It's plain and simple -- the American culture is not hamburgers, hot dogs and baseball. It's money. With the help of social media and Hollywood, people from all over the world, including Americans, live in this idea that America is filled with money and jobs. This is partly true, but we are also so generously accompanied with inflation and debt.
The American dream has been translated into many different visions over the years. However, the bottom line of the American dream is this: you are promised the opportunity to make a better living for yourself. And who doesn't want to advance? Who doesn't want to make more opportunities for themselves? But how many of us can actually say that we have enough time in the day for ourselves or our well being? Not many. So the question is: are we really advancing?
Our schedules are jammed-packed with work, school and family, leaving little time for sleep, exercise or the dying art of relaxation. According to the American Psychological Association, the top stress triggers among Americans are the economy, personal finances and work. Studies also show that our children are suffering from the stress of their parents as well.
About 86 percent of children agreed that their parents' stress bothers them. It has also been proven that obesity and stress go hand in hand with children because when they are stressed they are more likely to take part in unhealthy eating and static activities like watching TV or playing video games. They also find it harder to fall asleep at night, causing their energy levels and health to decline.
So in reality, our emphasis on making a better life for our kids and ourselves is actually backfiring on us. What can we do? Money is everything, isn't it? We need it to survive -- don't we? But perhaps we are only tricking ourselves into think that we need the newest things or that we need to have a bunch of success to be happy and fulfilled. Perhaps we have focused on all the wrong things. After all, money is the cause of wars, class systems and violence.
We are forgetting that we are humans that need so much more than money to be fulfilled. We need things like sleep, exercise, love and self growth. These are things we can't touch or buy, but rather simple things that are in our human nature. Things that, as Americans, we seem to have strayed away from.
While theoretically we want to be the next Bill Gates, we won't achieve it by living in this never-ending cycle of unhealthy living and stress. To truly move forward, there are some old habits we will have to leave behind, including living life for the sole purpose of making money.
