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Want to see the world and experience other cultures? The Peace Corps may be right for you. Each year, approximately 15,000 to 18,000 Americans apply to serve. While locales vary from year to year, present opportunities range from the islands of Jamaica and the Dominican Republic, to the mountains of Nepal and Peru. Volunteers serve in China, Madagascar, South Africa, and 50 other countries around the world.
 
Since its founding in the midst of the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union, the Peace Corps has become the best-known volunteer-abroad program available to American citizens. However, that doesn’t mean it hasn’t had its share of critics: 1960 presidential candidate Richard M. Nixon claimed it would become a “haven for draft dodgers,” while an editorial in the Harvard Crimson said that “the Peace Corps is arrogant and colonialist in the same way as the government of which it is part.”
 
However, a 2011 Rasmussen Report survey indicated that almost two-thirds of adult Americans now have a favorable opinion of the Peace Corps. And a 2011 survey of volunteers run in part by the Peace Corps found that the program has had a very positive effect on those who sign up for it:
90% rated their experience as excellent or very good.
92% said it changed their lives.
98% would recommend the Peace Corps to their child, grandchild, or other close family member.
 
Over the past 50-plus years, young Americans have joined the organization in droves seeking to help others, learn the ways and languages of different cultures, and gain an advantage in the job market when they return.

Origin of the Peace Corps

In 1961, the world’s superpowers were in the midst of the Cold War. The Soviet Union and the United States faced off in Berlin, resulting in the Soviets building a wall separating East and West Germany. A CIA-sponsored military invasion to overthrow Cuba’s President Fidel Castro ended with the disastrous Bay of Pigs invasion and set the table for another face-off in 1962 with the Cuban Missile Crisis. Halfway around the world, Southeast Asia was considered the pivotal point in the war between communism and democracy, leading President John F. Kennedy to commit special forces, military equipment, and financial support to South Vietnam.
 
While the Peace Corps mission is to “promote world peace and friendship,” the competition between superpowers was a major factor in its creation. President Kennedy recognized that the Soviets “had hundreds of men and women, scientists, physicists, teachers, doctors, engineers, and nurses…prepared to spend their lives abroad in the service of world communism.” Kennedy wanted a counter-program that involved “Americans more actively in the cause of global democracy, peace, development, and freedom.”
 
As a consequence, the Peace Corps was founded by executive order on March 1, 1961, and authorized by Congress later that year. The first group of 51 volunteers arrived in Ghana to begin their service. By the end of 1961, more than 500 volunteers were serving in nine host countries: Chile, Colombia, Ghana, India, Nigeria, the Philippines, St. Lucia, Tanzania, and Pakistan. By 2015, almost 220,000 Americans had served in 140 separate countries.
 
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“Each new generation born is in effect an invasion of civilization by little barbarians, who must be civilized before it is too late.” Those words of American economist Thomas Sowell from his book “A Conflict of Visions” sometimes offend new parents who, looking at their precious bundle of joy, can’t imagine the stubbornness and temper tantrums that await them. Infants are born demanding their parents’ full attention. They are easily frustrated and often defiant. Fortunately, as they grow, they are capable of learning empathy, cooperation, and sharing – skills that are essential as they mature and interact with others.
 
You are your child’s first teacher. The years between two and four are the “age of imitation,” according to Phyllis Magrab, Ph.D., director of the Georgetown University Center for Child and Human Development. “Toddlers watch you closely and mimic what you say,” she explains. For better or worse, parents are the earliest and greatest influence upon children’s behavior, and that motherly and fatherly impact extends far beyond childhood into adulthood.
 
When the Christian Bible talks about the “sins of the father” afflicted upon his children, it may be referring to the significant impact parents have upon the actions and feelings of their children and the adults they become. Countless adages reflect similar thoughts: “The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree,” “A chip off the old block,” and, “Like father, like son.” As poet Maya Angelou said, “I became the kind of parent my mother was to me.”
 
The greatest lesson that parents can teach their children is respect for themselves and others. Manners – actions that exhibit self-restraint, soft speech, and thoughtful gestures – are visible expressions of respect. Manners affect and define character, the essence of who we are inside.
 
Good manners are not the province of the wealthy, the educated, or the gifted. Rather, they are available to every person, regardless of social or economic circumstance.

