The pursuit of the American Dream, and  Your lifestyle Has Already Been Designed, go together. Graff Birkenstein the Author of The Pursuit of the American Dream tells us about the struggle of some trying to reach this so called American Dream. Birkenstein has researched and gone undercover through the white and blue collar work force. Birkenstein's first thought of course the white collar work class would be less physically demanding, but also less stressful. This differs a lot from his final thought in his novel "As it turns out, I was wrong on all counts". Graff sees now that the white collar work requires a lot of off the clock work. Now in, Your Lifestyle Has Already Been Designed we read from David Cain and see how actually our whole life is set up. He explains the normal work day for a 9-5 employee, and the struggles of them. Cain understand the hard work week and what it requires as does Graff, however maybe its because of Graff's explanation on why we do the things we do leads to the unhappiness of the white collar workers. Everyone thinks they get the job they need and work the 9-5 however they don't think about all the extra hours that is required. So in our mindset through our begging of ones life is we go and do what is needed and then all we need to work is a simple 8 hour day. However after reaching the point of getting the job reality kicks in and this invisible curtain is removed from sight. Now the white collar worker sees how much work is actually needed and becomes depressed because we believe our life is going to be designed a certain way due to past accomplishments, however that always inst the case.