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The Standard of Living

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The Standard of Living
English 30-1
Jasmine Hannig
St. Albert - Outreach.

“The Standard of Living” The world is an ever changing environment both physically and socially, our focus on living off district homelands has turned to living for the consumerist products we possess. People accumulate debt, from purchasing things with money they don’t acquire. Society has created unjust expectations of what our lives should portray and reflect, with ideals such as the American Dream. Mass social outlets create public endeavors; almost anything in relation to people has become a form of advertisement today. In circumstances such as the short story “The Standard of Living”, our consumerist ways are depicted through society’s imprint of what our values, dreams and aspirations should encompass. The Standard of living is the degree of wealth and material comfort available to a person or community. The title of this story references how all people at different walks of life, have different values and expectations due to how they were raised. Standard of living is more than money and material, it’s how you allow yourself to treat others and receive treatment as well. A person’s standard of living is depicted by how an individual developed emotionally, physically and geographically. “Always the girls went to walk on Fifth Avenue on their free afternoons, for it was the ideal ground for their favorite game.” This quote refers to how the girls were raised with ideals of being wealthy and well taken care of, they chose to spend time in an expensive area even though there wages did not permit them to purchase any of the items they decided to gawk at. This is a massive indicator of how youth began to change their standards of living and dreams grew to a higher status. Our dreams push us to strive, believe and pray for so much more than our parents ever imagined for us. Our dreams are our motivators, the reason to keep going when times become unbearable. Within the short story, the main characters

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