Aspiration & Idealism

Do people really know what aspirations can cause? What is aspiration? 

I define aspiration as a strong desire to achieve success, which includes love, wealth, happiness, education and job. I think that the act of "aspiring" is closely related to "dreaming" or "desiring" something that may be unrealistic and impractical. Though there are common sayings that dreams make people's imagination go wild and limitless, I personally think that dreams are just dreams in the end. I feel that the desire of perfection causes problems in our society because expectations that are not being met leads to disappointments.

Although I do agree that people should have some goals in life, I propose that these goals should be realistic and not something idealistic. For instance, I believe that all teenage girls have the same dream of marrying Mr. Prince Charming that is rich and handsome. In this case, I would consider this dream as being unrealistic, although rarely possible, because not every male would fit the category of the ideal "Mr. Prince Charming". Although many people would think that there are no such people who would really forage for Mr. Prince Charming because it sounds absurd, I can justify that this is a misconception because it is actually occurring in today's society. From my personal experience, I have encountered a person whose biggest dream is to marry a foreigner in the desire of happiness and wealth after marriage. In this occasion, she tries every way possible to marry a foreigner or what is so-called "farang" in Thai. In the end, her dreams are being turned down and she faces major disappointments because her aspirations did not come true. More interestingly, she did not work hard to earn a status in society because of depending on this dream, which results in only negative consequences of both not being wealthy and happy.

Although dreams do give people hope and push people to reach out for the best, people should not depend on those imaginary dreams too much because dreams are intangible since people cannot control or force it. Therefore, in order to keep people from dissatisfactions, I would advise people to stay in reality and think of things that are practical.

Keep it real.


Picture source:
http://whisperfall.deviantart.com/art/Dreams-144932089

Stock/Bond Speculation

Stocks and bonds are financial economic concepts that deal with money. Both of them are considered securities or financial instruments that are tradable assets, ie. people are allowed to buy and sell stocks and bonds. In particular, the purpose of the stock market is to allow people to lend money to the company for investments. In return, the people will receive a share of the profit according to the size of the stock they hold in that company. Therefore, we can say that the people owning such certain stocks are acting as the "owner" of the company. On the other hand, the purpose of the bond market is also to let people lend money for the company or the government to make long term investments. In this case, the bond issuer (companies and government) owes the holder a debt in which the issuer must pay back with certain agreements, for example, in terms interest rates. Therefore, the holders in this context are the "lenders". In any case of the two, people are able to profit out of these markets by knowing how to play the game and when to or when not to invest. As a result, many people around the world are zealously involved in these markets since they generate ideally high returns through such economic transactions.

Relation to "The Great Gatsby"

The topic of stocks and bonds relate closely to Fitzgerald's novel, "The Great Gatsby", because the characters evolve around the dream of wealth. In a historical context, many new companies emerged during the 1900s from industrial urbanization, and this introduces the idea of stocks and bonds to the country.
More interestingly, the value of stocks rose immensely after the World War and people who held shares of the stock market profited as an aftermath. It raises the point that people with no wealth or social background can become instantly affluent and make a fortune from participating in the stock and bond markets. Therefore, we can say that the characters, in particularly Nick, engage in the bond market because they aspire to become rich. Not only that, the desire of wealth also reinforces the idea of The American Dream in the novel.


Resources:
http://www.fi-advisor.com/what-is-stock-market.asp
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bond_(finance)