THE AMERICAN DREAM

The white picket fence. The large suburban home. The luxury car. The big-screen TVs glowing in multiple rooms. The safe, reasonable nine-to-five. The corner office. The suit and tie. The white-collar pride. The blue-collar pride. The weekends off. The paid holidays. The occasional vacation. The fringe benefits.

IN EXCHANGE FOR

The daily grind. The nose to the grindstone. The rush-hour traffic. The punching the clock. The cubical farms. The spreadsheet eyestrain. The much-anticipated lunch break. The inbox overflow. The arbitrary goals. The late nights at the office. The empty platitudes. The office gossip. The “productivity.” The downsizing. The “doing more with less.” The mounds of bills. The second job. The credit-card spending. The debt. The second mortgage. The beer gut. The midlife crisis. The retirement at 65. The volatile stock market. The retirement at 67 or 72 or 75. The death before retirement. The unyielding tiredness. The emptiness. The depression. The unshakable discontent.

You can keep your American Dream.  Give us back our time, our freedom, and our lives.

– Joshua Fields Millburn and Ryan Nicodemus