's all your parents fault. You know, it's up to them, you are dependent. You know, you're going to go like 20 years or so, 18, 20 years around and you're going to, let's say 18 to 20 years. Yeah, round figures. Don't hold me to all of this. But this is essentially where you're getting educated. You're preparing to go out in the world. Your parents are supporting you, you are supported. You're not having to do anything. It's all on your parents. They're giving you a hot house environment you do at a plant, giving you a chance to get your maturity, your discipline, your approach, your people skills, your idea of who you are so that one day you could go out there, you're going to finish whatever amount of schooling you're going to do. And now you're going to go to work and you're going to launch out on a new phase. You can launch out on your own. You're going to be your own person. Here you are. One way of looking at it is that you are dependent over here. You're starting the independent phase of your life. No one's going to tell you what to do except irs, your boss and your spouse and your neighbors and everything else except for that. You're going to be your own boss and you're going to make your own way in the world. You're going to exercise your freedom. You're going to go out there and work though, because you got to make money and you're going to, hopefully there's going to be some day down here where you don't have to work anymore. You're going to go around and you're going to, this is going to end and you're going to have a phase of your life that you can look forward to coming out of the work, your career, your business, whatever it is you're going to find. What did I do there? Work. I couldn't do this worse. Anyway, once you finish your working career, you're going to go out there and hopefully have the golden years. You're going to be able to retire. Okay, let's do it like this. The golden years. The idea you'd be able to do whatever, you know, how long that is, I don't know. But as soon as you don't have to work anymore, you can start that fun side of life. You can. You know, this is what you keep in the back of your mind as you're going through all of these years down here, that one day I'm going to have fun, I'm going to really do what I want. And if I want to sleep late, I'm going to sleep late. If I want to go out with the grandkids or if I want to get that recreational vehicle and travel around, and if I want to wear Crocs and T shirts and shorts all day long, that's what I'm going to do. Don't have to be fabulously wealthy, but just enough to get by and do a few of the extra things in life you might want to do. Some people like to travel, some people like, they want to go to ball games, they want to do charity work, they have causes that they believe in. They, you know, all kind of stuff. But the idea being as you're trudging through life, you got this happy time, that one day is going to really make all of this, you know, work. Putting up with a man, you know, putting up with the abuse, forcing yourself out of the bed, the morning could make it all worthwhile. But for everybody, it doesn't actually work out that way. But that is the theory of how it's going to go. And now let's take. But there's a, you know, there is a problem that most people run into that kind of messes up things. And we'll talk about that in our next video. But that's the theory of the American dream.
