“If you want to live high, live high; and if you want to live low, live low; cause there’s a million ways to go, you know that there are.”

–  Cat Stevens

In a sense I feel blessed to have parents who have always proponed the ideal, “pursue your dreams.”  In my mother’s terms, “Even if it’s shoveling manure, if it makes you happy, go for it.”  Recently, my sister took this advice to heart and has been working at a horse stable nearby her college, literally “shoveling manure” to help support the independent purchase of her childhood sweetheart, Rocky, a cocky quarter horse.  She lately brought up to my mother, “Hey, remember when you said that thing about shoveling…”

The country we live in is still flooded with hearts following “The American Dream,” but what exactly does that term mean?  Does it mean a hearty family with a shuttered house and a white picket fence?  A stable job?  Wealth?  The security of freedom?  When the nation was new, as the Constitution was being written, and arguably far before that, it would seem that Freedom was the dream that colored everyone’s mind.  And when immigrants flooded over the sides of boats onto the shores of America, maybe their dream was just a simple, stable job of any sort.  And maybe in the first half of the past century, as wave after wave of soldiers set off to fight on foreign soil, perhaps the American dream then was just for a family in a house with a white picket fence.  And now, in an age where people hoping to secure their American Dream get slighted by those perpetuating their own, like our trusted stockbroker or notable company executives, maybe the American Dream is just a race for wealth.

The real question is: why has the American Dream ever been anything other than a quest for happiness?  It may have started that way, but in the process, it seems other people’s quests tainted the general vision and gave the impression that the path to this vision is narrow and singular.  The truth remains that wealth may buy you the ability to sleep comfortably and eat heartily but there may be no price at all on the things that bring you smiles.  A stable job of doing work you cannot stand for your whole life will not make you feel fulfilled.  A white house with a picket fence could still contain a family with a broken heart.  And if freedom cannot secure any happiness, what purpose is it serving?  So forget ideals and expectations; if your American Dream is to shovel manure, then be like my sister; do not over-focus on tradition or cave into friends, family or societies pressures.  Follow my mother’s advice: If it makes you happy, go for it.

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

– The Declaration of Independence