The American Dream is Not the Gospel

I love America, but sometimes I feel its ideals—passed down subconsciously through the media, advertisements, and education—are lying to us.

If I’m honest with you, I felt like the American Dream has somewhat seeped into my D.N.A. Every day, I fight the tendency to want to claw and battle my way to success, to step on others as I reach for the societal power that’ll give me the money to support my family. Every day, I hold my wife and push away the rest of the world, thinking I’m competing with them for jobs, attention, money, success, and power.

Sometimes, I think it’s just what I do that counts—not my character or faith. The American Dream taught me that.

Either the American Dream is lying to us, or at its core, it was never meant to become this. I believe in the latter.

The grand mistake of the American Dream is how we’ve mistaken it to mean prosperity, success, and comfortable living, when in reality it was meant to promote a freedom for the soul.

For years, we’ve been trained to look to the American Dream as a complete solution to the questions of life, when all it really does is make us look better.

We added a shiny house, a picket fence, two kids and a dog to the American Dream, when it was meant to provide a hope for freedom and opportunity—a space where people could thrive in every sense of the word.

And this is why over 60% of Millennials feel the American Dream is unattainable. Some of us actually believe that the ultimate hope for society is in these material possessions—many of which we can’t afford because of our debt (especially when USA Today places this obscene price tag on the American Dream).

But I haven’t given up hope yet.

The great thing about the American Dream is not found in its application (what we’ve turned it into), but found in its spreading of hope. For generations, we’ve gathered around the American Dream because we believed there should be an ideal for society. We love the American Dream and are not willing to let it go so easily because we believe there should be a hope for society.

While we’ve missed the mark in our practice of that hope, there’s still a chance to restructure that hope so it provides for better application, more meaning, and greater impact.

If the American Dream is actually going to give us the hope and fulfillment we expect it should give to Americans, we need to shape it with new values in mind—values that care for our soul and our place as humans in the world.

From what I’ve learned studying the impact of Jesus, here are the values I suggest provide a better, more fulfilling sense of hope for our coming generations.

1. Selfless, not Self-Centered

The current application of our American Dream says that if we work hard, we can achieve the life we want. The problem with this is, the emphasis is on the life we want, not the life others need. As a result, our society is stuck. Sure, we care for our neighbors, but how much are we really dedicated to promoting their cause, helping them further their lives instead of our owns? That’s a convicting question that I honestly can’t answer with anything positive.

The truth is, the American Dream has fed our individualistic culture, and this is why we can’t call our society a moral one. The more we promote actually helping our neighbors thrive over our cause, the more depth we’ll attain as a society. 

2. Humility, not Promotion

Today’s wrong application of the American Dream encourages upward mobility. Because of this, we have more people racing to the top and not helping those who’ve fallen behind.

As a society, we need the humility to step down from our seats of power and help those who can’t climb any higher. That’s how we can create a society of equal opportunity, one that Truslow (the person who coined “the American Dream”) hoped for.

3. Generosity, not Wealth

The American Dream—in its current application—rewards us with the hope of money and comfortable living, as if these material items are going to secure a better living for our coming generations. Yet, in promoting this, we’re creating a society of regret.

In our deathbeds, we’re not going to ask for our money and trophies to surround us. We’re going to ask for our loved ones. That’s the better legacy.

I’m not saying it’s bad to make money. I’m saying it’s bad to not help others with your money. We receive so we can give. If all we do is receive, all we’ll have in the end is what we have no use for.

4. Impact, not Impressing

The American Dream as it currently exists only makes us look better to others. We load ourselves with the newer gadgets, bigger houses, fancier cars, and a green lawn, but all these things only paralyze us in a massive comparison game. We get stuck in always looking around for how we can one-up others, rather than seeing how we can help them.

This is not what the American Dream envisioned. Truly, it is how we actually enter into people’s lives and make a difference that counts, not how much we impress them.

5. Character, not Production

The American Dream has turned us into working machines. All we do is work our lives away so we can make life “better” for our families. As a result, we have broken families and children who don’t see their parents because they’re working all the time.

What I love about the Gospel is that the path for life Jesus endorses is actually about finding what makes us human. Jesus understands that we need rest. Jesus understands that we need healthy relationships. Jesus understands what we need to be better humans.

To Jesus, it is our character that counts, not what we produce. By highlighting our character, we stay latched onto what makes us human rather than become working machines in a factory. And only by staying within our intended design do we make a difference.

The Gospel provides us with a framework of values that if we followed, would work better for our society and the world.

If by now you see that, I know what you’re probably thinking: who’s going to be the one to step up and make this a reality?

The great thing is, we don’t have to wait for a person of power to stand up and lead us into this wave of change. It begins with each of us practicing this in our daily lives, not powerful people giving an incredible speech.

You see, what we forget about Mother Teresa is that she wasn’t in a position of power before she changed the world. She simply showed up and did what no one else was doing.

Jesus shows us that all we need to do is embrace the path of the saint, not the powerful celebrity, if we want to actually make a difference. It begins with our character, first and foremost.

It’s not the job of a powerful leader to make a better hope for society. It’s our responsibility, our job to simply live these values in our daily lives.

That’s what the American Dream always envisioned. That’s the sort of hope I want for our nation.

---

 

If you liked this post, check out:

7 Ways We Have to Redefine Success for Selfless Living

7 Things We Unnecessarily Care Too Much About

The Paradox of Being Christian in a Success Driven World