Convincing amounts of the American public are intrigued by the idea of wealth and want to know how they can become wealthiest themselves. This idea is demonstrated by the popularity of magazines such as Forbes or Time, as well as the emergence of the thought of college being an investment to help one achieve more wealth later in life. Americans who are intrigued by wealth are often more extrinsically, result, motivated than their intrinsically motivated peers who do something because they either enjoy the activity or get satisfaction from completing the process. People being extrinsically motivated leads to them holding end results in such high regard that they often end up becoming victims of conspicuous consumption. Magazines, and the idea …show more content…
Many of the names of the people on Time’s list are “either new or only vaguely familiar” to the American public because many of the people on the list are either newly rich business owners or influential people in the exclusive part of the private sector of which much of the American public is left out (Wright "The Time 100: Who the Hell Are These People?"). Robert Wright, a writer for The Atlantic, said that Time’s “100 Most Influential People” should be called “40 of the world's most influential people plus 60 people who would give a great TED talk” because many of the people are not necessarily influential in that their decisions effect a large amount of people but they are influential because of their wealth (Wright "The Time 100: Who the Hell Are These People?"). The fact that rich business owners are listed with top politicians, whose decisions effect millions of lives, demonstrates how wealth and power in the business world can make one just as influential as one with very high political standing. Therefore, people feel that in order for them to achieve a level of power within a particular society that they need to achieve at least some level of …show more content…
This type of motivation is called extrinsic motivation in which one is motivated by end results, or an outside force, versus intrinsic motivation in which one does an activity for the enjoyment of doing it. While publications such as Forbes Magazine and Time Magazine are examples of forms of extrinsic motivation for people, another example is the way that people are beginning to view college as more of an investment, which is fair due to its raising costs, than a way of gaining higher education. Companies such as Payscale, a company that provides users with salary and compensation information, have become increasingly popular with the furthering view of college as an investment. Payscale lists colleges by average salary during different parts of one’s career, anywhere from starting salary to mid-career salary ("Colleges By Salary Potential"). Along the same topic, Ken Auletta, a writer for The New Yorker, wrote an article called “Get Rich U” that discusses how Stanford University has extremely close ties to the Silicon Valley which makes them one of the top universities solely because of the financial and business opportunities that the school provides to its students (Auletta "Get Rich U. - The New Yorker"). Whether it is a magazine or the idea that college is
Money constitutes the American Dream, because in America, to be successful in life means being wealthy. We live in an industrialized nation, in which money controls our very own existence. The Lesson by Toni Cade Bambara establishes an argument about society’s injustice that entails financial opportunities by revealing the differences in living conditions between upper class and lower class. Another important point Stephen Cruz, a successful business person and a Professor at the University of Wisconsin at Platteville, makes in his speech is that the American Dream is getting progressively ambiguous, because the vision of success is being controlled by power and fear which only benefit 1 percent of Americans. For most people, the American Dream is to be financially stable to the point of content; however, realistically the accomplishment of the American Dream is often obstructed by society’s limitations and influences from higher power.
The United Sates has had a short yet complex history in its two hundred and twenty-four years.
So many people have made an impact on society and myself today. It is hard to decide who's influences have been the greatest and who has had the most impact all together. In selecting these unique people, I had to look at my own morals and values and ask myself what I encounter day by day. My everyday life basically consists of money, music, technology, and people, which has lead me to research individuals who made an impact on these aspects.
...at the American culture places economic success at the pinnacle of social desirability, without listing legitimate ways for attaining the desired goal (Merton 672-682). Today, the American Dream no longer reflects the dream Adams had, but instead, the idea that one can only call themselves truly successful if they have become rich, regardless of the way they got there. The American Dream does not guarantee happiness, but rather the pursuit of it, but with the media strongly persuading people that money guarantees happiness, people are encouraged to do whatever it takes, even it means disregarding their morals, so that they achieve ‘success.’ The inability to achieve this goal often leads people to destructive, and ultimately life-threatening criminal behavior as their feelings of anxiety and frustration over this vision of the “American Dream” get the best of them.
