'You won't achieve the American Dream by dreaming'

CBS News Online Article

Tobak, Steve, “You won’t achieve the American Dream by dreaming,” CBS Moneywatch, CBS News, 2011. <http://www.cbsnews.com/news/you-wont-achieve-the-american-dream-by-dreaming/> accessed 20 November 2014.

 

It can be argued that the objective of the American Dream is built from a ‘rag to riches’ story due to the notion of the national ethic as seen in Horatio Alger’s Ragged Dick. However, in accordance with the article from CBS Moneywatch, it simply states, ‘You won’t achieve the American Dream by dreaming’. A prime example in contemporary America from a social media perspective of a modern rise of success, is Mark Zuckerburg, founder and CEO of Facebook. The article in a way argues against the typical ideology of the American Dream, that high profile businessmen such as Zuckerburg do not have these high aspirations, they simply work hard, and achieve success through ‘passion’ and ‘strong work ethic’. This is parallel to the narrative of Ragged Dick in the sense that Dick’s success is built on the moral grounds of working hard in difficult circumstances and eventually his hard work enables him to live a better life, not a life of extreme wealth, but one that sees him off the streets.

The CBS article also states: ‘You get there by delivering the goods, getting the job done, and satisfying the needs of your customer, whoever that is.’ For Zuckerberg, this is evident by the successful enterprise of Facebook which was built after Zuckerberg’s interest for computers and programming which transformed into the biggest platform for social media which was simply built in his college dorm room. As the article confirms, ‘When Mark Zuckerburg was developing Facebook, he was building something he thought would be cool. He wasn’t thinking about running a big company and becoming a billionaire.’ This transforms the national ideology into one that is not a straightforward or stereotypical as it may seem. It appears that in fact the dream only takes place after the success of an individual, due to the idea that the dream is so grand and there is not a concrete set of rules to reach the end goal. Therefore the ones who simply work hard and accomplish their ‘dreams’, their success is not measured on a scale of wealth, of course it is a great reward, but it ultimately resides in the personal achievements of the individual.