AMS 100 I am living in an age when dramatic changes have already occurred ever since society has ever started. I may not have witnessed these changes from the ancient times until that of last three decades of events, I know for a fact that those occurrences in the past will always have its impact in the manner that I live today. History has taught me many great discoveries about the past that will always have to affect me personally as well. As an individual living in the twenty-first century, the American economic definition of “dream” has greatly affected me in the ways that I consider wealth as an ideal lifestyle of a person living in America. This is evidently still applies until today especially that I strive hard only to achieve this so-called “American dream”. I was born in middle class, Chinese parents, who worked two jobs to feed three children, pay the house, fuel the car, and spend some leisure. I have witnessed how my parents struggled hard in order to maintain their lifestyle and status in the society. I remember how my father once celebrated his promotion that we had the chance to spend the summer in Disneyland. However, I have also witnessed how my mother fought with my father in 2009 because they were in the middle of bankruptcy. As I went to get a college education, I remember how my mother told me to strive hard so I will not experience the same thing. At first, I thought that I can do that and that I can do better than they did. Perhaps they were just wrong in choosing their jobs, or that they had just too many children to feed, clothe, and send to school. It has become clear to my mind that I would chose a profession that would never let me loose the job and that when I get married, I would only have one child. As I distanced myself in order to look at the bigger perspective, I think I now understand what influenced me in my thinking as well as that of my parents. In the general sense, my parents, my parents’ parents, and I have always been influenced to the kind of perception developed through the American economic superiority. Even though our Chinese traditions may remain strong, the American perspective of economic wealth still lingers. As I recall when my parents finally decided to file for bankruptcy back in 2009, I cannot help but also consider how this has been an impact to the definition of the American dream in the “materialistic” kind of way. I think that when my parents and most of the households around the world at that time had deeply experienced the downturn of the economy, they were also re-considering how they should define wealth. In some ways, they have never thought that it could never happen to them. However, I feel that they have less considered how even in the past, Americans have as well experienced how it is to suffer economically. Such suffering, however, led them towards the consideration that it should never happen again and so they defined further how wealth should be achieved through social mobilization and growth. In the larger context, history has taught us that we should be able to realize wealth by having properties and other material things. In one way or another, this has affected my thinking as well to strive hard in order to achieve the kind of ideal lifestyle one should have.