A Search for Greatness

I came to America searching for a story I thought I already understood. 

I felt encouraged to abandon opportunities at home by an idea of a great country that was shaped by postwar photographs, speeches recalling the Marshall Plan’s resolve, and the quiet dignity of families working to rebuild. Woven through these images was a sense of greatness that needed no grand display. Sacrifice, restraint, and collective effort made this greatness visible, even when it went unspoken.

For a long time, my American Dream had a personal symbol. Lee Iacocca was my personal anchor, as he stood out as an icon of what American ambition could achieve. Saving Chrysler, supporting the restoration of the Statue of Liberty, championing consumer safety—his actions formed a narrative that suggested progress was as much about character as ingenuity. I saw in Iacocca the possibility that solving problems and protecting people could coexist with honoring a shared history.

For me, the Marshall Plan was more than a program—it became a blueprint for a certain kind of American character. In the late 1940s, with Europe in ruins, the United States faced a pivotal choice: retreat into isolation or invest in global reconstruction. By electing the latter, American leaders—most from the so-called “Greatest Generation”—channeled their Depression-era hardships and wartime experiences into a sweeping, civic-minded project. 

Generational theorists would later characterize this cohort as institution builders, their legacy marked by faith in shared sacrifice and the deliberate construction of long-lasting frameworks for stability. The Marshall Plan didn’t simply rebuild a continent; it set a precedent for what national responsibility could look like, embedding values of discipline, patience, and communal effort into the postwar order. Yet even as these values became touchstones for how America was seen abroad, another shift was already underway. My most enlightened friends outside the United States continued to believe that the country’s postwar ethos of opportunity and morality endured unchanged. 

They—and often our elders—offered advice based on the starry-eyed assumptions of abundance and access that defined the First and Second Turnings. In truth, by the time I arrived, the America I found was already in the long dusk of those eras, quietly preparing to enter the more tumultuous Fourth Turning. That mismatch in perception would have consequences: the encouragement I received to pursue the American dream was shaped by memories and ideals of a nation that had largely moved on, leaving me to discover a very different reality than the one I’d been promised.

When I arrived in the United States, the country was already in the midst of change. The years after 9/11 and before the 2008 financial crisis had strained the old sense of order. I left behind real opportunities in my home country, thinking I was stepping into an era of American stability and promise. Yet the landscape felt unsettled. Familiar institutions were losing their authority. The broad consensus I imagined seemed fragmented. The certainty I expected had given way to something less firm, as if I had stepped not onto solid ground, but a moving fault line.

Looking back, I wish I had better understood what I was joining. The optimistic narrative that drew me across the ocean was already dissolving. In its place, a louder and less unified story emerged. The rise of the Tea Party, which reached its apex during the Obama presidency, hinted at deeper divides—an early signal of the “Make America Great Again” movement to come. What followed was a period not of restoration, but of upheaval and generational confrontation.

During this time, my understanding of greatness needed reexamination. For years, the achievements of Lee Iacocca had embodied for me the American ideal. But on the day I traveled to Detroit to take my citizenship oath, something shifted. As I drove, I listened to Jim Collins’s From Good to Great. His argument questioned the value of dramatic corporate rescues and the myth of the solitary hero. Instead, Collins described leadership as an act of building—steady, patient, often unrewarded, but essential for lasting progress. Even Iacocca’s own legacy looked different when framed this way. Chrysler survived, but persistently struggled. Its future was less secure than the mythology suggested.

That morning, it became clear that what I admired was not always what endured. Real greatness, I realized, is often measured in the decades that follow the exit of a great leader.

There is a certain irony in the timing of my arrival. My outlook was shaped less by the era I entered than by the values I brought with me. If set on a generational timeline, my temperament would be closer to that of the Silent Generation than my own peers. I valued institutions, believed in patience over disruption, and found meaning in stability more than spectacle. Builders, more than iconoclasts, captured my admiration. For me, progress was something nurtured rather than forced.

This made adjusting to my new home more disorienting. I came looking for continuity and found conflict. I expected to join a shared project, only to discover heightened fragmentation. Yet, the American moment I entered was preparing for upheaval, while I was still clinging to the hope that institutions could be repaired and preserved.

Perhaps the greatest surprise has been watching my children, born here, inherit a temperament that echoes the one I carried from abroad. They come of age in a world shaped by uncertainty, yet their steadiness seems innate. In their lives I sometimes glimpse the beginnings of a different kind of renewal, one that finds strength in listening to the past without being pulled backward by it.

When considering the past decade through generational perspective, the contours become clearer. The Silent Generation recalls unity forged in crisis and careful rebuilding. For Baby Boomers, the idea of greatness splits between a longing for lost glory and skepticism about whether it existed at all. Generation X, to which I am closest by birth, tends to view grand narratives with detachment, looking instead for authenticity in smaller pursuits. Millennials focus on equity and sustainability, mindful of the ways old promises failed. The youngest, including my own children, live with the full weight of these burdens but also with fresh perspective, unencumbered by nostalgia.

We are now in a moment when American institutions are being tested as never before. Uncertainty touches public life and private hope alike. Finding a way through requires not slogans or spectacle, but the willingness to do slow, sometimes invisible work: to preserve what is essential, to adapt, and to know when to step aside. If my generation can serve as builders as much as critics, those who come next may not need to spend their energy on repairs. They could imagine something genuinely new.

Real greatness rarely announces itself. It arrives quietly, in legacies that last, in communities that care for each other, in leaders who recognize when it is time to let others lead. The future, as always, is uncertain, but perhaps that is where hope lies.