What is the biggest trend in the country? Talk to anyone in America
and they are talking about reducing the size of their house and it just
doesn’t stop there. Americans want to reduce the size of everything. They want less debt. Less belongings.
They want no car payments. They want
less taxes. Less house. Smaller yard.
Why is this, when our entire history has been based on moving forward,
getting more…why should we want to
go backward? Because of this one simple fact: The American Dream as it has come to be
defined is flat out impossible. The numbers simply don’t work. It is really simple math.
I looked
around in the neighborhood I was living in and saw people just barely hanging on and then I watched as they
slipped into foreclosure. These are not
people at the bottom of the economic pyramid. These are people with good jobs who came from great universities
and had all the breaks and yet, they
were failing! Worse, they were barely hanging on, never seeing their kids,
never able to enjoy the spoils of their work.
In short they were not working to
live, they were living to work.”
If you factor in the cost of a modern
home, taxes, utilities, health care, insurance, cars, maintenance, groceries,
gas, incidentals…the numbers are staggering. Couples making over 150k
struggle to get buy and worse, they are one step away from disaster. And
again, worse than all this, there is no quality
of life. No American Dream. Just an American Nightmare.
The great debate in our politics is fueled by the fact people are so mad they cannot have this perceived
nirvana. Where The Great Gatsby was about a man reaching for the stars, I put forth the idea our
greatest happiness is not found in
something in the future but something behind us. Because we have lost something we had. We are
now trying to go back to a happiness not
founded on consumption but on community,
on belonging. We are searching for an American Dream without the consumption. Americans aren’t really enjoying the dream, because the American Dream was never based on economic wealth. It was based on lifestyle. This is what people forget. The ability to have a life that makes sense with friends and neighbors and children who are happy was never predicated on a Super Life. The American Dream was built on a middle class life that never included expensive cars and Mansions. Yet this is what Americans were sold going up to the crash. Rocket Men is for anyone who tired to find the American Dream and found it empty. But failing in this case is winning! Going back to a simpler life behind us.
This is the new American Dream.
The American Dream of
Starting Over.www.billhazelgrove.com
Rocket Man...the novel of the upside down American Dream
