The American Dream

Explaining where I came from and how I grew up.

I said I was going to focus on writing more in 2024, and so far I just haven’t found anything that really caught me as necessary or important. Not that there aren’t very necessary and important things going on in the world these past few weeks, but I really want to spend more time focusing on positives and being intentional toward that end. This came up as part of a different conversation, and was suggested that it would make for a good piece, so here we go!

I have noticed that I tend to have a more optimistic view of the things going on in the world than a lot of other people; especially people who are chronically online and spend a lot of time on social media. I also have noticed some patterns throughout my life that align with some of the behaviors and attitudes I see, both in the real world and online (yes, the internet is real, but it is also not reality, and being able to separate the two can play a huge role in how you view the world…more on that later perhaps).

I want to start with why it is I believe I generally have a more optimistic outlook. I wouldn’t ever call myself an “optimist” per-se; I tend to be more of a realist who hopes for the best, but I certainly am not black pilled or a “Doomer.” And I’ve tried to think of the best way to explain this without it coming across as braggadocios or having an “I’m better than you” tone to it. I have, without a doubt, had a better than average life, and that has most certainly played in to my outlook on things. So let’s begin…

I was raised in the American Dream. Grew up on a nice family farm in the rural heartland of the Bible Belt. A close farm community filled with good churches and great families who were all very tight. My grandfather was the former Sheriff and was on the board for the county electric co-op. My dad was a former Magistrate and served on the Ag Credit board. My mom was a preschool teacher at the school. Our family was well known and well respected. The name Campbell carried weight and respect in our community. Although we didn’t have a lavish lifestyle by any means, we were by all accounts well off and I never wanted for anything. My dad was also a very successful land appraiser and was well known and respected across the region for the work he did for the farmers, banks, and ag lenders all across western Kentucky and Tennessee. Because of all of that I had the opportunity to travel and enjoy some very unique and awesome experiences seeing different parts of the country and meet people from all over the place. I had a damned good life!

I happen to think I was pretty impressive myself as well. From early on I was always one of the smarter kids in my class and got to participate in all of the “gifted” programs that were offered at school. Once I got to High School I took all of the Honors and Advanced classes, was one of only 3 students to have enough math credits to take Calculus as a Senior, and finished Top 5 in my graduating class (granted, it was a small class, but still). I was also a 4 sport letterman in football, basketball, baseball, and track, and was captain of every team at some point. Class President, officer in almost every club the school had to offer, and pretty well had my run of the school. Daughters of the American Revolution Good Citizen Award winner twice, when you were only supposed to be able to win the award once! And then I went to college on scholarship, first to Mississippi State on an academic scholarship where I then got the opportunity to work for the Women’s Basketball team (who were Top 10 in the nation that year and had two players who went on to be #1 and #2 draft picks in the WNBA Draft), which opened me up to later get a scholarship working for Murray State University’s women’s basketball team after I took some time to play basketball on scholarship for a small college in Tennessee. All of this opened up more opportunities for me to travel and live a unique experience that only a small percentage get to have. Of course I was also in a fraternity (Kappa Sigma) which I had the privilege of being a founder at Murray State.

Then I graduated college with a Bachelor’s in Agribusiness and got a great job right away. And with that job I got more opportunities to travel the country, work in different places with different people, see and do things most people never think of much less get the opportunity for, and make a ton of money in the process. Arguably I was successful everywhere I went in everything I did. I got married, had kids, bought and sold houses and always made money on them, and truly had a good life. Better than most will ever get close to.

I also got fired, got divorced, and started all over again making about the same money I was making working part time jobs in college. I struggled with drinking problems and feeling like I was spinning out in life without any real direction. Felt like I was failing as a father and as a man. I then met my wife and we started building an amazing life together for us and all of our kids. I started building a new reputation of success in my new job and quickly climbed from maxing out credit cards to keep the bills paid to paying off debt and building up savings like I had never been able to do even when I was making twice as much money. Now we have a small amount of land, multiple houses, great incomes, and can provide everything we could ever hope for for ourselves and our children.

I was raised in the American Dream, had it almost handed to me on a silver platter, pissed the whole thing away, and then rebuilt it all even better than before. For many people, that dream is just a pipe dream. They can’t even imagine achieving it at all. For me, it’s the thing I’ll never settle for living short of, and I’ll bust my ass to keep it and build it back better if I ever lose it again. Which brings me to the next part of this, which is the mindset of that American Dream. The patterns, behaviors, and attitudes I mentioned in the second paragraph.

My wife and I spend a lot of time observing and discussing what we call the “poverty mentality.” It’s a lifestyle of constant victimhood. No matter what opportunities are presented, there’s always the inevitable failure. Something always comes up, something always happens, circumstances always create that return to poverty. After observing it over and over, you can almost pinpoint when, where, or how it’s going to happen. People living in that poverty spiral don’t lack for the opportunities to get out of it; they just can’t seem to ever grab on to anything and take hold of the dream…and back down the pipe they go. And they keep looking for the excuses to go back down that spiral. Be it their parents, the economy, the place they live, the government, whatever. There’s always something to grab on to and let it drag them back down. They get comfortable there. They stop looking for the thing that will take them up out of it. They become black pilled, “doomers;” they look for the excuses to fail before ever trying to find the paths to succeed.

My wife objectively did NOT grow up in that American Dream that I did. If anyone had a reason to have a “poverty mentality” it would be her. I won’t go deep in to her past, and she has an amazing family, but for all of the benefits I had growing up, she had none of those. And yet she had the will and drive to build that dream long before we started building it together. This world is one filled with opportunities to create a life others will envy. And the black pilled doom spiral riders will think you had some privilege or leg up that they could never get themselves, but the truth is they never had the will to reach out and grab that opportunity when it showed itself. Because they would rather wallow in their own victimhood than bust their balls to grab that dream and make it a reality.

If you’re trying to grab it, don’t let them drag you down with them. If you think you’re in that spiral, it’s time to stop looking for the next thing that’ll drag you back down and find the will to break that cycle. I promise you it’s there. It might not look like the thing you hope it will (God knows it didn’t for me the second time around), but I’d bet that’ll make it all the sweeter and the reward all the greater.

Didn’t mean to get preachy. But also, maybe I kinda did.

"I am not a product of my circumstances, I am a product of my decisions." - Stephen Covey