The American Dream and the Rejection of “After”
--
When you think of the American dream, what comes to mind? While once something to strive for, the American dream has become quite restrictive, taken to refer to the trajectory society says our lives should follow: college, marriage, children, and the one thing throughout it all- work. As Lawrence Samuel puts it,
“Work hard, save a little, send the kids to college so they can do better than you did, and retire happily to a warmer climate”
There’s a stark difference between our modern interpretation of the American dream and what was originally intended. The original was far more broad and encompassing. Surely you remember it — “all men are created equal with the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” Freedom oozes from every word- the freedom to choose your course, whatever that may entail, in whatever capacity you choose. Doesn’t it seem odd then that the “dream” of such a progressive and open-minded country has become something so narrow and exclusive?
As such, I can’t help but to reject the modern interpretation of the American ideal. But I didn’t always. Up until my early 20’s, I thought the American dream was the most that could be expected out of life. It was almost like a curse, something I had to strive for but didn’t have a choice about. At that time, I was utterly ignorant of the vastness of the world. Sure, I had seen some beautiful pictures in National Geographic, or read about an indigenous tribe in a textbook, but those things were like a television program to me, completely off limits and behind a barrier I could never touch.
So imagine my surprise and delight when the world lowered its barrier and revealed itself to me. When I moved to a big city and befriended illegal immigrants. When I ascended mountains I never knew could be so high to see lakes I never knew could be so blue. When I walked through rural South American villages that had only just been given access to running water. Life was suddenly about more than the restrictive American dream, more than the trajectory of college, marriage, children, work.
The more I’ve lived, the more it strikes me as strange that the United States, which was founded on the freedom to pursue your individual happiness, is also the most overworked developed nation in the world, with 85% of males and 66% of females working more than 40 hours a week.¹ In every developed country (except for Canada and Japan), workers get a minimum of 20 days of paid vacation. In France and Finland, they get 30 days of paid vacation! So how many days does the average American get? Just 13, putting us at the very bottom of the list.²
It gets worse. America is literally the only developed nation that doesn’t require employers to provide paid vacation days, and out of those countries, at least 5 provide paid vacation hours above their regular hourly rate to compensate for vacation expenses.³ You read that correctly- their hourly rate is higher while on vacation because employers understand that vacation is expensive. Work is so embedded in our culture that it seems ludicrous that anyone would get 30 days of paid vacation or make more money while on holiday.
So is it any surprise that the average American adult has only visited 3 countries?⁴ As a nation, we need to open our eyes to how embedded work has become in our culture and realize this isn’t normal compared to the rest of the developed world.
While I value the spirit of entrepreneurship and take pride in all of our achievements as a country, I also know that vacation time is critical to our health. There is well documented evidence that taking vacations can improve our mental health, as well as increase our life satisfaction and productivity.
In one study, men who didn’t take a vacation for several years were 30 percent more likely to have heart attacks
Even culturally, our identity in America is completely rooted in our job. After all, when meeting someone new you’ll ask them their name, where they’re from, and then, invariably, “what do you do?” It’s a knee-jerk reaction that serves to classify them and place them in a box. But think of how limiting that is! Think of all the assumptions that are unconsciously made by knowing what someone does for a living. I know accountants who love to dance and construction workers who are excellent artists— things you would never glean by asking about their career, and yet, what someone does is still one of the first things we want to know.
The next time you meet someone new, challenge yourself to see how long you can go without knowing what they do for a living. It’s a difficult and fun exercise to skirt around a question that will become more pressing by the moment as your brain grapples with not knowing what to make of someone when you don’t know what they DO. If anything, it will open to your eyes to the usual emphasis placed on it.
The modern American dream tells us that we’ll be able to do the things we want after, always after- after you graduate from college, after you get that promotion, after you raise your kids, after retirement. I say fuck “after.” I say use your vacation time now. Quit your job that makes you miserable now. Do the things you want to do now because life is too fragile and too short to always be waiting for after.
The world is a big and wonderful place with people and places and things worth meeting and exploring and seeing. It’s for exactly this reason (not to mention your health and happiness) that I encourage you to take the time to step away from work, spend time with friends and family and see the beautiful planet we live on. And I specifically say “take” the time, because in America, that time will not be handed to you.
