What it Means to be an American | Teen Ink

What it Means to be an American

July 4, 2013
By nat.a.lat GOLD, Manhattan, Kansas
nat.a.lat GOLD, Manhattan, Kansas
11 articles 13 photos 0 comments

Favorite Quote:
“Perhaps I write for no one. Perhaps for the same person children are writing for when they scrawl their names in the snow.” - Margaret Atwood


American is synonymous with indecision. It is the bound and leap across the fence of opinion. It is swaying to and fro on the swing set of morality in the midst of the playground of freedom. It is the degree of logic from the school of liberty.
An American willingly accepts the duty of adventurer, destined to seek out what could be better and find the will to let it stay the same. American is a constant dissatisfaction with the way things are run, but lacking the gall to change it. It is the ability to close eyes and turns heads from the boundless resources of information. It is, as all have labeled, the ability to live blissfully in a state of utter ignorance.
Being an American is accepting, whole heartedly, all of your nations problems, debts, rough times, and triumphs. It is bombs bursting in air on the Fourth of July. It is solemn tears of farewell on the Eleventh of September. It is accepting your long deceased ancestors faults; paying for it from your pocket. It is social guilt without fault.
Being an American is staring doubt, uncertainty, debt, and unemployment in the eye and still having the gall to shoot for the over embellished, clichéd, “American Dream”; refusing to give up until you are as close as you can accept as possible. It is knowing what it is to be an American and having the gall to shout, "I am an American."
To be an American is to be America


The author's comments:
I often stop to acknowledge that I am an American, but what does that mean; to be American?

Similar Articles

JOIN THE DISCUSSION

This article has 0 comments.