WHAT DO YOU THINK IS THE AMERICAN DREAM?

Looking back from the moon in Artemis II, the planet Earth looks the same as it always did. Unfortunately, it’s just a photograph, and photographs lie.

Even if you ignore climate change and recent weather events, the American Dream is different. Owning your own home might still be possible, if you have a high enough paying job or you receive your parent’s house (or a large inheritance), but otherwise it might very well not happen.

American kids are now saying, “The American dream is the ability to become be the best you can be.” A worthy goal for anyone, but how easy is that to achieve without support? Emotional, mental, and financial. The more of that you have in your childhood, adolescence, and young adulthood, the more likely you are to reach the ultimate expression of that sentiment. Identifying who it is that YOU are and what YOU have to offer, is much harder if you are not raised in a way that encourages deep thinking or your head is buried in a screen with earbuds on.

I truly feel for today’s youth in the USA. They are genuinely afraid and reticent to ask for help. I’ve offered to “pay it forward” several times lately without any takers, and it makes me sad. I hope the world stops being stupid, so that what really matters doesn’t disappear before it’s too late.

(Image: NASA)