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In class, we have been discussing American Culture.

We began by reading, The Values Americans Live By.  As I read through this article, I started to think of how some of these values applied to my life.  As we were talking in Sociology, I realized a lot of the values discussed were actually pretty accurate.  In particular, I felt individualism and independence was one of the values Americans feel strongly about.  When you are a child, you depend heavily on your parents, but as you grow older everyone is taught that independence is crucial to success. For example, going off to college is something that most Americans strive for nowadays. Being an individual and graduating after four years is what we must strive for. This is all based on the idea of "The American Dream" or otherwise known as making a lot of money and true success. College is all about being alone and becoming someone great without the influence of others, quite contrary to how we were taught so many things as young children. These days, it is almost frowned upon if we depend on our parents past the age of high school, and it is extremely embarrassing if we still live at home on mom and dad's couch. It is expected of us to take on this new adventure in life, and be successful without the help from ANYONE (including mommy and daddy loaning out money to us).

In the movie Tuesday's With Morrie, Morrie (the cutest old man I have ever encountered) believed that no one should be ashamed of asking someone for help or being influenced by others.
Morrie taught us this as his sickness became worse, he became more dependent on the people surrounding him. His caretaker would even clean him up after he had to take a number two! It was almost as though he was an infant once again. In Mitch's life, love what always a problem.  Love is a taboo at times, because it makes us vulnerable and dependent on others. Becoming dependent on another for your own happiness is practically scary to present day Americans.  We believe that in order to be happy, we must create happiness within ourselves, not because of another person. But Morrie teaches us that in order to truly be a happy human being, we must allow our surroundings and nature into our lives. As Americans, we must accept that relationships are crucial to true happiness and success.

Personally, I function on communication and love from others. I need to be surrounded around people to truly feel happy. And when I am alone, I feel like something is missing. I do in fact consider myself an individual as well. I love my free time and I love striving for a goal and reaching it and being able to say I did it all on my own. Morrie is a key example of a man who is happy, and that is someone who I hope to be like one day. But with the society in which I live, it is quite hard to do that with the constant pressure from people to be great and to be individualized in all that I do.