Freedom is everything.
I bought a house in late 2021 because I foresaw myself staying in my city long-term, predicted (gambled on) interest rates increasing, and it was the next logical step on my path to becoming a full-blown adult. I had readily bought into and believed in the stereotypical path of "successful" adults: go to college, get a standard career, get married, buy a house, etc. I've always been in a rush to grow up, never taking time to appreciate my current situation and instead looking ahead to the next step; in high school I studied to get into a good college, in college I studied to get a good job, in my job I worked hard to get a better job or more prestige at my current one. Ambition and foresight is only as good as the situation it eventually puts you in.
The only homes I could afford as a single male with a minor inheritance and semi-decent salary were in an average area of town where average people lived and life in general was pretty average. I recognized this, yet still chose to move forward because this was The Path, The Recipe, The Solution to success; I was unsure and nervous of my decision but guided by a malignant invisible hand, one that had been formed by a foundation of growing up in middle class America and operated with momentum and conditioning. I thought the burden of the mortgage and property taxes and home repairs were for my best interest. Adam Smith had died and had been replaced by Mr. Smith, a run-of-the-mill parent who has 2.4 kids, mows the yard every other weekend, and will work the same monotonous job until he retires at the ripe age of 70.
I broke free of the latter Smith's hand in 2024 after having grown disillusioned with home ownership and living in suburbia. Wasn't owning a home supposed to be fun and rewarding, something people did to enhance their lives? Why did I loathe it so much? Was it the clay-rich soil that constantly causing my foundation to move and house to expand and contract, making me think I had foundation issues when the doors wouldn't close and cracks formed near the crown molding? Was it the unstable floor of the loft always creaking? Was it the strange bump in the living room floor that had no apparent cause? Was it the poor job the flippers did in "renovating" the home? Or was it having to pay the lawn guy $50 every couple of weeks in the summer so I could keep my front yard clean and not draw the silent ire of my neighbors? Or was it my AC drain being so poorly designed it would clog a couple of times in the summer, forcing me to take an hour to clean out the algae and other water and waking up the middle of the night to get make sure the A/C was still running? Or was it freaking out when temperatures dropped to sub-freezing because my copper pipes may burst if they froze and I'd have to pay an egregious sums of cash to get it fixed? Or was it having large trees that were susceptible to the occasional violent storms leering over my roof, threatening to come crashing in if winds got over a certain speed or lightning hit just the right spot? Or was it constantly worrying that I had forgotten to close my garage door or lock the front door, despite doing my little dance and jingle that I was supposed to do every time I left to remind future me that I had indeed closed the garage or locked the door. Or was it finding bugs that were young enough to be difficult to distinguish as a beetle or cockroach?
Home ownership wasn't a dream, but a nightmare I went to bed with every night and woke up to every morning.
The traditional American Dream is "that every person has the freedom and opportunity to succeed and attain a better life", with the cornerstones of democracy, equality, rights, and freedom supporting the decisions on the path to a better life.
A bit hazy by design, allowing each person to choose their own dream without judgment or encroachment on others.
My dream is choosing where to live within a city, country, and world, because being able to do so implies a few things:
Imagine being able to afford any apartment or house in any part of any city without having fear of prejudice there and having multiple job opportunities available. Most would define this as having made it.