American Dream or American Nightmare?

The American Dream just isn't what it once was, in the day when the phrase was coined. North America was so expansive, rich in resources and there was so much opportunity and potential to behold, for anyone willing to put a bit of back breaking labor into the work of building up a new country.

North America was built on immigrants who came seeking a better way of life for their families. They left over crowded, under nourished countries, where poverty and communistic governments drained them of their life's blood. Starting over in a new land, a vast untouched frontier, would give them opportunities beyond their wildest dreams, if they were willing to work hard enough.

As time grew on and the country was showing so much promise and progress, life became better for so many. There was no shortage of work and the pay was far better than what they had left behind in their homelands. The governments were fairer to the people and there was freedom. Their children received better educations and it gave them hope that things would only continue to get better as each new generation came along. It became the American Dream.

And so it came to be. Young families were doing better than their own parents had done, while working far less strenuous. They became prosperous and could afford to purchase so much more. This was undoubtedly the land of plenty. Unfortunately, sometimes when you start off with so much, and still want more, it allows for greed to set in. You start to feel as though enough just isn't enough anymore. There will always have to be more. With that, and more and more immigrants flocking to this new free land in search of the life they'd heard of others attaining, the resources began depleting.

Is there such thing as too much freedom? When you've come from nations where the governments ruled every aspect of your life, too much freedom is a hard concept to grasp. This new land offered freedom to have your own opinions, speak your own mind, live your life as you chose. How could one not take every advantage of such a glorious new lifestyle? But, had that too gone to extremes as well? It seems that everyone is looking out for number one these days. Everyone is going in their own direction to the point where moral values have become drastically compromised.

We have become complacent, forgetting our roots and the struggles of our ancestors. We have used up our once plentiful resources with deliberate greed and self pride. The American Dream has become tarnished. There is rampant crime in the streets, many families are back to struggling in order to make ends meet, jobs no longer as plentiful as they once were, murder and sexual deviance have grown pervasive. Has it all come full circle? Will we soon be finding ourselves in the same situation that our ancestors once found themselves in, living in a land where crime, disease, poverty and destruction were prevalent?

Have we used up this once valuable land to the point of no return? Is this perhaps where human nature ineveitably leads? Are we only destined to bring ruin to every land that we conquer, especially when left to our own devices? Where can we go next? We have pretty much used up this entire earth throughout the last few hundred years. We have shattered that once beautiful hope of the true American Dream. Could we ever possibly attain it again? It's most certainly something one must give thought to.