The Romanian Dream

the green green grass

Is the American Dream a Biological Impossibility?

I came a cross an article on blog.wired.com which states no more or less that the American Dream is a biological impossibility?
What does it mean?
It means that biologically speaking we’re not fit for the dream. What is the dream? In the own words of Peter Whybrow, head of the Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Behavior at UCLA: “We’ve been taught, especially in America, that happiness will be at the end of some sort of material road, where we have lots and lots of things that we want”.
That wouldn’t be that bad, except the part where biology kicks in: “Our built-in dopamine-reward system makes instant gratification highly desirable, and the future difficult to balance with the present.”
So the problem is with what people perceive that would make them happy and the difficulty or perceiving the real consequences of getting something now instead of saving money and getting it later.
You can find the whole “disturbing” article here: http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2008/10/american-dream.html
The conclusion reached are pretty bleak but there is always hope and answers can be found if creative thinking takes place and there is a will to change.
Apart from that I think thatthe real American Dream(and as a matter of fact dream) is the pursuit of happiness. The real dream is achieving what makes you tick. But somewhere in the process we forget that and go for all the shinny things that we can have but we really don’t need.

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