Success Is a Lonely Road: The Great American Dream Exacts a Price

Studying abroad is lonely, and it is a reality we must not ignore.

“Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that's no matter – to-morrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther. . . . And one fine morning –

So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.”

(F Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby)

For those of us who grew up in upwardly-mobile, aspirational middle-class homes, America was the ultimate dream. If at age 18, an American university deemed us worthy, our families breathed a collective sigh of relief. As far as they were concerned, they had dispensed of their duties. They were now parents to potential CEOs, financial analysts, doctors and engineers with videshi degrees.

The Road to the Top Is Solitary

For the better part of the 20th century, America seduced the world with the Great American Dream. When we finished high school and graduated from college, masses of my friends went to the US of A in search for greener pastures. I stayed behind, never having mustered up the courage to apply. This year, I spent a month abroad and bumped into a number of American college-going friends in their natural habitat.

What I was given to understand was that the road to prosperity could be solitary, depressing and long. In short, loneliness is the price you pay for the Great American Dream. Some of my friends spent disproportionate amounts of time trying to convince me to come visit them. None of them were ever particularly close friends, but the thought of someone familiar was comforting to those who were desperately searching for home in the midst of their extreme isolation.

I spoke to some of my friends who live, work and study abroad. Siddharth Iyengar, who is pursuing his PhD in ecology at the University of Minnesota, said notably, that it is the success or failure of the individual, and not a collective, that is at the heart of the American dream.

I didn’t realise how social our culture was in India until I came here. Graduate school is really isolating, even though all the people in my department and friends circles are wonderful individuals. Working in labs in India, we always shared our research and our workloads. Here things are very much about individual success and effort. Both success and failure are individualised, and that is very much at the core of the liberal American dream.

Siddharth Iyengar

Archana Shenoy, who is doing her Masters in Arizona, says she misses the “hustle and bustle of the streets back home.”

I miss the hustle bustle of Indian streets… The yellow street lights, the absence of chai stalls on the streets and the sparse population makes the place look deserted, depressing. It scared me for the first few weeks.

Archana Shenoy

Having Tough Conversations

When young, starry-eyed men and women step into a career-counsellor’s office, nobody tells them that their next big adventure may be a fairly solitary exercise? Why?

“There’s a fear of vulnerability,” Siddharth says. After all, who wants to be the one to admit that the Great American Dream may not always be all that it’s made out to be? That would be giving in; admitting defeat.

Schools abroad are aware that this is a prevalent problem. There are counsellors who help struggling students once they get there. On our part, however, before we send more and more young dreamers abroad, perhaps we should have a conversation that has been long overdue. The Great American Dream will exact its due.