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Susan Butcher
Champion Dog-Sled Racer
I feel very fortunate that from a very early age I knew what I wanted to do. And I know that many people of 18, 24, 30 years old, still have not really reached a passion the way I had a passion at a very young age. But whenever you do find something -- maybe it's not as passionate for you as dog mushing has been for me -- but the fact that you have any interes. that is what you should go with. And particularly if you have a passion, no matter how many people criticize that passion, no matter if you cannot see the link between how what you are going to do is going to benefit others, I can promise you if you do anything well, it will benefit others. So you have to go with your dream, which is certainly what I have done, which has brought my life great fulfillment.
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James Cameron
Master Filmmaker
James Cameron: As a Canadian, the American dream had a very negative and pejorative connotation when I was growing up, because it was this kind of cultural imperialism. I grew up in a border town on the other side of the border in Niagara Falls, Canada. But since I moved to the United States at the age of 17, I actually feel very much like I'm probably, in my basic genetic nature, much more American than Canadian because I really believe strongly in a lot of the traditional values of this country in terms of respecting individuals' rights. The rights to freedom of speech and a lot of the things that are in the basic fabric of this country.
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James Cameron
Master Filmmaker
Americans, and Canadians even to a large extent, are -- they come from frontiersman stock, so they are people who, you know, hewed their civilization out of the wilderness. It wasn't given to them. You know, it's not like people growing up in Italy or France in the shadow of past glories from thousands of years before. You know, "We made what we have, and we don't have a great cultural depth like they do but what we have is ours by God." And, you know, I like that. I like that about it, you know. It sort of puts your hand on the tiller of destiny in a way and America definitely has its hand on the tiller of destiny for this planet. For good or bad. It doesn't mean you know what you're doing necessarily.
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Benjamin Carson
Pediatric Neurosurgeon
Benjamin Carson: My mother worked as a domestic, two, sometimes three jobs at a time because she didn't want to be on welfare. She felt very strongly that if she gave up and went on welfare, that she would give up control of her life and of our lives, and I think she was probably correct about that. And, so she worked very hard. Sometimes we didn't see her for several days at a time, because she would go to work at five in the morning and get back after 11:00 p.m., going from one job to the next. But, one thing that she provided us was a tremendous example of what hard work is like, and she was also extremely thrifty. She would go to the Goodwill, she'd get a shirt that had a hole and put a patch on it and put another one on the other side to make it look symmetrical, and she sewed her own clothes. She would take us out in the country on a Sunday and knock on a farmer's door and say, "Can we pick four bushels of corn, three for you and one for us?" and they were always glad at that deal. And she'd come home and she'd can the stuff, so that we would have food. She was just extremely thrifty and managed to get by that way. No one ever could quite figure out how she was able to do what she did. She would drive a car until it fell apart, and then she would buy a new car because she saved every dime and every nickel, stuck it under the mattress, and when it came time, years later, to buy a new car, she could do it. And, the neighbors said "What is it with this woman? What is she doing?" Because our mother was a very attractive woman and they figured, you know, she was selling her body and doing all kinds of things like that. But in fact, she had to endure that kind of ridicule, as well as work extremely hard. But, she figured it would pay off in the long run.
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Benjamin Carson
Pediatric Neurosurgeon
Benjamin Carson: The American dream to me means that you have the ability to determine where you're going. You have the ability to formulate your dream, and you have the ability to put in motion all the building blocks that will help you to achieve it. And I am so grateful that I was born in America because I've had the opportunity to travel throughout the world, and I must say sometimes it's exciting to go to Paris, or go to Egypt or to go anywhere else, China. But, there's no place like home, and there's no place that really affords you the same types of opportunities that we have. And it's just a matter of how hard we want to work, and I would go so far as to say, in America, you can take somebody who is very successful, who has the right mind set, and you can take everything away from him and put him on the street and make him be a bum, and they'll be right back up there in a couple of years because all it requires is the right mind set and the willingness to work. And, people who realize that are already halfway there, to realizing their American dream.
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