The American Dream or Nightmare Updated for 2014

http://www.nefe.org/press-room/news/american-dream.aspx

For years, my Hungarian students were hooked into the lifestyles of the rich and famous as they viewed Hollywood films and US TV shows. When I tried to bring them back to reality, they accused me of being the devil incarnate. They still believed they could go to American where hard work would produce tremendous success, which in turn would make all dreams come true.

One year, I went to Bulgaria to do training for a week for university students and faculty. I mentioned something about leaving their country when they graduated, but it was entirely nondescript. On young man raised his hand and said “What makes you think we would want to move to the United States?” That fascinated me since I had never mentioned any country or even a region as a destination. At the time, this notion seemed so dissimilar to my Hungarian students' views. Though that was years ago, so things have changed with them as well.

This article The top 5 reasons why you're broke from USA Today will be an eye-opener for all nationalities, including some Americans.

Speaking of dreams, I came across this blog Envisioning The American Dream. If you click on the main picture, it will uncover a number of advertisements that tried to lure us onto the path of righteousness where there were the lifestyles we really couldn't afford, but bought into regardless.

Last of all, I found this cartoon significantly on target.

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Score X Two

American popular culture (and maybe Freud too) claims that we always blame our mothers for everything. Who am I to argue this pop culture, so with that in mind, one of my mother's mantras was "We never get anything for nothing. We have to work hard for everything we have." It has taken me over thirty years to break from poverty consciousness to prosperity consciousness. It is a constant struggle and at times I find myself rejecting prosperity when it comes knocking. 


Point in case, just a couple of weeks ago, a reader planned to buy and send me a Kindle reader, knowing my lust for reading. It was only after adamantly refusing to use one when I discovered his intentions. He sent me the order from Amazon and a copy of the cancellation of the same order. I found his generosity overwhelming. Yet, if I had true prosperity consciousness, I would have graciously accepted the gift. Hence, my mother's mantra showing its colors. The message being "We cannot accept when good things happen to us. There must be a trick." How many more years do I have to get this right by continually being open to what the universe brings? I used to be a board member of the local Unity Church in CA. I need a Unity here to keep me pumped up mentally.


Alternatively, there were two offers that I did accept. Ron and I took our friend Anna to lunch at Gerloczy Cafe as a thank you for her translating for us. While there, I asked to speak to the marketing person, knowing they had one. The one that greeted us was new and not the woman I had known. Giving her a "Recommended by Frommer's 2010" sticker, I showed her the review in the book. She was so pleased, she invited Ron and I back for a dinner. We went this last Friday for a three course meal. We love this place, so this was a real treat. Since we covered close to 70 eateries for the last edition of the book, eating out is not high on our "To Do" list. Yet, we cannot turn down a gracious invite.


Prosperity appeared a second time this week. Our condo in FL has a garage, for which we pay a second association fee. We cannot give it up and our renters were not interested in renting it. Thursday, I received an e-mail from the property manager asking if they could rent it to store tools. Their contract with their current storage is up August 1st and our garage is within blocks of their office. YES! Rent it. That takes care of the garage association fees each month.

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Euro Poverty

If you read or will read the earlier post on stress, this is actually what preceded my thinking about how people react to stress. I read this new article in Realdeal.hu, a translation into English news portal. This was the title that caught my attention. 

Survey shows third of Hungarians face acute financial problems.

It is not only Hungarians that are having problems. Here are a couple of tidbits entice you to read the short, but interesting article at the site. "A third of Hungarian households struggle to pay their monthly overheads, according to a Eurobarometer survey released on Tuesday." The two ends of the spectrum are Greece on one side and The Netherlands on the others. "One in six Europeans finds it hard to pay the bills and three quarters said poverty had grown in their countries during the past year."

I just wonder how they would choose to have a stress-free life?

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Preparing for Travel

Every time we travel at this time of year, I get little nervous about the unknown, which should be part of the excitement. This year, Ron found the US government travel advisory updates where you can register where you are going and get up to the minute information. We registered for Kenya and Tanzania.

Image via Wikipedia

I should know by now that the US travel advisory is always full of doom and gloom, but it did give me pause to read that Americans are especially targeted in Nairobi. There was a long list of places to avoid, mostly upscale, so that leaves us out. However, they continued to state that crime is a major problem due to the poverty. After getting assaulted once and robbed the very next day, when we were in Santiago, Chile, I am more cautious than I had been in the past. 

This has me thinking that perhaps it is best that my new Pentax Kx camera has not arrived yet. At least if the old one is stolen, I have had five good years with it and will not feel the loss as much as if it were a new toy. For the most part, in Kenya, we will be with the safari group, but we do have time on our own at the end of the trip. Here is hoping for the best.

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