The Standard of Living free essay sample

The world is an ever changing environment both physically and socially, our focus on living off district homelands has turned to living for the consumerist products we possess. People accumulate debt, from purchasing things with money they don’t acquire. Society has created unjust expectations of what our lives should portray and reflect, with ideals such as the American Dream. Mass social outlets create public endeavors; almost anything in relation to people has become a form of advertisement today. In circumstances such as the short story â€Å"The Standard of Living†, our consumerist ways are depicted through society’s imprint of what our values, dreams and aspirations should encompass. The Standard of living is the degree of wealth and material comfort available to a person or community. The title of this story references how all people at different walks of life, have different values and expectations due to how they were raised. We will write a custom essay sample on The Standard of Living or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page Standard of living is more than money and material, it’s how you allow yourself to treat others and receive treatment as well. A person’s standard of living is depicted by how an individual developed emotionally, physically and geographically. â€Å"Always the girls went to walk on Fifth Avenue on their free afternoons, for it was the ideal ground for their favorite game. † This quote refers to how the girls were raised with ideals of being wealthy and well taken care of, they chose to spend time in an expensive area even though there wages did not permit them to purchase any of the items they decided to gawk at. This is a massive indicator of how youth began to change their standards of living and dreams grew to a higher status. Our dreams push us to strive, believe and pray for so much more than our parents ever imagined for us. Our dreams are our motivators, the reason to keep going when times become unbearable. Within the short story, the main characters played a mental game where they would make up various dream-like scenarios, such as winning money and the goal is to imagine how you’re going to spend it. And so this person dies, just like going to sleep, and leaves you ten million dollars. Now, what would be the first thing you’d do? † The objective of the game is to spend every dime without using any of it on anyone other than one’s self. Although, it is a very selfish and vulgar game; these girls don’t have much else to look forward to other than an imaginary life which will most likely never materialize into reality. Every individual regardless of who you are and how you were raised has deeper aspirations than what has always been placed in front of them. The amount of perseverance and ambition of every person consists of the unique characteristics of what their personal journey is aimed towards and what they are willing to sacrifice to achieve that goal. Regardless, if they work at a grocery store and dream of driving a Mercedes, they may live there life fixated by high-end vehicles or they may live it in procrastination. The difference between the individual dreaming of the car and the one driving the vehicle of their dreams is ambition to achieve aspirations. â€Å"Two hundred and fifty thousand dollars! That’s a quarter of a million dollars right there! † This quote exemplifies how these girls are idealistic of a higher stand of living, but aren’t even aware of how much money they would require to live the life they are mentally consumed with. This indicates how materialism and consumerism, has conflicted with realism and verisimilitude.