American Dream

Friday, 22 October 2010 00:00

Written by Jess Ang

There was this scene in the musical play, MISS SAIGON, where the pimp portrayed by Jonathan Pryce was singing a song entitled “The American Dream”. The lyrics narrates his dream of being in America dressed in a flashy expensive suit and driving a pink Cadillac sedan. This is the imagination we all have about success.. This is what I dreamed when I came to America in May,1979. I was filled with great excitement to see Las Vegas with its bright lights and expansive casinos and Disneyland with its fun rides and eye-popping parks.When my brother in-law gave us our first tour of Seattle, we were amazed seeing the expensive waterfront homes and mansions.

After many years of being a psychiatrist in private practice with hard work and great support from my wife, we attained the American dream. With God’s blessing,w e were able to have a nice home and took vacations in different parts of the United States. We went to places around the world which fulfilledmy childhood dreams. As I look back to what led to this achievement, I came out with four ingredients for success: education, initiative, opportunity and reward.

If one only achieved a high school education, it will be extremely difficult to have a high paying job. The current unemployment rate testifies to this predicament. Majority of the unemployed had a high school diploma or were dropouts. However, if you have a college degree ,a unique skill or technical knowledge, you likely will be offered a high paying salary.

Initiative coupled with creativity and perseverance has brought us many billionaires. Bill Gates of Microsoft and the 2 young entrepreneurs from Google are our best examples.Their superb minds and creativity has brought us the benefit of communication and social networking through the Internet. Ray Kroc who bought a small family chain of hamburger drive-in’s was able to transform it to a megabillion enterprise known as McDonald’s. He did it through hard work, perseverance and creativity.

America is the land of golden opportunity. I was able to secure my psychiatry residency in one of the best schools in America, the University of Washington in Seattle. I was mentored by great professors who wrote sizable numbers of articles and book publications. As a result, I was offered job opportunities that had great financial reward. Eventually, I opened my own private practice and was a consulting speaker to several pharmaceutical companies.

America rewards with great bounty to people who are willing to make great sacrifices to attain their dreams.This can only be achieved by pursuing higher knowledge, nurture it with great initiative and perseverance and seek that opportunity that will give you both financial and self-fulfilling reward. I just hope that the four ingredients can happen in the Philippines.

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