Argumentative Essay: What Is The American Dream?

What is the American dream? There is no exact answer as to what the American dream really is. The best way to really put is the main goals and ambitions American citizens have for their lives. The issue with it though is that, sometimes individuals can’t reach their dreams. As stated in the Atlantic “We have more social problems than other countries, and that’s a worse problem than inequality.” (O’Brien 1). Religious discrimination is still a major problem that plagues this country today.
America faces many social issues today these can be equality or religious beliefs. Religious beliefs can quickly divide any group of people with different backgrounds. It could be for multiple reasons that religious backgrounds and beliefs could inhibit someone from achieving their goals. Employers have the possibility to discriminate against people that just have different ideas (Schumer 1). It doesn’t matter what religion someone is almost always there will be someone to treat them poorly because of it.
In this day and age the most common one to be treated poorly is muslims. People of this faith are often sought out due to a handful of radicals who warp the religion to their benefit. The only thing to blame is ignorance and lack of understanding. Treating a whole group poorly just because a minute portion of it consists of terrible that mean to do harm is wrong. The way to fix this is to build bridges with Muslims and remove the issue, not treat all of them badly. This is just a one segment of problems Americans face now. Bad decisions and mistakes can greatly impact someone’s potential for meeting their dreams.
These mistakes can be, drugs and alcohol, poor decision making and worrying too much. Drugs and alcohol have great possibility to ruin someone’s life almost beyond repair. Some people think that by doing drugs they can escape the problems on hand. When this happens it digs a deeper grave for them and instead of getting help from the start they don’t. When a majority of American said that there is no American dream it could be because “23.5 million people 12 or older needed treatment for illicit drugs…” (National Institute on Drug Abuse, 1). The reason this means so much is because that those 23.5 million Americans made a poor choice and now have more problems to life. It’s when young citizens try drinking or doing drugs to deal with problems and mostly just to fit in. When young people do drugs it greatly increases the chances of them having an addiction later on in life (The
Pathway). Someone’s work ethic is the contributing factor to the success of their dreams. There can be a person that expects everything to come easily and another that does not. While both of these people want to achieve their hopes and dreams only one type will. This is a problem that can be easily avoided, by teaching people that hard work pays off. As Scott Young said “When you feel like quitting do an extra 20% of work.” (Reliable Work Ethic 1). If everyone used that tip, there would be no problem with work. But sadly not everyone does go by that and either doesn’t try our just give up too easily. The American dream is not dead, but asleep. This is because of issues with the social system, poor decision making and a lack of work ethic. There is a way to solve this, given it is not easy but it has to be done. America was founded by change and will continue to through the need of the people.