It's our sense of mission and purpose in the world. It's something that nobody else has.
Whether that's true now is debatable in my opinion. I think the American dream has been perverted into a lust for enhanced mediocrity. People where I live seem to want to get a job with good benefits, a decent house, and a nice TV, so they can just get through their lives by watching sports and reality shows. Everyone wants to be the best middle-class, Prozac-popping average Joe they can be.
You know, there is nothing wrong with leading a quiet life and enjoying the little things. Waking up next to your wife every morning, having breakfast together, packing the kids off to school, having an honest job that pays the rent and doesn't induce tortured battles in the darkest chambers of your soul every day. You are the embodiment of mission and purpose parent was talking about, but make no mistake, that does not mean mission and purpose is in any way more honorable than peace and quiet. Live and let live.
I suppose my post was more inflammatory than necessary. I don't really have any problem with people who know what makes them happy and manage to achieve it. What I don't like to see in the community around me is people who have no desire to see the "big picture" or how they fit into it, trusting their senator/boss/etc. to do that for them. People seem to me to be lacking a concept that they are part of a bigger system, except when the media reminds them of the fact.
True of most people, but this tends to be true of most people in every circumstances.
What seems to be different about America is that we provide the opportunities and to a degree the encouragement for those who do not want to be like that to succeed, or at least make valiant efforts and often make some progress in those efforts.
Whether that's true now is debatable in my opinion. I think the American dream has been perverted into a lust for enhanced mediocrity. People where I live seem to want to get a job with good benefits, a decent house, and a nice TV, so they can just get through their lives by watching sports and reality shows. Everyone wants to be the best middle-class, Prozac-popping average Joe they can be.