Is The American Dream Achievable??

I have been wondering this quite a bit lately, I guess though the first step is going to be defining what the American Dream actually is.  I would say that at least from my perspective the American dream is to have a decent job with decent pay and benefits, to be able to afford to by a decent modest place of your own, and have a decent retirement when your working years come to an end.  Maybe this is childish or overly idealistic, but it is at least my version of  what the American Dream, and one that is very important to me, as well as finding that special man, and raising a family with them. Yet I wounder if big parts of the dream are achievable.

I know that I am lucky I work full time at a decent (union) job, with decent pay for the area that I live in. ($12.90 PH with raises over the next three yeas to over $13 PH) I have decent benefits, good insurance, a 401K, union pension.  I have worked at this job for 5 years, in other words since I was 18 (when I graduated HS) worked my way up the pay scale and seniority to journeymen.  I have saved my money avoided debt with my only debt ever being a car lone that was payed off 3years early.  I have never spent extravagantly and always saved but it seems that one of the key parts of my American Dream is still out of reach, and that would be the ability to afford a decent place of my own.  I don't have lofty expectations or desires for my first place, matter of fact to me the ideal first place would be a one bedroom condo,  I mean I'm only one person, I don't need tons of space and something that size would be easier to maintain and economical to "run".  I just get the feeling that no matter how much I do what I am supposed to in order to achieve this part of my dream I am perpetually one step behind, not only that but that every time I seem to be making progress the goal line gets moved further and further out.

I know at 24 that I do have some time, before I truly start to reach a point where I'm falling embarrassingly behind my other piers, yet I still feel like that goal line is ever moving out of my reach.  I have saved towards this goal since I was in HS, and started saving even more aggressively since I started working, I have saved up what should be a nice amount of money yet still dose not seem to be enough. which is funny when you see all those first time buyer shows where they often have just about the same or less saved up better then I what I have now.  Yet when you still live at home because luckily your parents like having you there and don't want you out the door any time soon, as well as the fact that because they don't charge rent I can stuff aside all that much more money into my savings that would otherwise just go into some one else's pocket, it still stings a little.

I could just be, being hard on my self, maybe setting my goals to aggressively but even now it seems like when I am  28 I might just barely be getting into reach of my goal unless prices fall a "nice" amount more, as by then I should if nothing goes wrong have something over 50K but it's looking like that might not even be quite enough to cover a down payment on a decent one bedroom condo. It's like I have done everything that one is supposed to do, work hard, live simply, and save, yet it seems my reward for doing so is to be laughed at for actually behaving that doing so was supposed to help you get anywhere and believing that I could ever achieve this goal of mine, yet I keep trying.  I don't know maybe at this point it is clinging onto a dream that will never be achieved, and just prolonging the joke, but I don't want to believe that. I want to believe that the dream is still alive and that I can achieve it. Then again maybe that hope is simply to childish and optimistic.