Four Lives, Four American Lies / Chapter 4: Samira—The Corporate Climber
Four Lives, Four American Lies

Four Lives, Four American Lies

Author: Susan Rodriguez

Chapter 4: Samira—The Corporate Climber

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This one’s about Samira—a University of Illinois grad who packed her Corolla with thrift store furniture and a dream of making it big in the Windy City. She gazed up at the Willis Tower on her first day and promised herself: "I’m going to matter here."

The El rumbled past her window as she microwaved last night’s takeout, the city lights blinking like a thousand restless ambitions. She landed a starting spot at a Fortune 500 firm, pulling twelve-hour days, her lunch always something she grabbed from a food truck in the Loop. The janitor knew her name because she was always the last one to leave, sneakers echoing on marble floors after everyone else went home to their families.

Most weekends found her at networking mixers, her phone buzzing nonstop with LinkedIn notifications. Happy hours were less about fun than about building her Rolodex. Friends from college drifted away as her world shrank to spreadsheets, boardrooms, and coffee dates with VPs.

Seven years later, her business card had “Manager” under her name. She’d made it to the glass-walled office, complete with a view of Lake Michigan and a line of plants she barely remembered to water. Her parents back in Decatur boasted to everyone at church about her promotion.

The promotion was a double-edged sword. The money was great, but the anxiety came with it—late-night emails, Sunday-night dread, the gnawing feeling that she was running on a treadmill going nowhere. Some nights, Samira would stare out at the city lights and wonder if she should’ve taken that road trip to California instead.

Sometimes, Samira called her mom from the office late at night, their conversations brief but layered with longing. She’d ask about the dog, the weather, anything but how she really felt—lonely, exhausted, but determined not to let anyone down.

My friend Samira has all the trappings of success—the apartment, the tailored blazers, the Delta SkyMiles—but she tells me something’s missing. “Is this it?” she asks on our calls, her voice echoing off high-rise windows. It’s the kind of question plenty of Americans know all too well, even if they’re too busy to say it out loud.

Would you trade freedom for security, or vice versa? Maybe you’d rather chase something even bigger—like a future that’s out of this world…

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