Chatting with my Uber driver on the hourlong drive to the Chicago airport, I thought I might pass the time and brighten the man’s day. Little did I know that I would leave that conversation with my hope revitalized in our nation’s core institutions and the American dream (and with a recommendation for the perfect Uzbek lunch of plov and samsa).
That oft-used phrase — the American dream — encompasses the idea that anyone can succeed in the United States through grit and hard work. Today, however, only about half of Americans (53%) say that dream is possible, according to Pew Research Center.
Yet, my driver offered a fresh perspective. When I asked him why he came to America, he talked about the importance of his faith and his family. He explained that when one works hard, that can mean enjoying time with one’s family and providing their children with an education.
It was apparent this man was far from six-figure success, but as we talked, I realized he was living his American dream. He was pursuing an electrician’s license and working six hours a day so he could be with his kids when they got back from school.
This individual also drove Uber for a few hours on the weekends when he wasn’t taking his family to the beach or to museums. All that allowed him to provide for his needs while joyfully sharing that earned success with his family.
Seeking to understand the roots of his American dream within inner-city America, I asked him if religion taught him the value and importance of family. He told me about driving trucks in Moscow and looking forward to visiting the masjid (mosque) with his family when he went home each week.
That weekly worship continued for them in America. The commitment and strength of his faith were his core priority and key to his successful family life and daily joy.
Too often we use the yardsticks of wealth, power and prestige to measure success. But those three measures all rely heavily on the unruly variable of luck. If we define the American dream as success reliant on luck, we have taken agency out of the pursuit such a dream.
My driver’s perspective prompted me to reconsider the appropriate definition of success in my own American dream.
Perhaps the quality of family life should replace wealth in my definition. After all, the social science is clear that family dynamics play a huge role in quality of life.
Perhaps authentic religious practice should replace power because, here again, the data confirm that faith and spirituality are significant contributors to happiness. This immigrant father recognized success and the fulfillment of the American dream in the freedom of religion and the blessing of family.
Harvard’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health “found that people who attended weekly religious services or practiced daily prayer or meditation in their youth reported greater life satisfaction and positivity in their 20s — and were less likely to subsequently have depressive symptoms.”
Additionally, religion and a healthy family life create hope as a driving force for resilience, stability and satisfaction, as researchers from Brigham Young University’s School of Family Life and Utah State University’s Institute for Disability Research have found.
“Rags to riches” tales of the late 19th century embodied the American dream of the Gilded Age. But perhaps that industrial-age notion has blurred an older and, in the long run, more resilient mode of human flourishing that puts family and faith at the center of human flourishing.
My American dream will still require hard work and determination in exchange for the reward of success. But I see more clearly that family is not a conciliatory or discounted form of success, but rather a legitimate, and perhaps higher measure of joy, quality of life and happiness.
Let our pursuit of happiness direct us in the accomplishment of the original American dream — the dream of family and faith. A dream that America would do well to never forget, if it intends to remain the land of the free and the hopeful.