Talking to the Dogrukols about their effort to remain in America to have access to medical services for their daughter made me think hard about the American Dream.

The concept of the American Dream is unique to this country. Only in the United States do you hear people talk of a “dream” pertaining to a specific nationality. No one talks about living the “British Dream,” the “Italian Dream” or the “Chinese Dream.”

As a kid, I grew up reading stories of immigrants who traveled to America from their homelands in Europe, Africa and Asia pursuing this dream. Many of my textbooks had patriotic cover images of poor immigrants standing on the edge of a ship staring out at the Statue of Liberty.

It was not explicitly stated to me, but I understood the American Dream to mean if you worked hard enough, you could achieve whatever you wanted. It was the pursuit of happiness.

The Dogrukols’ dream is fairly easy to see; they want their daughter to receive proper medical care and an education, which she can’t find anywhere else in the world. It’s the sort of dream any parent should wish for their child.

When I got into high school I was assigned to read the “Great Gatsby.” It tells the story of a young man who pursues money and prestige in the hope he can buy both happiness and love. It wasn’t until the end of class one day I realized the point F. Scott Fitzgerald was trying to make wasn’t that Gatsby has corrupted the American Dream, but the American Dream is about obtaining wealth, status and the admiration of society.

Unfortunately, I believe this alternative American Dream supplanted the original one. It has taken the original pursuit of economic prosperity and made it a maddening worship of materialism.

This is perfectly represented in how the rich and powerful are portrayed, particularly celebrities in the entertainment business. It is common knowledge their lives are, underneath all the media glamor, miserable and unflattering. Each week brings another heart-wrenching story of a divorce, an affair, or domestic violence. They have none of the privacy we take for granted. Their rampant addiction to alcohol, cocaine and prescription drugs demonstrate they are no happier with their lives than a wino who begs for money along street curbs.

Yet millions of Americans continue to admire these self destructive lifestyles, because they have been taught that such a life is the American Dream.

It’s a complete distortion of greed as opposed to honesty necessity. There is a incomparable and moral difference between earning money to provide basic needs for your family and earning money to buy expensive things to elicit the jealous admiration of friends.

This is the illegitimate American Dream which was satirized in films such as “Little Caesar” and “Citizen Kane.” It’s a vicious cycle of material envy and narcissism where the end result is always tragedy.

In fact, Fitzgerald’s life itself is a great example. He had it all — fame, wealth and a successful literary career. He was one of the most influential writers of the 20th century. But his private life was one enormous disaster. His tumultuous marriage to the beautiful Zelda Sayre became more of a source of inspiration for his novels than a romantic relationship. He suffered from alcoholism starting in college, an addiction which ultimately killed him, and he carried on affairs which made him only more wearied and embittered.

On the surface, one would hear this and wonder how someone like Fitzgerald could have had such a terrible life.

It’s quite simple. He lived “the dream” which Gatsby sought, but found no happiness in it because it isn’t the pursuit of happiness.

You can see this in how young adults are encouraged to get careers with the highest “status,” i.e. the biggest salary, fringe benefits or social standing. Instead, they should look for the one which will yield the greatest amount of personal satisfaction while taking into consideration its viability as a source of income.

The true American Dream allows people, including the Dogrukols, to individually select their own source of happiness and then work for it as hard as they are willing to.

They have the freedom to define what “success” to them is. It is not decided by society or culture.

The present-day notion of the American Dream is just a nightmare which needs to be woken up from.