The Issue which the Americans are Facing Today

Introduction

According to Fforde (1), the most important issue that the Americans are facing today is the debate on the effective life skills. He defines it as an important life management strategy that continues to draw various arguments on its current impact on American citizens. He notes that the essentiality of effective life skills among American citizens is not only to enhance personal development and growth, but it also influences their behavior and characters. He defines personal development as feelings that an individual inhibits in determining his or her meaningful living. Fforde (1), at the same time, defines personal growth as an interpersonal development that enhances a person’s inner gifts like emotions, creativity, and interpersonal relationships. Lack of life skills, therefore, is an important issue that is facing American citizens today.

Kay (3) points out that lack of life skills among today’s American citizens has negatively influenced their critical thinking ability, financial planning strategy, and general research procedures. She also notes that today’s ignorance of life skills among American citizens is based on the utilitarian mindset that depicts education system as primarily job training institutionalization rather than developing individualism. The write up draws its argument by highlighting the lack of effective life skills as an important issue which American citizens are facing today, especially in determining their well being, and stresses the importance of its development.

Impact of Lack of Effective Life Skills among American Citizens Today

 It is argued that lack of effective life skills among today’s American citizens has encouraged political manipulation. According to Moyes (1), effective life skills set entails critical thinking, which is essential in evaluating political propagandas and fallacies that are being posed by politicians during campaigns that, in turn, affect their lives. For instance, nowadays, American society has been put into political dilemma due to lack of effective critical thinking in supporting a third party, which is neither Republican nor Democrat (Walker 1).

According to Walker (1), in the today’s world, American citizens are experiencing difficulty in outweighing the false political dilemma that has been created by the political propagandas. He points out that the political ideologies of the United Sates have been designed based on either libertarianism or constitutionalism principles. The two form the basis of the major political parties in the United States; namely, the Democratic Party and the Republican Party. Walker (1) notes that the political propaganda in the United States regards the presence of a third political party as based on self-fulfilling prophecy that is intended to deprive beneficial factors for the citizens. He points out that lack of effective critical thinking among Americans in evaluating false political dilemma of voting for a third party based on its effective ideologies continues to draw them into two distinct voting blocks. These are the Democrats and Republicans, which have not fully addressed their wellbeing.

For instance, Moyes (1) points out that the current political debate in The U.S. plays a significant centre stage for American citizens. This is because it is based on party affiliation rather than critical thinking and evaluation of how these parties are able to effectively implement their ideologies. He points out that lack of critical thinking in evaluating false political dilemma has resulted into Americans voting for ineffective political parties and leaders. According to Moyes (1), this is the main cause of low healthcare standards that American citizens currently experience.   He notes that the current government took advantage of the ineffective critical thinking among the American citizens and passed Patient Protection and Affordable Care Bill, which at face value is intended to insure thirty-two million Americans, but in actual content covers even the illegal immigrants which poses insecurity to the U.S.

Lack of effective critical thinking among American citizens has also been seen as the cause of today’s increasing racism activities in the United States. According to Feagin (1), racism is still a common practice in the American society. He points out that most of Americans resist developing critical thinking on the benefits of embracing another race, especially in enhancing the United States’ economic stability. He points out that immigrants and Afro-Americans, who in most cases experience racial discrimination, form an essential work force for many companies in the United States, thereby stabilizing its economy. He notes that any critical thinking action and evaluation on the significance of such groups would obviously enable the Americans to recognize their economic importance not only to their state, but also to the entire country.

In addition, Feagin (1) points out that ineffective critical thinking of the Americans in evaluating the positive impact of other religious groups has resulted into certain religious and racial attitudes towards them. This has especially manifested in form of negativity towards the Islamic religion, which has continued to affect their economical wellbeing. He points out that Americans have developed a certain racial attitude towards Islamic nations, based on the terrorist activities which some of the members of Islamic community were engaged in. According to Feagin (1), most of the Islamic nations are major oil producing countries. This means that they play an important role in the American society due to the America’s culture of oil dependency and, therefore, prejudice towards their citizens  negatively influences their economy.

It is also argued that lack of effective life skills due to poor education is the cause of poverty that American citizens are facing today. According to Kay (2), education plays an important role in enhancing life skills as it entails programs and processes that not only instill life management skills, but also enhance creativeness and innovativeness among children, which is essential for the society wellbeing.  Contrary to the alarming America’s regional economic growth, there is a continued incremental poverty index among the American citizens, especially those of Latin American descent. Reimers (1) points out that most of the American children from poverty stricken families are limited in their educational learning opportunities, which, in turn, results into ineffective life skills management that is transferred to the next generation.

