When you grew up among entrepreneurs, shop owners, and anyone without any fixed income, you should know that freedom has tremendous cost.

Every day is simply a survival, and it feels like everyone out there is out to get us. There is constant battle against business competitors. Sometimes, it is another battle against the tax officers who are like a hawk silently watching its prey-ready to strike. And knowing that it can feel like a constant battleground, some parents in this line of job will sing this song to their children just so it is something imprinted that they will never be like them.

“When you grow up, be a lawyer, a doctor, an accountant, work as civil servant, anything that will give you fixed income; even if you’re being lazy.”

These days, I understand the meaning of that broken record. It is their ways to break their generational trauma. These people know despite being highly educated and able to work for some company living the stable life, they ended up inhering their parents’ business especially when it’s something that has been run for generations. For these people, it’s like being sent to a war after being coddled as a prince or princesses.

They had their own dreams, being an engineer, works for a big company, thriving away from their parent’s nest but only to end up inheriting business without any damn clue on how to run it.

They were the first people that knew how hard running a business can be. They know that before their parents could even give them allowance, they will have to pay their workers and half of their earned income would be re-invested. Sure, there were golden days, but one mismanagement, things could go haywire and that comfortable life would soon be turn into a nightmare.

Would you risk it all?

Recently, my mom’s cousin, Anne, was re-thinking about starting a business. She wanted to quit her comfortable 9-5 job as an account officer at government owned bank. She is the poster child in our entire clan, the kind of woman who has it all. She is a comfortable 35-year-old woman, 2 kids, some properties, and anything you would call somebody successful would own and do.

She reached out to me for an insight on business trends and would want to quit her job soon.

“Are you okay?” In this tough economy where everyone is racing to start and open their business without knowing what entails, it sounds like a suicide mission at best.

I was wondering her mental health since that is something I would want to check out first. In this tough economy where everyone is racing to start and open their business without knowing what entails, it sounds like a suicide mission at best. Since most business do not really survive to their 3rd year and in her case, without really ever selling anything, how would she survive?

Just like my family, her family was also a wealthy business in town and gone bankrupt just over a decade ago. There is this commonality in our entire clan that as a third generation, business is no longer our forte. We are not really cut for it and lack of the skills needed for it. My aunt just like my mom is their third generation, well-educated but lack the skills for business. They lived the comfortable life, cared for with nannies, servants and barely left a finger. They did not even have to care about where to live next or what to eat tomorrow.

I did what a sane person could do, being the devil’s advocate.

I know firsthand how challenging it is lately. AI that soon would replace most of us, this tough economy where it is all swaying left and right in the blink of an eye, stocks and gold are not even the safest bet anymore. Nothing is safe. For someone who lives off on the edge for a decade now, I would honestly discourage her to start a business. But I still gave her questions that she could use to reflect.

How long is her runway? What are her business ideas? Why not start small and assess it?

The thing is, if more time is something that she wanted to have, that is almost impossible the first and two years of it. In fact, if you really want to make it, it is open 24/7 especially if it is the main income. You want more money, not less of it. You cannot be lazy or otherwise, it’s not going to generate steady income or any income at all. So, I tried to give her these consequences if she ever wanted to start something these days.

During some of the family get together, a lot of us even discourage her to start. We all speak the same hymn that business is not just for everyone. They experienced it, voiced out their trauma and just hoping that she would not proceed with that seemingly foolish plan.

In some cases, business should be treated as a side hustle

Even if 9-5 is not secure too these days with massive layoffs looming around, still if we could hold on to that steady income with extra bonuses why not? Business is just for side hustle. It should not be the main income, especially in her case. Nobody would be foolish to be on the fast-track of bankruptcy especially these days.

Even my cousin who inherited the savviness of the entire family did not really go on the business as main income routine. He could have inherited our sole surviving business and ran it. But he ended up working as a banker who sells things for hobby. In just 2 years, for 20 years old, he is doing well for himself. Some are like him too especially those who inherited the skills needed to start a business. They treat business as a side hustle rather than main income.

With our background, it is just the way we are wired that we’re used to sell things as a child or learned all about it. It is all fun and games for extra money. Somehow that experience growing up in such surrounding is like building a muscle memory of selling.It also gets easier as an adult. Most importantly the kind like us, learned one important lesson that money is everywhere, and we value every cent of it. But if you have never done it, that could be a little challenging and some perseverance are needed. Otherwise you'd get disappointed that after efforts made you'll be making a cent or nothing at all.

In the end, what life do really want? Are we going to chase the freedom of time that seem so futile?

There's also some dark side of it all that some practices might not seem that moral to most of us cause in business, it is really all blurry and you ought to have the guts to justify those things.In the end, what life do really want? Are we going to chase the freedom of time that seem so futile? Grass isn't always greener on the other side. And in our case case, restarting another generational trauma of living life on the edge and hoping the next generation would be bearing its emotional and financial weights of it all.

Somebody certainly must break all of it.