A majority of Americans don’t feel that they’re successful and many feel that their ideal of success is all but out of reach. This is an odd condition for Americans to have especially those born and raised in this land of opportunity.

It’s my personal view that if you were born in the U.S. and cannot succeed there’s a good chance that the fault rests entirely on you. But this doesn’t mean it is hopeless, you just need to understand where the failure lays.

You need to ask yourself the two questions.
1. What is the definition of success as it applies to you personally?
2. Are you a lazy American or are you a stupid American?

Measuring Success

The measure of success is a very personal thing. Some people could be happy with a mid-size sedan and a happy home life whereas someone else may desire a Maserati and a 10-acre estate in order to feel accomplished. You need find out what is really important to you and separate your wants from your needs. And to do this you must focus on your life and not the lives of others. It is the projection of others ideals of success onto your own life that is the cause for many peoples disillusionment.

America is to a great degree an envy-based society. We love watching those who have more than we do with assumption that they themselves are fulfilled. This pre-occupation can make it very hard to see your own successes and understand what makes you personally happy when you are comparing your life with that of celebrities and the social elite.

Opportunity

But even if your goals are as lofty as those of the Rich and Famous, the beauty of living in the United States is that everyone has the same opportunity to succeed as everyone else. Even the poorest of U.S. citizens live better and have more opportunity and resources than many people in other countries.

This point of view comes from experience; I spent 5 years of my childhood living on the street. In all that time I never missed a day of school, I was never dirty, and though I did go hungry on occasion I never starved.

The resources, however limited, are there for those willing to put forth the effort to use them. Americans however are lazy and expect things to be handed to them. It’s easier to stay poor and complain that the system isn’t providing enough than it is to build on what you have and work towards something better.

Discipline

Success also requires one factor that Americans have all but lost, and that is discipline. It’s how I was able to get up every morning and bath in public park bathrooms, make it through Jr. High and eventually work my way off the streets. Most American’s however don’t have enough discipline stay on a diet let alone pursue any long-term life goals. This is because from an early age there are no consequences to being lazy and the values of hard work are not enforced. More often than not those few that do reach for success only make it to the part where they realize that its actually more work than their 9 to 5.

Getting Dumber

I went to grade school in a small rural town where wrong answers where punished and correct answers were simply expected, not praised as an achievement. By the time I made it to High School in the big city teachers were throwing candy out at even attempts to answer questions and failing grades weren’t given for fear of hurting the child’s self esteem.

The American Public School system, instead of cracking down and becoming more aggressive in education, seeks out ways to dumb it down even more, and in always trying to accommodate the lowest common denominator we’ve crippled our future. U.S. public schools crank out children dumber than those of some third world nations. Not to mention the feather touch approach do not instill any work ethic or the ability to handle criticism or failure.

Foreign Influences

So who is succeeding in America?

The same people who built this country in the first place, Immigrants. They come to the U.S. from other countries with little or no money and often with only a basic understanding of the English language and in a matter of years are living the “American Dream”. They can do this because they’re often coming from a place where resources such as education and even minimal government support are non-existent. They see the things we take for granted as great opportunities and they understand that it takes actual hard work and dedication to achieve anything.

Very often we look down on these people and even go to the point of blaming them for our inability to achieve, claiming they’re taking out jobs or bringing standards down. Instead of ridiculing these people we should be looking to them for inspiration.

The Moral

Ultimately you’re in charge of your own success or failure and no matter what your personal definition is, success is 90% shear force of will. Those who succeed are those that actually want it not just say they do.

The only people who fail are those do not find themselves better of today than they were yesterday, and not working to improve tomorrow.
–Quote by Arthur Knight