What is the American Dream?

What it has been in the past and will probably be successful. There is a varying degree of success in America. One example, a recent immigrant passed through the immigration process and setting up shop in a major city. He has made it to the United States safe and sound no matter the reason why he decided to emigrate from his country of origin. People want to come to the United States because they see themselves doing better in the states, rather than at their country of origin. Hope is idealism, it is not real. And to quote myself from our last lecture, it is idealism versus realism. The reality is that we sometimes fail, bad things happen, sicknesses and deaths occur in the family, a family loses their home due to their financial situation. It's hard, but we can succeed. As part of the American Dream, we can pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, try again, and try a different approach to succeed.
Hollywood has helped shape the American Dream. Due to them, we strive to become rich and famous and buy expensive stuff that makes us feel important. Well we can buy expensive stuff, we then have to wait for the bill to come in the mail, and then we wonder why they have to move out of their house when they had no way of purchasing the house in the first place. Again going back to Monday's lecture, we need to be smarter in the purchases we make. Will the things we buy last longer than the stuff that is more expensive. That is not the American Dream, spending out of our means. The parents will spend the rest of their lives paying back the credit card companies and will not retire till they are extremely old. Their children will continue to pay back their debt. The American Dream is about success and success varies to the individual.