A Success Attitude




Reading about an example of the ideal model for the American dream in The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand through the character Howard Roark and then comparing it to real life people who have risen through economic ranks through what they claim their own talents is interesting. There is a lot of people that reach success and then attribute that success to only their wit even when there is a community of people behind them. These people then use an individualist attitude to justify not helping others in similar conditions and situations to those they were once in. I have found this to be the case with a lot of immigrants who immigrated and are able to find moderate success. Even after receiving tremendous help from family as well as government programs, they still develop a very Howard Roark attitude towards being to pull yourself by the bootstraps. Granted they do work extremely hard and their success would not have been possible without it. However, these people fail to recognize the thousands of others that put in similar work and still fail due to lack of support. One example I can think of have been some of my uncles who due to their moderate success develop very conservative economic attitudes. They oppose things like increased taxes for governmental programs but fail to see that it was these same programs that allowed them to flourish. At the same time, they also do not recognize and thank properly family members that provided them with support.

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