Though I’m not convinced Nike has proven itself to be a patriotic company, reflecting on America’s semiquincentennial does make me wonder if there is a more American slogan than “Just Do It.” One of my favorite things about the United States is that you can just do things. Though simple, this is nevertheless a crucial way to understand the American Dream. We should all be grateful to the Founding Fathers because they created a place where people can, within the bounds of moral decency of course, simply try, create, and attempt things they find value in doing. As this is the air Americans breathe, many fail to recognize its precious value, but such a gift should not be taken for granted.
Most people throughout time have lived under regimes that proscribed what their people could do and be. In contrast, the American Founding Fathers uniquely recognized and enshrined “the pursuit of happiness” as an inalienable right gifted from God. By fighting for this gift from God, the Founding Fathers gifted us with the particularly American opportunity to pursue happiness as we individually see fit rather than as directed by the powers that be. By consistently embracing the opportunity, the American “can do” spirit became an archetypal characteristic of the American identity.
I teach at a college, so I can proudly claim to be working at an American Dream factory. After all, higher education has advertised itself for decades as perhaps the key component to living the American Dream. Increasingly however, higher educational institutions have been viewed as financial scams that ideologically undermine their students’ belief in the American Dream. Too often, universities instead of celebrating American opportunity have convinced many that the system is against them. Even patriotic institutions, by peddling in degrees and licensure, inherently convey to students that they have to wait for official approvals to live their lives and dreams.
Though not the favorite stories of educators to tell, America is of course replete with billionaire dropouts standing affront to the notion that degrees are one’s meal ticket to riches. However, I don’t want to define higher education or the American Dream as a mere pursuit of wealth. Reflecting on several of my recent students has brought a clearer understanding of the American Dream to mind and a greater appreciation for our land of opportunity.
Nathaniel liked to walk back from our campus in western Pennsylvania to his home in central Ohio because he could. He likewise memorized G.K. Chesterton’s Ballad of the White Horse—over 2,600 lines of poetry that takes two hours to recite—to test and develop his mental capabilities. He took a job teaching in a private school but has also found the time to transliterate the Psalms into Elvish and publish it while also creating a boardgame for his students that helps them identify historic Christian heresies.
Chet quickly took a bride after college and backpacked with her to over 45 countries primarily in the third world working at various schools, missions, and charities. In just a few years, he has helped start schools from India to Virginia. His wife and their five children now cultivate “virtuous, life-long learners” by hosting high school students at their historic Sinclair House in Luray, Virginia.
This past school year I had the privilege of working with a student on a film project on the American Dream. When I went to introduce Will at a test-screening, I realized that at the same age that I had considered getting up for an 8:00 a.m. class an unfathomable burden, Will had not only made a documentary film but had married, become a father, evangelized around the world, purchased a home, and successfully started both a profit and non-profit company—all while I and my colleagues officially “prepared” him for adulthood. Now, his film, The Impossible Dream, which released worldwide on June 27, documents the story of inspiring everyday Americans who have also embraced living in the land of opportunity.
I briefly share these stories to highlight that all three of these individuals are living the true American Dream. They are not rich; they have simply embraced the fact that in America you really can pursue happiness by following your dreams. They have not waited until they were old enough, had permission, or sought others’ approval or endorsements. They just did it. They also recognized what Booker T. Washington recognized, namely, that the happiest people focus on helping others rather than themselves. They have pursued their passions and abilities to the fullest and are seeing where that leads rather than waiting for someone to hand them their white picket fence after filling out the correct forms. Theirs is the American way.
As has been well documented, young people today are marrying later and later and having fewer and fewer children. Both facts fit with the “slow life strategy” that has been endorsed for decades. While obviously the strategy has proven rhetorically attractive to many, the results as measured by actually achieving happiness seem disappointing. Postponing life to wait for the mythical “just right” moment to occur is just not traditionally very “American.”
As we reflect on the American Dream at 250, it is worth remembering that in America you still don’t have to wait for permission, license or approval; you can “just do it.” Don’t let the opportunities and right to do so pass you or your children by.