(RNS) The setup was perfect.

I was reading comments on a LinkedIn group about job satisfaction. A “disillusioned commercial real estate attorney looking for more fulfilling career” had asked if anyone in the college alumni group liked their jobs.

His query sparked 13 comments from people who like their work. Their themes: do something that makes a difference, help people, take risks, don’t worry about big paychecks, pay attention to “quality of life,” and be prepared to change and to keep on learning.

This was a small sample, but it sounded applicable to the larger pool of people who have choices about their employment. I was intrigued that these satisfied workers had found their callings mainly in helping other people, not in striving for wealth or acclaim.

I was preparing to leave the page when I noticed the catchy slogan of an ad by Shell Oil: “Let’s go.” Just two words. It reminded me of Nike’s “Just do it.”

These two words expressed a conviction that “go” was an option — freedom to move, opportunity to try, the future a promise unfolding. Take action, it suggested. Don’t stop, don’t settle.

In effect, that was the message of the satisfied workers. They had started and kept moving, not settling for work that is stifling. They had taken their lives seriously and gravitated toward work that took them just as seriously, offering hard, challenging problems to solve, enabling them to have integrity and be honest.

The way I see it, this is the actual “American Dream.” Not two cars in every garage, not great wealth, not a suburban fortress. The dream is about freedom, expressed in movement, in opportunity, in the realizable magic of making a difference.

The dream’s soundtrack has been to stay in school, go to college, make sure you have choices, hone a skill, form a network, offer to help, start something. Even when doors seem closed, the dream goes, believe that another door will open tomorrow. Every day countless people show up for work and hope that today will be the start of something big.

The great tragedy of an unending recession brought on by relentless greed and corruption is that this dream is dying. Fewer and fewer people have any work at all, and fewer of those who do have work believe it will lead anywhere. People feel trapped, unable to imagine anything better, watching income sag and job satisfaction plummet.

Too many people are afraid or unable to retire. Many feel so stuck they have turned inward and angry. For every 20-something hitting it big in Silicon Valley, there are dozens of others who have stopped hoping.

Not only have the fortunate few sucked the life out of the system and made sure that only they will get the luxury of being free, now they tell the dream-starved it’s their own fault. They should never have tried to live above their station — although banks were happy enough to finance their allegedly inappropriate dreams, and entire industries materialized to turn life-dreams into shopping sprees.

The 1 percent insists on seeing the 99 percent as wanting to be like them. They miss the point. Today’s ferment is about wanting freedom and opportunity, jobs that matter, lives of real challenge, and not the phony challenge of paying off debt into which the 1 percent lured them.

Occupy Wall Street isn’t about money. It’s about wanting the American Dream back.

(Tom Ehrich is a writer, church consultant and Episcopal priest based in New York. He is the author of “Just Wondering, Jesus” and founder of the Church Wellness Project. His website is http://www.morningwalkmedia.com. Follow Tom on Twitter @tomehrich.)