<p>Here's my essay for the Campbells Tomato Soup Essay Contest. Please if you have any suggestions let me know asap the deadline is this tuesday. someone suggested to me that its too vague, but the sample essay they give on the website is even more vague than mine, so does anyone know if people who judge contests like this want an upside-down-pyramid-reporter-style essay? does mine have a little too much fat on it, so to speak? or is this what they want? </p>
<p>Dreams are glass dollhouses, delicate little curiosities that can attract the attention of onlookers, but are best admired from afar. The only one who should approach the house is the keeper, who tends to its meticulous demands-- a little dusting here, a little polish there. The proverbial American Dream is no different. It needs the concentrated effort of a single individual to keep it alive and glowing, but the liberating environment that maintains it is what makes the dream possible.</p>
<p>The blueprint for my own dreams was really drawn out in response to my parents accomplishments. Both my parents fought the fight that can only be held in America and, ironically, can only be won in America. They had to constantly struggle against the perennial obstacles of money, race, and classobstacles that, in retrospect, shouldnt have been there in the first place, but nevertheless changed them for the better. My dad, a poor Oklahoman farm boy turn high-profile businessman, struggled tirelessly under the frowning shadow of parental disapproval and a demoralizing bout with bipolar disorder that nearly destroyed him in order to achieve the American Dream he envisionedan escape from circumstances that would have otherwise trapped him in a vicious cycle of ignorance and apathy. </p>
<p>My mother, daughter of a Pakistani revolutionary, learned of the brutal realities of war with face-slapping first-hand experience. The literal struggle for her very survival gave her the wherewithal to aspire for anythingeven if that meant traveling the expanse of continents and oceans, leaving all that she knew and loved, to realize it in a country that wouldnt immediately accept her, a scorned Paki, in the first place. </p>
<p>Because my parents bore the backbreaking brunt of a harsher, more obvious adversity, the possibilities for my future are endless. America is a changing nation that is essentially a cosmic idea founded on the toilers of its underbelly, a place my parents knew well. Because of Americas ever-changing character, I am allowed the mental room to stretch and envision a dream vastly different from that of my parents. I see my life how painter James Whistler saw artsomething that is shaped for its own sake, not manufactured as a cog in some career-driven machinery. The struggles that I must endure in order to attain my American dream are consequently much subtler than my parents. I must assimilate myself into a society where fierce competition is the norm, where someones good simply isnt good enough. Ironically, my success lies in curbing societys obsession with success. My goal is to learn for the love of it, not for what learning may bring me. I hope to accomplish this by attending a college that will stimulate my curiosity and by traveling, gaining pure, visceral experience along the way. What may result from this goal in terms of a job or career path is only of secondary importance. This is my glass dollhouse. Lofty? Sure. Impossible? In America, definitely not.</p>