Follow Your Bliss … No Matter What?

4 :29 a.m. The bed is shaking. If I didn’t know better, I’d think someone is off-camera, shaking it, movie-style trying to scare me into thinking the devil is in the house. But it’s ‘just’ an earthquake. A somewhat over-the-top shaker with tremors big enough to make the dining room chandelier swing, but just an earthquake. The pillars, joints and wooden planks of the marine-themed building we live in squeak and groan, annoyed by the strain of yet another underground eruption.

4:30 a.m. It’s over. That was a fairly big one. I’m glad it wasn’t THE big one. I’m tired and I really don’t have it in me to go all ‘emergency-mode’ and run for my life right now. I think about what that would mean. Earthquake kit – check. Portable safe with passports and important documents easily accessible – more or less. Crank radio. Check. Extra water. Check. Shoes by the door – check. And masks – between the disposable and the cloth ones, we have enough of those to last us for weeks. The thought of being displaced and forced to stay in a shelter while the Covid-19 virus is rampant sends a chill down my spine. 

I listen to the sounds of our now quiet home. My husband snores softly, completely unaware and unphased by what just happened. My daughter still sleeps soundly and even Boo, our hamster, nocturnal critter that she is, is conspicuously silent, hiding under a mountain of bedding. I think she’s a little freaked out. I check the earthquake bot on Twitter. The epicenter of the quake was in the San Fernando Valley, about 30 minutes from where we are, as the crow flies. It was a 4.2 quake, or a V on the MMI Scale (Modified Mercali Intensity) which means it was “felt by nearly everyone and even frightened a few.” People who experience Category V earthquakes may see pictures swinging, small items falling off shelves and occasionally, shaking of that intensity causes plaster and windows to crack. Further reading reveals it was one of 32 earthquakes we’ve had in the past 24 hours.  Geez, that’s comforting. 

I think of all the people who choose to live here, in the City of Angels, despite the earthquakes, landslides, yearly draughts and fires. There are so many of us – writers, actors, dancers, techies, dreamers, all seeking that thing that makes this city so magical, the potential of a better life. The same potential that incited thousands of adventurers to cross miles of arid, stark and uninhabitable desert, land they described as a “purgatory to be crossed as quickly as possible”  for the promise of gold, sunshine and liberty back in the mid-nineteen hundreds. Now, almost two centuries later, droves of hopefuls still come to Los Angeles seeking opportunity, fame, fortune and that elusive American Dream. SoCal residents come from 180 countries and speak 140 languages. California is home to almost 11 million immigrants—about a quarter of the foreign-born population nationwide.

In all the years I’ve lived here, either part or full time, I haven’t met many born and bred Los Angelenos. Most of our local friends, colleagues and neighbours are from elsewhere on the continent or from abroad. What is it about us, the scores of dream chasers, that pushes us to leave everything behind in pursuit of a different or a better life? Who are the people who leave their friends, family, and the safety of their hometown for their California dream?

According to Kimanzi Constable from the Good Men Project (I’m choosing to see the word ‘men’ here as representative of humankind) there are three types of dream chasers out there: Skeptics who think achieving success is all about getting that lucky break and that they’re unlikely to achieve the success they seek, the Confused who’ve tried every trick in the book and haven’t succeeded, yet, and the Determined, who see their dreams clearly and are determined to make them happen no matter how many times they fail. 

I think that I, and many of the California dreamers I know, fall into that last category. We are the Determined. But moreover, I’m convinced that our quest for something ‘other’ than what we grew up with, is what drives us.  It has as much to do with this period in time than with who we are.  Our definition of the American Dream has changed. 

It’s 7 a.m. now and the house is shaking again. This time the shaking is mild enough I’m not sure it’s construction or another earthquake. I check Twitter again. Definitely an earthquake. But this one was ‘only’ a 3.9. Same epicenter. I pray the big one hits long after my loved ones and I have ceased to exist. We need more time. To enjoy the beach, the beautiful weather and, most importantly, to take advantage all the opportunities here for the taking. Is it so wrong to want…everything? 

