William Zinsser wrote a paper titled “The Right to Fail.” Clearly, Zinsser’s paper is about failing, but not just for anyone, for Americans in general. Saying, “The right to fail is one of the few freedoms that this country [America] does not grant its citizens,” he states that failing can be a positive thing and that “dropping out is often a way of dropping in.” He went on to say, “This opinion, however, is little short of treason in America.” He was referring to how America defines success. “Dropping out,” or failing, have both been given an idiotic stigma of negativity. By American standards, failing is a no-no.Mr. Zinsser touches on the criteria we use to judge success. Indicating that by using things, such as the television, magazines, and star icons that people --Americans in specific-- define their status on what seems to be a pyramid of success. In general we equate the status of our success by our assets. Though he doesn't go much more in-depth on this thought, he does imply that this way of measuring ones worth is cruel when applied in a society, and I agree; the ways in which we define success and the path we are supposed to follow are cruel. To expect anyone to look a certain way, fit a certain life style and live up to a certain standard is wrong, and most definitely takes away one of our most important freedoms, the freedom to be an individual.
In order to be successful you have to reach the top. To be successful you have to get ahead. You have to be the best and you must not fail. In the end this will make us happy. We define our success by what we own, how we look, who we know, what we have done in our lives, and where we seem to be going. Even though success is not a physical thing, the level of our success --according to the American dream-- is defined by that which is physical. We are constantly placed on a scale where society weighs our merit by what we possess.
In order to live up to the American dream, and avoid the perception of failure, one must become somewhat of a braggart. Society compels us to do this because if we do not, then there must be something wrong with us. Perhaps we are hiding something, and if that's the case then it must be bad; after all we only hide the things that we fear others will see and what is to be feared more than failure? The American dream is the epitome of peer pressure.
Logic alone tells us that in order to reach the top, there must be a bottom, that in order to get ahead, someone must be behind, and in order to be the best everyone else must fail. To reach this idealistic goal we push, pull, and climb over others to get to where we want to be, all to squeeze into that American dream. We willingly stomp on others to achieve an impossible goal, a flawed dream.
At twenty-eight, society says I am not where I should be on the food chain of success. According to the American dream, at this point in my life, I should be in a relationship or married, finished college, and in a successful career. I should have my own home, and be starting my own 2.5 family with a dog and a cat. If I have all of this, I am successful and therefore happy. By this standard I am a failure; I am a single mom, divorced, in my first year in college, rent an upstairs apartment, have no pets, and even worse, no career. Looking at my life –and what others would deem failures—I find strength in the strife I have undergone, and rather than weak, I feel strong.
According to my mother, my daughter is not where a little girl of her age should be; she looks and acts too much the part of a tom-boy. She does not dress in frilly clothes, paint her nails, and does not become captivated by the more feminine toys on the market. My daughter is not interested in these things. This disturbs my mother, because she believes it is not healthy, and as a result I have been on the receiving end of endless nagging sessions. I constantly hear that I should encourage my daughter to be more feminine. Already at the age of six, according to the American dream, my daughter has failed before she has had an opportunity to even begin.
My daughter is one of those kids who is a bit rough around the edges, but with a good self esteem. Many times, I can recall having said, “She thinks she is all that and a bag a chips.” She is one of the millions of children who is in the second grade having started her first year in kindergarten two years. However, since she has started her self-esteem has dropped. Sadly enough, I blame most of this on my mother, and others like her. Like many in her generation, my mother, believes in the American dream. I can not recall a time my mother has not been a firm practitioner in the American dream. Often I have found myself the buffer between my mother’s ideals and my daughter.
I still remember when my daughter got her hair cut for kindergarten 2 years ago. It was a big event since it was her first time cutting her hair for school, it should have been a fun time, but what ever fun there was to have was ruined before it even had a chance to flurish. The first thing she, my daughter, said to me, when it was all over, was, “Now grandma will like me, because I look cute. She will think I am normal.” My daughter is not deformed, and there is no abnormality about her. She has never looked ugly; if anything she has often received high praise on her beauty, and spirit. Yet my mother, with her beliefs, has already bruised my daughter’s precious self-esteem, by preaching to my daughter the importance of being normal. Without knowing it, my mother has already begun to instill the ideals of the American dream in my child. A dream which tells my child that it is wrong to be unique, and unique is something my daughter is.
Though my mother is not the only thing to eat away at my daughter’s self-esteem, much of what does affect my daughter and many other children’s self-esteems are usually brought on by other kids who have learned certain traits from their parents or grandparents. It is from these sources that our children are constantly pushed to fit in, and not stand out, or be different. It makes sense, thought unhealthy and twisted, we learn from our parents and grandparents about this American dream long before we even are able to define our own paths, and dreams. In turn we shun those who don’t fit this dream that seems to have been laid for us by our parents and our parents’ parents long before we were even born.
