Why Hard Work Still Wins in a World That Feels Like It’s Falling Apart

When I bought my first car, gas cost right around one dollar a gallon. What a time to be alive. Of course, I only made around $5.50 an hour at my pet store job, but the sky was the limit and I had money to burn. It’s crazy to look back and think about how so little money went so far. I don’t claim to understand how the economy works or what inflation means, but it’s fun to think back.

My first car—a 1987 silver Honda Accord—cost me somewhere in the neighborhood of $2,000. I worked all summer to save up for that car. My mom financed it for me, and between getting my learner’s permit and my sixteenth birthday, I had it paid off. I remember being so excited when I was able to get my worker’s permit at 15. Before receiving that permit, I did myriad odd jobs that relatives could pay cash for.

My brother and I cleaned up construction sites with our dad, cleaned our uncle’s sign shop, peeled vinyl letters off signs with our mom, mowed lawns, and even sold mistletoe door-to-door with our sister at Christmastime. We were creative with ways to earn money—and it was liberating.

My mom modeled a tireless work ethic when we were growing up and made it clear that if we wanted to have things in life, we’d have to work for them. I’ve always been averse to being given anything. It just feels wrong. If I can’t earn it, I don’t want it. I imagine that pride in self-reliance has stalled me in some ways—like when I worked in ministry. But overall, it has been a superpower.

If I want something, I know I can work hard to achieve it. I just have to do the dang work, and I can always work harder if I have to. I may not be the best or the smartest, but in most cases, you won’t outwork me. There’s a gear deep within me that I can hit if necessary to make ends meet.

The price of gas may have more than tripled since that first car, but the work ethic to keep the engine running hasn’t changed. The freedom of a full tank of gas still feels the same as it did when I was sixteen. The world can seem a little less idyllic these days, and our money doesn’t stretch as far as it used to, but there’s still freedom to better ourselves. That’s what makes our country so great—we have the freedom of choice.

Despite the economy, we have it truly better than so many other countries. And aside from the vitriol you hear on the local—and national—news, you can still be anything you want to be if you put in the work. There’s a beauty in sweat equity.

Maybe I’m naïve, but I still believe in the American Dream. I wouldn’t have raised my right hand to serve this country if I believed otherwise. We may not be where most of us would like to be as a nation, but we can get there again. I truly believe that.

It’s going to take some work. And more than individual toil, it will take us coming together and working toward something—rather than all of us working against each other. When we resist the urge to become tribal and silo ourselves in our respective camps, we begin to see the common humanity of our neighbors. Then we can begin to work together and make that dream possible for everyone.

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Stan Lake is a writer, photographer, and filmmaker from Bethania, North Carolina. His work has been published in Reptiles Magazine, Dirtbag Magazine, Lethal Minds Journal, Backcountry Journal, Wildlife in North Carolina, SOFLETE, The Tarheel Guardsman, Wildsound Writing Festival, and others. His poetry collection “A Toad in a Glass Jar” is scheduled for publication in late fall 2024 by Dead Reckoning Collective. He has written three Children’s books and one Christian Devotional book. He filmed and directed a documentary about his deployment in Iraq with the Army called “Hammer Down.” He spends most of his free time wrangling toads.

As the Voice of the Veteran Community, The Havok Journal seeks to publish a variety of perspectives on a number of sensitive subjects. Unless specifically noted otherwise, nothing we publish is an official point of view of The Havok Journal or any part of the U.S. government.