The New Better Off: Reinventing the American Dream

Are we living the good lifeand what defines 'good, ' anyway? Americans today are constructing a completely different framework for success than their parents' generation, using new metrics that TED speaker and On Being columnist Courtney Martin has termed collectively the "New Better Off." The New Better Off puts a name to the American phenomenon of rejecting the traditional dream of a 9-to-5 job, home ownership, and a nuclear family structureilluminating the alternate ways Americans are seeking happiness and success.
Including commentary on recent changes in how we view work, customs and community, marriage, rituals, money, living arrangements, and spirituality, The New Better Off uses personal stories and social analysis to explore the trends shaping our country today. Martin covers growing topics such as freelancing, collaborative consumption, communal living, and the breaking down of gender roles.
The New Better Off is about the creative choices individuals are making in their vocational and personal lives, but it s also about the movements, formal and informal, that are coalescing around the New Better Off ideapeople who are reinventing the social safety net and figuring out how to truly better their own communities.
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Courtney E. Martin is an author, entrepreneur, and weekly columnist for On Being. She has authored five books, including Do It Anyway: The New Generation of Activists, and Perfect Girls, Starving Daughters: How the Quest for Perfection is Harming Young Women, and her work appears frequently in national publications such as the New York Times and the Washington Post. Martin speaks widely at colleges and conferences, including TED, and has appeared on the TODAY Show, Good Morning America, MSNBC, and The O Reilly Factor. She is the co-founder of the Solutions Journalism Network and The Secret Society for Creative Philanthropy and a recipient of the Elie Wiesel Prize in Ethics. She lives with her family in Temescal Commons, a co-housing community in Oakland. Read more about her work at courtneyemartin.com.
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