Ironically, our history is laced with blood shed on the behalf of the underdog. We fight for freedom of race, gender, sexual preference. As Americans we claim to fight for the right to be individuals, and yet daily we poison our children and each other. It is not with drugs, or violence that we destroy each other. We don’t shed blood in our actions, no, instead, it is the spirit of individualism that is killed. Like slaves we beat into the mind of youth, as well as each other, the hype of the American dream. It is every where we turn. On the television, in magazines, and newspapers, it’s whispered by our parents and grandparents who want nothing more but for us as children to fit in. What many fail to realize is that when we do finally fit in and conform to the American dream we lose that right which we were born to. We lose the right to be an individual in favor of fitting in, and all for a dream that was sewn for us by those who went before us.
If this is not bad enough, to add to that frightening thought, we are not just required to have the same things; but we are required to get them in the same fashion. Like stepping stones we all are forced to climb. In general, we must all have finished high school, gone to college, got that perfect career with the perfect pay and hours, met that special someone, bought that perfect house with the white picket fence, have 2.5 children, some form of a family pet, and be happy, without having failed.
This means, No having a child before you own a home, no finding a career before you go to college. Hell, if you don’t go to college you are already a failure. And once you fail, there is no way to really make it to “the top,” At least, not in the American dream. And if you follow your own path, you are no longer a prospect to success, you are a drop out, the single mom, the flunky, the divorced one, the one who never went to college, and you are a failure.
Growing up, I was constantly hounded to fit into an almost cookie cutter shape my mother had designed for me. Demanding I look picture perfect, and failing at every turn, it was often I would hear praise laced with acidic comments, under the ruse of being constructive. If I choose not to wear make up, I would often hear a comment about how pretty I was, but how much prettier I could be if I just wore makeup. Criticism was constantly flung in my direction; almost daily I would hear what was wrong with me. It was always something: My clothes, makeup, posture, the way I walked, talked, who I made friends with. I was told how wonderful it would be if I could just fit in.
Through a dreamy haze I would hear stories of my plotted life which told me that I was suppose to grow up, get a job after high school, meeting that perfect man --in church--, get married, own a home, have children, and all in that order. I tried hard to fit into this dream but constantly failed. The inability to achieve this dream, forced me to realize that there was nothing I could do. I could not wedge into the idealistic path my mother had made for me, the path of the American dream. Not to mention the more I looked at this path, the more I realized it was not what I wanted. Eventually I learned, in order to be happy and successful, I had to carve my own path through my failures.
As I learn from my failures I grow, and I become more individual. Even though I disappoint my parents who do whisper to me about the obvious failings in my life, I am happier for being me than I would be in trying to fit into a mold I am not built for. Perhaps I will fail in my life, in my choices, but at least they will be mine, and at least my daughter will learn from me how to be strong, and how, or what to overcome when “failure” comes knocking on her door. She will not be afraid because as Zinsser says, “Failure isn’t fatal.”
It takes a lot of personal strength and belief in ones own self worth to derail from the American dream, but it can be done. As William Zinsser said, “History is strewn with eminent dropouts, ‘loners’ who followed their own trail, not worrying about its odd twists and turns because they had faith in their own sense of direction … they beat the system … because their system was better than the one that they beat.” In my life, I have met many who have carved from nothing a success of their own. Making their own routes and following their own dreams, they are often, more times than not, happier than those who have become sheep and gone with the flow of society.
There are many examples of such people alive today as well as in our history that have gone out the norm, thought outside of the box, and made a success of their life. In history we have those like Albert Einstein who was thought of as crazy by many. If you really want to know someone who thought outside of the box, Benjamin Franklin was well known for his inventions and radical ways. A popular billionaire known today who made himself something by going his own route is Bill Gates.
I can not understand how anyone would expect that one path, called the American dream, to be the end-all? Like fingerprints, humans are unique, each and every one of us. No one is alike in the levels of their needs and desires, not even twins. It is impossible to expect everyone to be happy by following just this one path. Yet like me, many Americans fall prey to the peer pressure of the American dream.
Perhaps then we should rethink what success is. Since we are all built differently, our upbringings are different. Since no one man or woman is alike then why doesn’t it seem plausible enough that our visions of what makes success would be different and unique from each other? We are supposed to be a free nation. If we really all cared about freedom we would embrace peoples’ choices of the paths they want to follow to their own success. If we could learn not to judge others by what they have, or don’t have and rather let each individual be one’s own judge, I truly believe we would be happier in the long run.
