I, a gambling-averse senior, am willing to bet that at some point during your four years at Wash. U., someone is going to ask you to define the American Dream. It might be your lit professor, it might be the next Graham Chapel speaker (hey, Bristol!); it probably won’t be that “female, red hair” you posted about anonymously on likealitle.com, but, hey, you never know.

A few possible answers (if you’re taking notes, see the Section 1839573957 of the University’s academic integrity policy, which explicitly prohibits plagiarizing from “that column you saw in StudLife”): The American Dream is having the opportunity to succeed, no matter what your background. It’s owning your own home and your own car. It’s participating freely in the democratic process. It’s King’s dream. It’s Gatsby’s dream.

The tricky thing about this dream is that it is malleable, fickle even; it’s like the dream you had one night when you were seven, the meaning and details of which have shifted over time. It means different things to different people, and yet it is perhaps our country’s most singular point of reference.

In his State of the Union address this week, President Obama laid out his own vision of the American Dream. He spoke about the promise, now increasingly out of reach, that hard work could guarantee people “a job for life, with a decent paycheck, good benefits, and the occasional promotion.” He characterized our nation’s founding principle as “the idea that each of us deserves the chance to shape our own destiny.” In his conclusion, he talked about the dream “that says this is a place where you can make it if you try” and that “this is a country where anything’s possible.”

It was an eloquent and moving outline of a dream worth preserving. An America where everyone is offered the chance to reach his or her full potential is a worthy ideal and should be our country’s foremost aspiration.

And yet there are other definitions of the American Dream, definitions that are less ideal and that are past their expiration date. The American Dream should not be a constant search for more. It also should not be purely an individualistic pursuit.

The first objective is problematic because it can never be fulfilled. Big, bold ambitions are essential to the greatness of this country, but if we do not limit ourselves to an achievable standard, we will be a country that is always unsatisfied, always looking for a bigger house or a better place. It is this version of the American Dream that created mortgages we could not pay and an economic bubble we could not sustain.

The second objective has deep cultural roots, but it is also flawed. The American Dream is not American at all, nor is it much of a dream, if it does not extend to everyone. We cannot be just a nation of cowboys; we need to be a community, one that extends its arm to those at the bottom and supports those who fall.

As college students at an elite university, we are uniquely positioned to choose our own American destiny. One option is that we forget the financial collapse, go to Wall Street, become investment bankers and make a lot of money selling things that do not really exist. Then we can lobby the government for tax cuts.

Or we can do something better. We can heed the president’s call and become teachers. We can become the pioneering engineers and entrepreneurs behind clean energy. We can cure diseases. We can invent the next Facebook.

Either way, our own futures will almost certainly be successful. The only open question is whether we will choose to lift up our country and our world along with us.