The Baby Boomers’ (born between 1946-1964) idea of the American Dream was to marry young, buy a nice home, have a couple of kids, make enough money to give their children a college education, retire by age 55 and still be healthy enough travel and enjoy spend time with their grandchildren. It’s a major generalization, but one that fits most of the adults I knew while I was growing up. But by the time the Baby Boomers’ kids were adults, those same Boomers, now dubbed the Me Generation, had the highest rate of divorce and second marriages. And so, the American dream started shifting. 

Their children, Gen Xers’ like myself, (born between 1965-1980) were a generation of latchkey kids from dual income families. We are considered the first ‘daycare’ generation. For many of us, the solution to dwindling jobs, high divorce rates and disillusionment was to stay in school as long as possible or to simply leave and seek opportunity elsewhere. The life our parents wished for us wasn’t available nor did it seem nearly as fulfilling as it was supposed to be. We aspired to be different from them and so we went off searching for a different dream… in other provinces, states or countries. We left in droves to teach English in Korea, Japan and China and we took gap years to backpack through Europe and Asia to find ourselves. We wanted to see the world before ‘settling’ into and committing to our adult lives. We married later, or not at all, delayed having children or chose not have any and many of us refused to follow in our parents’ footsteps. The American Dream was now about following your bliss, whatever that may be, regardless of societal expectations. 

Then came the Millennials (born between 1980-2000), the first generation to reach adulthood in the new millennium. Millenials thrive on working on “innovations, start-ups and working out of coffee shops.” More than 1 in 3 Americans in our current labor force are millennials. According to US Census Bureau data, as of 2017, they make up the largest generation in the US labor force. Ask any GenExer who’s worked with them, and they’ll tell you Millennials are tech-savvy, overly confident and entitled. The truth is more complicated. 

These kids were raised by parents who treated them as equals. They’ve always had a say in every decision pertaining to their lives, and live-work balance is their first and utmost priority and so they’re particularly bad at following orders or seeing themselves as subordinate to anyone. Dubbed the Me, Me, Me Generation by Times Magazine, they got so many participation trophies while they were growing up that 40% of them feel they should get promoted every two years, regardless of their performance. 

On the flipside, they are arguably the most exciting generation since the Boomers, not because they’re trying to change the establishment, but because they don’t need it. They have the technology and the wherewithal “to compete against huge organisations: hackers vs corporations, bloggers vs newspapers, YouTube directors vs studios, app-makers vs entire industries.” They have the technology and the knowledge to move to a city, start a business or create their ideal job.

In a study conducted in 2018 by Samual J. Abrams, author of the American Dream Is Alive and Well, 85% of Americans said that “to have freedom of choice in how to live” is essential in achieving the American Dream. The “traditional” factors such as wealth and a successful career were far less important than they used to be. Only 16% said that to achieve the American dream, they believed it was essential to “become wealthy,” only 45 % said it was essential “to have a better quality of life than your parents,” and just 49% said that “having a successful career” was key.

If the American Dream is to have freedom of choice in how we live, then American or not, we’re all chasing the American Dream to some degree. And whether we dream of settling down in a house with a white picket fence or that we chose to move every five years on our quest to find what we perceive as THE best place to live, we know we can’t live our lives according to someone else’s standards. Wanting something else, or wanting more, does not make us ungrateful. It drives innovation. It makes us more creative. We try harder and work smarter. The self-made recording artist, the fan-fic writer turned best-selling author, the small-town boy turned screenwriter, the Tik Tok star, and the millionaire YouTubers, all started with a dream. 

As for me, and my fellow California Dreamers, a group I’m proud to say includes  Baby Boomers, Gen Xers and Millenials,  there’s something about California’s miles of sandy beaches, perfect weather, Malibu-Barbie-esque dreamhouses and the potential to achieve all of our dreams that makes braving a few (or even daily) tremors worthwhile.

Where do you live? If you’ve left your hometown, why did you? If not, what would make you move to another city or country? Love, money, a dream job or opportunity, the promise of something new and exciting? Are you a Baby Boomer. a Gen Xer, a Millennial? Do you think the societal expectations grew up with influenced your life choices?