“It is not you; it’s me.” We are all guilty of using such reasoning once, twice or more when we can not yield the same romantic feeling. In the contrary, we blame others for the shortcoming when it comes to matters such as finance, education, or health. Recently we can’t help but hear some homeowners justifying their delinquency by saying that “it is not my fault that they gave me a loan that I can’t pay.” Better yet, any student will use this to justify their failing, “I got a bad grade because my teacher is impossible to please and he hates me.” And the best one that we all have heard of is, “I am fat because McDonald made me.” Why many of Americans not afraid to take full responsibility when it comes to tender loving emotions, but point their fingers straight toward to others when it comes to subjects that they can strategically plan and require self fulfilling actions? Many people will completely settle for the back seats when owning up to their failure. Collectively we have become a nation of people displaying irresponsible acts, consuming with entitlements and validating instant-gratifications. We have no one but ourselves to attribute to the demise of our own failure. We shaped our downfall by having lack of self-accountability, being unfamiliar with self-assessment and alien to self-discipline. What is an American Dream? Most Americans will define it as to own a big luxury house with a spacious back yard and a sizeable pool. American Dream sums up to the derivative of material gains. There is nothing wrong with desiring quality lifestyles, but an imperative part is deleted from many American Dream buyers, which is self-accountability.

Over 2 million American homes are shattered due to foreclosures and totaling “81%” increase of such procedure from 2007 to 2008. (National Foreclosure Rate Rises 81 Percent in 2008. Ventura County Star, January 18, 2009.) From mass Medias to general consensus, the pointing fingers are aimed at the mortgage lenders, financial entities, insurance firms, and credit rating agencies, except the most important parties on the loan papers, the borrowers. Without their signatures, these dubious loans would not have led us to such financial destruction. Many argue that these sub-prime mortgages were written in ways that no ordinary borrower can comprehend. Yes, the American Greed has gotten the worst of Corporate America; thus, deploying unethical tactics to lure homebuyers into the bubble loans. The Lenders successfully trapped many Americans into such unimaginable situations by recognizing the core belief that most of us carry. The American Dream, which we are so passionately deemed as in our birth or immigration right to participate. However, these money-hungry giants miscalculated that many American Dreamers have already altered their social behaviors. Many loan borrowers possess minimal self-accountabilities and too much carefree spending attitudes. As a result, these careless purchasers were willing to burden themselves with hefty mortgage payments, but when the equations do not add up to their advantages, they proclaimed being foul played. They shouted that no one ever told them that when earnings do not cover mortgage payments, it equals to foreclosures. Therefore, not honoring their debt agreements is a validated action. According to writer, Scott Thill, there have been increasing incidents that homeowners destroy their foreclosing homes before they run away from their debts. (Can’t Pay Your Mortgage? Trash and Leave. Alter Net, February 1, 2008.) Such acts further exhibit many Americans have lost their sense of accountability. These American Dream chasers not only want to escape from financial obligations; they now want to trash their once prized possessions when they did not get to enjoy a piece of the American Pie. Former CEO of Bank of America, Kenneth Lewis has stated that “there’s been a change in social attitude toward defaults,” (Thill - 2009). We can even try to blame John Adam for introducing Capitalism to us, but at the end of the day, we are the culprits of our mistakes. It is one’s duty to understand what potential messes that one may get into before signage. It is also in our citizen’s right to walk away from a situation not feasible for oneself.

As Globalization has become the only way to aid corporations to stay in the game, citizens of the world are forced to compete fiercely over resources and profits. America has always been crowned as one of the most advanced countries due to our strength to recognize and capitalize on our potential talents. However, Michael Parenti (author of Democracy of the Few) cites that “United States is 49th in the world in literacy” (Parenti – 20) and American students scored second to last place when it comes to world “geographic knowledge.” (Paths to Global Knowledge. IIE Network, 2007.) These statistics have revealed that our future generation does not possess the same wisdom as their predecessors. Self-assessment may be the missing piece of puzzle in pursue of cognitive growth for our future leaders.

