The American dream: Purpose as a path to fulfillment
The American dream, a phrase coined in the 1930s by historian James Truslow Adams, highlights America’s reputation as the land of opportunity. For Adams, the American dream is “a dream of a social order in which each man and each woman shall be able to attain to the fullest stature of which they are innately capable, and be recognized by others for what they are, regardless of the fortuitous circumstances of birth or position.” Such self-realization requires opportunity, certainly. But opportunity isn’t enough.
Americans have historically realized their full potential, not in times of abundance, but in times of challenge. Our nation was born out of a challenge to its liberties. The document that gave it birth, the Declaration of Independence, served as a formal acceptance of that challenge. Those who rose to the occasion, whether they be prominent statesmen whose monuments adorn the nation’s capital or anonymous patriots who shouldered their muskets to defend hearth and home, secured their places in the annals of America by embracing this worthiest of challenges.
Whether saving the Union and ending slavery during the Civil War, settling the West, shattering Nazism, sending a man to the moon, dismantling the Soviet Union, or recovering after the 9/11 attacks, it is the challenges that Americans have overcome that exemplify the American dream.
It is evident in 21st century America that opportunity is not synonymous with the American dream. There is nothing but opportunity, and yet suicide and depression are rampant. Even the rich and famous routinely overdose or end their lives at the height of their success. They’ve taken advantage of plenty of opportunities, but that hasn’t been enough to secure the American dream.
While I am neither rich nor famous, I have taken advantage of the boundless opportunities our nation has to offer. And yet, as a recovering alcoholic, I know that opportunity is not sufficient to “attain to the fullest stature of which” I am “innately capable.” My sobriety is dependent, not on the plethora of opportunities before me, but on a clear sense of duty within me, one that embraces rather than resents the challenge of sobriety.
Let me explain.
Duty is simply moral purpose. Our sense of duty is that which compels us to do good and embrace our moral obligations. Those obligations arise from the nature of who and what we are: parents, spouses, citizens, and, at the bottom of it all, humans. As a parent, I have an obligation to provide for my family; as a spouse, to love my wife faithfully; as a citizen, to defend my country; and as a human being, to pursue and do what is objectively good to the best of my ability.
Duty isn’t in conflict with freedom and meaning, as we often assume. Duty is the only sure path to those. The self-indulgence so inextricably linked with depression and meaninglessness promises freedom, but its promises are empty. However, cultivating a sense of duty guides us in realizing our full potential It is in embracing, rather than stifling, that sense of duty that we unlock the American dfor ourselves.
William Paley, one of the most influential moral philosophers in late-18th and early-19th century America, observed, “No man’s spirits were ever hurt by doing his duty; on the contrary, one good action, one temptation resisted and overcome, one sacrifice of desire or interest, purely for conscience’ sake, will prove a cordial for weak and low spirits, far beyond what either indulgence or diversion or company can do for them.”
I experienced this dynamic vividly in my journey to sobriety. An emaciated sense of duty drove me to find freedom and meaning in intoxication. As long as I was enslaved to the bottle, I could never live up to my full potential. Without duty, I lacked a worthy purpose, and without a worthy purpose, I lacked the backbone to bear up under such a challenge. The American dream is unachievable in such a condition.
It was understanding my sense of duty as the compass that pointed me toward everything worth living for that gave me the incentive I needed to take sobriety seriously. It arose from the conviction that I was created to offer something unique and valuable to those around me, and it was the only way I could become the husband, father, soldier, and citizen I wanted to be. It was a challenge worth undertaking because so much depended on it.
This sense of duty forms the nucleus of what citizenship means. The citizen is compelled by, as George Washington put it, “the consideration that human happiness and moral duty are inseparably connected.” Washington’s fellow statesman, John Witherspoon, clarified that moral duty is not a call to ‘change the world,’ for to do so “is putting ourselves in God’s place, and actually superseding the necessity and use of the particular principles of duty which he hath impressed upon the conscience.” We are not meant to be gods, but good men and women.
Twenty-first century America’s foremost challenge is the recovery of that sense of duty. We must relearn to ask not what our country can do for us but what we can do for our country, as well as for our families and communities. To answer that question is simultaneously to determine the best thing we can do for ourselves because by discharging those other duties we detox and energize our souls. To do our duty to the best of our ability is to make the most of everything our great nation has to offer and to prove worthy of the challenge of the American dream.
Andrew Bibb is a military strategist. The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the U.S. government.
