Money, Class, and Opportunity Myths in America - Essay Example

The story may not be dispelling this assertion but it does open one’s eyes that it is not always about hard work, nature has to be kind to you. The story also brings to focus the value of wealth, here the story holds that wealth alone does not mean success and is not significant if it is not coupled with respect and good reputation. To this end, the characters enforce the idea that wealth is an award for leading a good life, a life characterized by honesty, self-reliance, thrift and hard-work.

The assertions held here have a definite implication on the lives of the workers, who are bound to change their approach in bid to get money success (Colombo 167). In this regard, this study implores the idea of success, is money always the measure of success and is money a result of meritocracy? Success means different things to different people. But there is no dispelling that the current generation always thinks of money as the sole measure of success. It is understandable, given the publicity of such stories as “The worlds richest” annually published by Forbes magazine.

Such stories have every one thinking of ways through which they can make money and assume such success. This means they already look at these individuals as successful, they are a representation of what success means in the 21st century. However, the idea that success is strictly measured by ones material wealth is quite misleading. In fact, success is more personal than the world understands. For instance, the Nobel Prize winner, this award recognizes success. Mostly in fields that have little to do with money, such as peace making and environmental consciousness.

People awarded based on these acts are considered to have succeeded they have obviously done much better than billions of earth inhabitants. Yet, there is little financial accompaniment to this success. In most cases, these were people who are driven by passion and love for what they do (Hammer and Douglas 432). A similar scenario can be seen in the sports world, we have people like Usain Bolt and Allison Felix who were recently feted. These have definitely succeeded, but their success has had little to do with money.

In this sense, we all have to agree that money is not always a measure of success, there are many other measures mostly realization of one’s potential, gratification and peace. Looking at the idea of wealth, many of us just like the story “money and success” believe that a lot of money means hard work, sometime painstaking. Thus, how much money one has depicts one’s level of hard work which is quite flawed. Because were it correct, we would have so many millionaires because everyone who wakes up and dawn and break their back till dusk merits wealth, at least by the virtue of hard work (Aldrich 271).

However, this is not the case, in any case we have the bulk of our working class grappling with debts, be it mortgages or car loans which means they are quite far from success. Such observation brings one into wondering, is money a result of meritocracy. The answer to this is a definite no, were it so, we would have everyone who works from dawn to dusk or at least eight hours a day command a significant amount of wealth. This points to the idea that wealth or money in this case is a reward by systems.

These systems