For instance, Reimers (1) points out that intergenerational transfer of poverty among the Latin American citizens has been the root cause of their continued illiteracy. He notes that the poverty nature of these American citizens forces their children to enroll in schools of lower quality, thereby gaining little life skills. In his projection, almost 15% of adult Latin American citizens are unable to read and write, which has disadvantaged them in the job market. Such proportions of the American population are forced to continue to live on a dismal budgeting of less than US$ 10 per day, which is not enough to pay their bills and sustain their living expenses. However, he notes that the current government makes effort to enhance equitable education among the children from the poor families in creating effective life skills, though it has not been fully successful due to the presence of illegal aliens. Moyer (1) points out that today, America is characterized by illegal aliens who compete for available education centers, which, in turn, results in the increased cost of education that has negatively affected various educational sponsorships offered to such vulnerable children. 

Lack of effective life skills among the Americans has also been identified to be the primary cause of the financial insecurity that affects the American society today. According to Fellowes (1), effective life skills enhance an individual’s financial planning strategy that helps him or her in determining the need for defining various products affordability and sustainability. He notes that that current American  population is characterized by tolerating products that are of high prices, yet cannot be modified or upgraded.  He further points out that most of American citizens who earn moderate incomes that can only sustain them in paying their bills and other basic entities like schools, find themselves purchasing luxurious products which pose financial risk on their income.  These American citizens normally lack adequate financial planning skills, which form the basis for rightful determination of an individual’s income capability in initiating gross purchasing powers (Fellowes 1).

Consumerism has been identified as another factor caused by lack of effective life skills and also as an important issue which the American citizens are facing today. According to Chomsky (1), consumerism is basically the acquiring of goods and services through purchasing without considering their necessity, originality, or environmental impacts. He notes that consumerism has negated the American society’s role in purchasing goods and services that encourage the wellbeing of American citizens.  Fforde (1) points out that establishing effective life skills enables an individual to prioritize on his or her purchasing ability, as he or she develops effectiveness and necessity of acquiring certain products.

For instance, Chomsky (1) observes that today’s American’s middle and upper classes have been affected by the competition for luxurious items so as to maintain their equal economical and social status with their neighbors. This has led to the development of a culture of competitive products consumption, which at times goes beyond this group’s financial status, thereby, affecting their financial stability. Chomsky (1) notes that it is important for such American citizens to develop effective life skills that enable them to engage in effective and sustainable products purchasing that fully addresses their well being.

Chomsky (1) argues that lack of effective life skills which has resulted to consumerism has affected the economic status of almost all American citizens. He points out that most of the Americans have developed higher purchasing power ,which has not only affected the quality of products they acquire, but has also weakened the incentives incurred by various American companies while addressing the rising demands of Americans. He notes that most of the American citizens have lost their jobs, especially in American companies that practice offshore outsourcing. He defines offshore outsourcing as a business process where organizations transfer some of the business activities to their divisions that are suited outside the country’s borders so as to address consumerism. Such effects can only be avoided through the development of effective purchasing strategy by the Americans to enable them become accountable. This will, in turn, help to eliminate anxiety about the demand on certain products, thereby, not affecting some of their jobs (Chomsky 1).

On the other hand, it is argued that lack of life skills in determining the environmental impact of consumerism is another issue which American citizens are facing today. According to Chomsky (1), consumerism has adversely affected the environment as various manufacturing companies incorporate manufacturing processes that pollute the environment. Such processes are only intended to address the rise of consumer demands, while negatively affecting the environment. For instance, he points out that most of the American companies do manufacture products in plastic bottles or cartons so as to address their products efficiency among their customers. Such companies get away with their activities, because most of the Americans have not understood the environmental impact on their lives due to their lack of adequate life skills (Chomsky 1).

Lack of effective life skills to enhance research methodology has been identified to be one of the challenges that the American citizens are facing today. According to Fforde (1), life skills are basic to effective research, which is an essential entity in analyzing various claims made either by an individual or by a state. He points out that research enables an individual to determine the validity of the claims made in enhancing cordial relationship among people. For instance, Perruci and Wysong (2) point out that even though various claims have been made regarding the concept of ‘American Dream,’ the American citizens who have not fully research on these claims have found themselves at crossroad with various administrations. The scholars note that the ideological concept that only hard work results into better living standards is a conceptual claim that American citizens must fully understand if the United Sates is going to experience a meaningful development.

Additionally, Perruci and Wysong (2) note that race, religion, gender and nation of origin still play an important role in enhancing the ‘American Dream.’ They point out that most of the American citizens have not researched on their ethical influence at various working areas which has continued to affect their business productivity. For instance, most of Latin American citizens are discriminated due to their race and, therefore, acquire low quality education with poor research methodology. Therefore, they have developed ineffective life skills, which negate their search for better living standards. This has also adversely affected the attaining of the ‘American Dream.’

Conclusion

The write up has highlighted lack of effective life skills as a major factor that has clearly influenced various challenges that  American citizens are facing today. It has noted that the development of effective life skills is paramount for American citizens, as it not only addresses their behavioral concerns, but also enables them to make decisive and effective choices in life. The paper has pointed out that various economical and social challenges that American citizens are facing today, such as consumerism, can only be addressed if they start to effectively enhance their life skills. There is, therefore, the need for various stakeholders in America to sensitize on the equitable education program, so as to enhance effective life skills among the children, who form the basis for future economic and social stability.