At the end of the day

As a child in school, I was led to believe that the goal for everyone was to grow up and achieve the American dream. Get an education. Get a job. Find someone to marry. Buy the house. Have a family.

This was the plan.

I used to look at the neighbors outside their houses on my street. I'd watch the mothers hang their clothes on the line. See the fathers leave early for work and then come home in the evening and follow this routine all year long.

At social gatherings, while their children played in the yard, moms would talk about their PTAs or what was on sale at the grocery store and dads chatted about work, sports and what they would do on their two-week vacations.

They were living the American dream. Yet behind pretentious images of happiness and success, too many were living an American nightmare.

Back in school, the teachers never told me that the dream should include a plan to survive alcoholic parents, unemployment and long-term illnesses. They didn't tell me that I would still yearn for somebody to be my father after mine, sickly when I was 11, would die while I was just beginning college.

I don't remember anyone counseling me on how to cope after a straight-A student and a good high school friend put a gun to his head while he was strung out on drugs and pulled the trigger because his girlfriend had dumped him.

No one explained to me why the next door neighbor who bragged about his wonderful family would beat his sons and his wife. On hot summer nights, their screams and cries filtered through the screens of my bedroom windows, keeping me awake until I could hear the chirping of songbirds awakening at sunrise.

I write these experiences not to seek compassion or pity, but some logical understanding as to why everything can start out so right and yet go so wrong.

Not much has changed today. People are still chasing the dream while living the nightmare. Just look on Facebook and you'll see the smiles of the happily educated, the successful career-minded, and the enlightened moms and dads who bring their newborns home from the hospitals and wonder what they're supposed to do next.

But when the computers shut down and the screens go black, the same disillusionment and despair that I lived through in my time looms in the dark, just waiting to tear apart many of the these false Facebookers, and leave them in a struggle to survive.

There's always a good story behind the bad story. No need for the silent minority, those who have genuine peace of mind, to post their selfies for all to see, or to shout out to the world - look at ME! Write your name on my long list of wannabes!

Self-ordained podcasters preach the secret to happiness is to please yourself. Throw away the garbage in your life. Leave everyone else behind. Escape the old you. Become the new "you" who you deserve to be.

I sit and wonder. In my perfect world, I would bring all the people who are at an honest and humble peace with themselves, stand them together in a big room and ask them how they found their contentment in this world of madness.

One might say, "I had a great mother and father who showed me how the love of family can overcome whatever problems happen in life."

"I found God. He brings me my peace when I pray," another would reply.

"I came from struggle and dysfunction," said a third. "I've worked hard to appreciate who I am, but not in a selfish way. I believe in the power of forgiveness and that inner strength comes from loving and being loved."

Their answers fly out, one after another. "You have to be prepared to adjust your plan of life. Learn from your mistakes. Don't do it all alone. Keep those who give you honest love with you and stop trying to have the perfect life. No one gets it."

Songwriter Bob Marley wrote, "Love the life you live and live the life you love."

At the end of the day, his words define an American Dream that can deliver us true peace of mind.

Rich Strack can be reached at katehep11@gmail.com.