The argument about whether college is worth it or not has been one of the biggest arguments throughout the media for decades. Students suffer a lot from the debts that they get from college and also the amount of studying that they do in college and when they graduate they ask themselves “is graduation from college really worth all the money that we paid and all the work that we have done?”. Leonhardt and Matthews are two journalists who talk about whether college is really worth it or not, and they both have different perspectives. David Leonhardt thinks that college is absolutely worth all the money you pay and the work you do, stating that “Americans with fouryear college degrees made 98 percent more an hour on average in 2013 than people without a degree.
Bird, Caroline. "College is a Waste of Time and Money." The Norton Reader: An Anthology of Expository Prose. 9th ed. Ed. Linda H. Peterson et. al. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1996. 481-490.
Despite this, there continue to be incidents where middle class people are devastated when unable to achieve the so-called American Dream. Of course, the social expectations of a society are generally set by the previous generation and cause the newer generation to feel guilt when they cannot meet them. In order to avoid this feeling of guilt and insufficiency, people are willing to give up their unique hopes and goals; thus creating a people that are cohesively identical. Students in today’s universities are amazingly bright and creative, yet change their majors to those society has placed honor on, such as medicine, law, and engineering. The amount of innovation and invention
Living in one of the wealthiest countries in the world, our culture has naturally valued prestige and luxuries. We admire fancy items and often judge other individuals by the clothes they wear, the car they drive, and the schools that they attend. The “American Dream” serves as a motivational factor for people; believing that hard work and dedication can bring “success” to ones’ life. Although this is partially true, it is difficult for individuals in the middle class and lower class.
Although a college education grows more and more expensive every year. People begin to question whether college is a good idea to invest in or not. “As college costs continue to rise, students and their families are looking more carefully at what they are getting for their money. Increasingly, they are finding that the college experience falls short of their expectations”(Cooper. H Mary). Many people believe that the cost of a college degree has outstripped the value of a degree.Studies show that a college degree will increase your earning power. A lot of people say that a college degree now is worth what a high school diploma was wor...
Brooks, Arthur C. “My Valuable, Cheap College Degree.” The New York Times. The New York
Moreover, this concept of free will and becoming financially self-reliant is still prevalent in modern society. The mid-twentieth (20th) to the early twenty-first (21st) century has become the age of entrepreneurship, where peoples from all nations no longer desire to work “for the man” but create their own legacy of prosperity. Likewise, it is a period in time that has redefined the way in which those from all walks of life can obtain success and wealth. Hence, the evolution of reality TV stars, YouTube sensations and rappers from being ordinary individuals to becoming fashion designers, actors and CEOs. However, our definition of success is not only defined by wealth it also includes having a life of meaning that is similar to that of Dr. Martin Luther king Jr. and Malcolm X. Certainly, I am speaking of a life that encompasses the ability to change our world for the better.
Thomas J. Stanley, Ph.D. and William D. Danko, Ph.D. wrote The Millionaire Next Door, which is a highly informative book about what it takes to become wealthy. Some of the information I knew, such as the obvious fact that you need money to be a millionaire, but some information, such as millionaires not owning big luxury items, surprised me. People become wealthy by saving money, not by living in a huge house or driving an expensive car. Most households generate a lot of money, but, because people love buying things, they live from paycheck to paycheck. Stanley and Danko say, “Building wealth requires discipline, sacrifice, and hard work” (5). There are not too many millionaires because people are not willing to change their lifestyles to accumulate
In the book “Think and Grow Rich,” the author, Napoleon Hill, provides a set of principles that he calls the key to financial success. The idea at the center of these principles is that one becomes what he or she frequently thinks about, in this case success (i.e. rich). Hill lays out a method he created to translate one’s thoughts into reality, creating an insatiable hunger and drive within an individual to succeed. Using the examples of his son and some of America’s legendary iconic business leaders, of which Hill studied and interviewed, including Edwin C. Barnes, he demonstrates that anything one puts his or her mind to can be produced and conceived.
To begin with college used to be known as a sacred place where knowledge was sought out and pursued. Now it has become the norm. Therefore one may think, what’s wrong college becoming the norm? Isn’t that a good thing? However, what most people are blind being that the quality of education has changed dramatically. Author Caroline bird mentions in her narrative
Traditionally, Americans have sought to realize the American dream of success, fame and wealth through thrift and hard work. However, the skeptics are not. Industrialization of the 19th and 20th centuries began to erode the dream, replacing it with a philosophy of "get rich quick". A variety of seductive but elusive strategies have evolved, and today the three. leading ways to instant wealth are large-prize television game shows.