Hillbilly Elegy

between him and a tree repeatedly. Just
as I felt I might pass out, he relented. I
was heaving, barely able to catch my
breath. “That’s how you should feel at
the end of every run!” he yelled. In the
Marines, giving it your all was a way of
life.
I’m not saying ability doesn’t matter.
It certainly helps. But there’s something
powerful about realizing that you’ve
undersold yourself—that somehow your
mind confused lack of effort for
inability. This is why, whenever people
ask me what I’d most like to change
about the white working class, I say,
“The feeling that our choices don’t
matter.” The Marine Corps excised that