Author Ursula K. LeGuin once claimed, “Success is somebody else’s failure. Success is the American Dream we can keep dreaming because most people in most places, including the thirty million of ourselves, live wide awake in the terrible reality of poverty.” LeGuin essentially claims that in order for one to succeed, another must fail; however, success stems from one’s own failure.
LeGuin mentions the American Dream, which, for years, has been perceived by most as the hope of success and prosperity. Closely akin to this is the American Spirit. Since the early settlement of Jamestown, Virginia, we Americans have done nothing less than to keep our heads held high and do whatever it takes to achieve success. As concluded by Claudia O’Keefe in The Traveling Bra Salesman’s Lesson, “Only when we admit that the future awaits us can we embrace a more inclusive and thrilling successor…” O’Keefe reminds us how important it is to live for the future – not necessarily the moment. It is exactly this that the American Spirit adheres to, as remarked by President Barack Obama in his Independence Day address on July 4, 2009: “…It is what has always led us, as a people, not to wilt or cower at a difficult moment, but to face down any trial and rise to any challenge…” This has been exactly how we, as Americans, have conducted ourselves since the settling of Jamestown, Virginia in 1607. We make our mistakes, do our due diligence, and make success a reality. In this way, success stems from, and is one’s own failure – not another’s. In the film, The Day After Tomorrow, climatologist Jack Hall attempts to warn his country’s government of an impending super-storm, which will surely plunge the planet into a new ice age. Hall mentions to his colleague, “Mankind survived the last ice age. We’re certainly capable of surviving this one.” He ensures his colleague that, just as mankind had done