Analyzing My Entrepreneurial Ambitions
What Draws Me to the Uncertainty of Self-Employment?
I knew this job would test me but I was not prepared for the lessons I’d learn. Having worked alone for almost 2 decades, I realize I love working with people from a distance. I don’t consider myself an empath anymore. I’m recognizing how much bullshit that concept is.
I am also realizing how my unhealed wounds are easily triggered by people who I don’t establish boundaries with.
I’m watching White Lotus and watching the interaction of the resort staff. As I figure out a way to acclimate to my new position, I’m confronted with a new lesson I need to work through - that of self-worth. It’s no coincidence that I’m battling a tough 2nd house transit. After seeing how far down the salary totem pole I am, the smack in the face moment is one where I may need to recalibrate my work ethic to align with my compensation.
The working world functions in a very exploitative way - either where employers will run you down or you do the overburdening for them. Maybe I’m biased. I’m an eldest daughter from a Roman Catholic Puerto Rican family where shame and sacrifice is our default setting.
In many ways, I’ve unpacked and heal from some of that toxicity but self-deprecation still creeps in. And now, this White Lotus show is not helping. Income inequalities is a passion point for me and I didn’t know how much until now.
The uncertainty of our own economic instability with these bullshit tariffs, the rounding up of Latinos and sending them to prison camps with the very likelihood of death, and juxtapose that with the indifference of people who’s lifestyle serve to remind us that we live in different realities…I’m beyond exhausted.
I feel defeated, anger, and as if I will always live as someone with a damaged root chakra.
When I want to rest, I hustle. When I want to break, I hustle harder. Nothing about my life has been about ease because whether it’s a core wound or the consequences of capitalism, my birthright is that of the help. I don’t consider myself a people pleaser but my desire to help speaks to how I may have been condition to not accept my soverignty as my own.
This might explain my desire for entrepreneurship. This might speak to why I advocate for self-expression and independence.
By freeing others to recognize their power and worth, maybe one day I’ll acknowledge my own.
I sometimes wonder if entrepreneurship is a trauma response.
Am I drawn to self-employment because I grew up in the projects?
Am I ambitious because I was taught that my worth is directly tied to what I can do for others?
Am I whimsical and quirky because fantasy is where I don’t feel invisible or hurt?
Am I a writer because I was made to feel like I had nothing of value to say?
I’m sure there’s a strong correlation between my vocation and the battle scars from my lived experience. I also think this is an example where “YES AND” applies.
I may have chosen my career path because of the impressions left on me as a child AND I’m choosing to use what I have in the best way that I can.
The world as we know it is constantly shifting and having a PhD in uncertainty makes me well prepared to pivot, reinvent, and start new at the drop of a dime. I could look at what shaped me as a blessing or curse. I could position my personality to thrive or hide.
So much of who we are and why we’ve embodied the version of us that gets to fully experience this lifetime is a gift in itself. We genuinely are spiritual beings navigating this human experience through the lens of toxic capitalism.
None of us are getting out of this alive and how we choose to play the cards we’re dealt is how we make magic where there’s none to be believed.
We all make sacrifices and hope they’re worth. More times than not, they won’t be. How we integrate the losses is just as important as how we celebrate the wins. All we can do is have faith that we are exactly where we are meant to be especially when we know we can be somewhere better.