Max Roosevelt (writer of “Student Expectations Seen as Causing Grade Dispute”) discloses that many college students hold the “conviction that they’ve worked hard and deserve a higher mark.” Thus translated into what James Hogge (Associate Dean of the Peabody School of Education at Vanderbilt University) claims in the same article, “students often confuse the level of effort with the quality of work.” Such delusional concept is displayed among students from high school to college. Future generation comes to believe that their achievements should be reflected based on the amount of attempt they produced. Patrick Welsh, an English teacher at T. C. William High School in Virginia states that his high school students often expected to obtain B or above scoring even when their trying efforts were not necessarily equivalent to the testing results. With such foolish thoughts, how will these youngsters ever be able to participate in the global race? The fanciful ideology of tomorrow’s leaders has clearly confirmed that they possess no interest in their own welfare. Knowing how to self evaluate is the first step to achieving a goal. Without assessment, one can’t determine if one’s contributions would yield positive results. Some youngsters may state that there is nothing else to do when they give their best. The “I try therefore I deserve” entitlement will only put us further behind the world. Our up and rising citizens must be able to distinguish that the best efforts do not equal to the best results. When their best is not enough, they must learn to weight in and reevaluate their potential and get to the root of their weaknesses. Nobody should ever place their success in the hands of others. One has the exclusive duty to appraise one’s aims and ensure one’s effort applies and adhere above the average standards if one desires excellence outcome.

Due to readily availabilities of food, many Americans have developed conspicuous food consumptions. According to an article (Severely Obese Fastest-Growing U.S. Overweight Group) posted on the Reuters.com on 4/10/2007, “people who are 100 pounds (45 kg) or more overweight are the fastest-growing group of overweight people in the United States.” Self-Indulgence minus self-motivation; it equals to no shortages of borderline, morbidly and severely obese Americans. Instant gratification has become such a norm among us; self-discipline is no longer a common practice and ultimately its absences lead us to path of health destruction.

We once cherished food, but now, we treat it as object that can instantly satisfy our urges. America has the most amounts of obese people and more than 50% of Americans who are 20 or old are considered as “overweight.” (Worldometers – World Statistics Updated in Real Time. Worldometers.Info, 2009.) Lack of training in self-discipline has helped to transform us from fitness to the fattest nation of the world. Corporate greed has built us a fast food country and somewhere we all have heard of certain validated studies sponsored by some health concern organization have proven that burgers and fries are just as addictive as any illegal substance. Therefore, many ill-health and obese Americans continuing on stuffing their faces with arteries clogging food and rationalize their habits by saying that “this is the only kind of food that I see and I am hungry, so …..” Such juvenile justification shares similar impact as when someone has lung cancer and continuing on smoking. Deficiency in willpower may also inhibit child development. As one researcher discovers that those children who are incapable of dealing with “delay gratification” have more chances to be come obese as they grow older and suffer cognitive developmental issues.” (Kids Who Lack Self-Control More Prone to Obesity Later. Time, April 6, 2009.) We have done numerous researches and studies to understand why some people just can not stop eating, but never bother to ask these obese people to take part in controlling and policing their own temptations. It is a vanity issue to be few pounds above the society’s ideal weight; it is a completely pandemic for many Americans to be medically claimed as obese. We all have choices to select what kind of food should enter our stomachs. While giving up delicious chemically engineered food is almost impossible, but it does not mean that we can not exercise mind over matters from time to time, especially when dealing with those matters that can potentially cause death.

Capitalism and free market enterprise has contributed many failures that we are all facing each day. Yes, insatiable hunger of building wealth has caused many people lost their dreams. Yes, extreme competition has forced knowledge attainment to be measured by scoring systems. Yes, profit margin has pushed corporations to only supply low cost unhealthy food to the masses. We all share parts in brining in the breakdown of our society; therefore we can no longer only see others as the destructive sources to our personal and national losses. When it comes to matters that require self-execution, it should all about “ME, ME, ME” not “YOU, YOU, YOU.” We may not always be the one delivers us to the predicaments, but we certainly have the full liability of getting ourselves out of the dire undesirable circumstances. In short, accountability, assessment, and discipline are all derived from self-responsibility. Without these important traits, we will not be able to rise above our defeats and continuing on prosperities.