Benefits of Good Manners in Children

Aside from the pride parents feel when their children make a good impression on others, the benefits to the children are immense. Those who have been taught proper manners are better prepared to cope with stress and adversity gracefully. Manners help build social skills that are essential when meeting new people or behaving properly in new situations. Further benefits include the following:
 
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In 1931, historian James Truslow Adams defined the American Dream as the “dream of a land in which life should be better and richer and fuller for everyone, with opportunity for each according to ability or achievement.” The growth of America’s middle class, especially after World War II, seemed to validate the premise that wealth and security were within the grasp of anyone who worked hard. Between 1945 and 1979, gross domestic product growth averaged 10.69% a year, and the number of families in the middle class exploded. According to figures from the Economic Policy Institute, productivity and worker compensation grew together until 1979 when the link between productivity and wages and salaries was severed. For decades, the formula worked.
 
Since that time, productivity has increased 64.9% while compensation has grown just 8.0%. To add insult to injury, the compensation gains went primarily to the top 1% of wage earners, growing 153.6 % – greater than the rate of productivity increase, and four times faster than average wage growth. As a consequence, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, the top 1% of American families have captured the bulk of the gains of productivity, increasing their income and wealth, while 80% of American families have not kept pace with inflation.
 
Is the American Dream out of reach of most people today? Many things are becoming out of reach for the middle class, including new automobiles, college educations, and a secure retirement. CBS Money Watch described the situation as “America’s incredible shrinking middle class,” noting that the proportion of residents described as middle class in every state has declined over the past decade.
 
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the vast majority (82.5% as of June 2015) of American workers are employees. As a consequence, their income and position depend upon their ability to successfully climb the corporate ladder. In other words, most workers must compete with their fellow employees for job promotions and salary increases. It is a Darwinian environment where a select few gather the top rewards – position, community status, high income, and security – while the majority share the leftovers.
 
If you aspire to the upper levels of management – with its rewards of high income, perquisites, and benefits – you should recognize that luck is not the only factor that separates winners from losers. There are specific techniques that can be mastered to separate yourself from competitors and achieve the American Dream.

1. Own Your Destiny

Many people are passive about their careers, either due to a belief that management will recognize their superior talents, or due to a lack of understanding about how promotions and benefits are rewarded. They believe that doing their job consistently is enough to justify additional compensation and higher position.
 
As a consequence, they receive minimal pay increases and few promotions. Within a few years, they become disillusioned and disgruntled, trapped in unsatisfying jobs, but unable to leave the security of a regular paycheck. Rather than controlling their future, they are dependent on the whims and generosity of superiors.
 
The era when an employee could exchange time and effort for long-term security and a decent retirement has long passed, if such conditions ever existed. The march of technology, the growth of borderless markets and competition, and the erosion of corporate social responsibility has changed the workplace forever. Forbes recognized that “the old ways just don’t apply anymore in today’s fiercely competitive marketplace… The economy is too uncertain; the business cycle has accelerated too much – and people have changed. That old contract is gone, never to return.”
 
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A Pew poll from March 2015 reports that more than 80% of Americans are concerned about their savings, and seven out of ten worry whether they have enough money to cover their expenses. Yet since 1960, the personal saving rate in the United States has been inconsistent and generally trending downward, ranging from a high of 17.0% in May 1975 to a low of 1.9% in July 2005, according to the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis as reported by the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. In April 2015, the rate clawed its way up to 5.6%.
 
However, failure to reach financial goals is not necessarily caused by lack of effort or desire. Despite the best of intentions to save money, adhering to a personal budget can just as easily lead to a cycle of deprivation and overspending as it can a hefty bank account.
 
Some have suggested the reason that Americans live beyond their means is that there’s simply a dearth of available information to guide them. However, a recent survey of Amazon.com indicated the availability of more than 58,000 books dedicated to saving money. Likewise, television and radio shows about saving fill the airwaves, and sample budgets abound on the Internet.
 
Additionally, 223,400 personal financial advisors provide advice as of 2015, and the field is growing “much faster” than average relative to other professions, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics. It seems clear that there’s another reason budgets are not as successful as they ought to be.

Why Budgets Fail

A budget is a plan to reach a theoretical level of financial health in the future, with a focus on reducing spending and growing income. Budgets tend to fail because they are improperly planned, poorly implemented, or both. More importantly, the roots of failure can frequently be traced to our natural human tendencies that have been evolutionarily hardwired into our psychology.
 
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