Real redneck here. Didn't want to be like my cousins for the longest time. Society said social mobility was most important. It sucked trying to move farther and farther from my roots. What became truly fulfilling was doing the things my grandfathers did. Running a sawmill, growing vegetables and canning. Raising livestock. Wound up buying property and building my own house. Struggling while building my own home feels immensely more free than working for someone else. The last year I worked for someone else was in real estate. My last paycheck in that job was 38k. The accumulation of money is vastly inferior to the building of my own home with my own tools and my own hands