What is the cost of a dream?
By: Caden Benedict
What is the cost of pursuing a dream?
Explanation-
Pursuing a dream is a lot more complicated than it seems. On the outside it seems so harmless when you're set on a goal determined to achieve a dream. What makes pursuing a dream complicated is how one effects others around them self. In Great Gatsby this is shown to hold true as Jay Gatsby fights so hard to win the love from Daisy Buchanan. The only thing that crossed Jay's mind was Daisy, he didn't care what happened to anyone else as long as he could be in the presence of Daisy. The ironic thing is that Gatsby pursued his dream so heavily that it ended up ruining his his chance to earn the love from Daisy Buchanan. Jay was so blindfolded from sanity in the pursuit of his dream that he ended up taking the fall for Daisy when she ended up killing Myrtle. Even after the death of Gatsby it was still evident that he didn't achieve his dream. "I called up Daisy half an hour after we found him, called her instinctively and without hesitation. But she and Tom had gone away early that afternoon, and taken baggage with them." (Fitzgerald 164). Gatsby believed that taking the blame would help him with his chance at Daisy's heart, yet this is the very action that lost him his very dream. A shot at Daisy's love.
Explanations continued
When love is brought up the immediate image popped into the heads of people is the image of two individuals. Some people can only imagine love as a thing held between two people. Yet the truth is true love comes in many different forms. This is clearly evident in the article "In Goldman Sachs We Trust". Goldman Sachs has a large amount of individuals that literally love money more than life itself. But that's the reality in today's age. Money equals power. As clearly shown in Inside Job big buisnesses such as Goldman Sachs are to caught up in the immediate return or money of what they're doing. This mindset is what caused the extreme debt to peak in 2008. The dream for Goldman Sachs is basically to possess more money than they can handle. The heavy pursuit of this dream is what ultimately lost them a big chunk of what they so dearly cherished and loved. Goldman Sachs went as far as selling and investing in things that they knew were set up for failure. "Goldman foolishly participated in the creation of dangerously leveraged investment vehicles that were toxic for investors. Then it was a pyramid of investment trusts led by the infamous Goldman Sachs Trading Co., which lost over 90% of it's value" (Lenzer 1). Their reckless pursuit of their dream ended up hurting what they loved the most. This issue on Goldman Sachs was also discussed in "Junk Mortgages under the Microscope". Goldman's hot pursuit of quick money caused them to invest in "quick gains in hot housing markets; it's got loans that seem to have been made with little or no serious analysis by lenders" (Sloan 1) The company was to blind folded by the dream of money and power that they lost that very thing they cherished. This dumb plan of "do now and accept the consequences later" later led to Sloan saying "almost everyone involved in this duck-feeding deal has had a foul experience" (Sloan 1).
Most people in the American society live life without a thought of how it's possible that they can call themselves a free nation. People take things for granted. Act of Valor is a film that represents the things Americans take for granted each and every day. It's a film that portrays the real lives of a Navy Seal team that is trying to prevent acts of terrorism. Their main mission is to kill or capture Osama Bin-Laden. Almost every citizen of the United States has heard of that name but not a single one of then understood the sacrifices it took to kill Bin-Laden and stop his terrorist activities. "That last night at home, you think about how you could of been a better dad, a better husband, that bedtime story you should of read, or that anniversary you forgot. You don't expect your family to understand what you're doing. You just hope they understand you're doing it for them, and when you get home you hope you can pick-up right where you left off." These seals have the dream of making their country a better place for their family's to live in. Chief Dave is an individual that was leading his Navy Seal team, and in the process of pursuing his dream he lost one of his most cherished life long friends. LT Rorke sacrificed himself as he jumped on a grenade to save all the Seals left in the room. Rorke represents someone that will stop at nothing to fulfill his dream of freedom. Yet in the case of Chief Dave his pursuit of the same dream lost him something he loved. The life and friendship of LT Rorke.
Cited Sources
Fitzgerald, F. Scott. The Great Gatsby. New York, NY: Scribner, 1925. Print.
Act of valor. Dir. Mike McCoy. Perf. Alex Veadov. A-Film, 2012. Film.
Sloan, Allan . "Junk mortgages: It just gets worse." CNNMoney. Cable News Network, 1 Dec. 2009. Web. 8 Jan. 2014. <http://money.cnn.com/2009/11/30/real_estate/mortgage_lessons.fortune/>.
Lenzner, Robert. "In Goldman Sachs We Trust." Forbes. Forbes Magazine, 17 July 2009. Web. 7 Jan. 2014. <http://www.forbes.com/2009/07/16/goldman-sachs-banking-business-wall-street.html>.