How You Become Us?

I always joke with my friends about things you essentially are not allowed to say unless you are a parent. You know… don’t make me turn this car around or you’re gonna poke someone’s’ eye out.

Or better yet:

- Don’t run around the pool!
- Don’t play in the street!
- Put on your helmet!

We start out when we are little and our parents strap us into car-seats. When we are teenagers, they drop us off at friend’s houses and make sure we ‘have everything.’ When we get our license and they hand over the keys for the first time, they look us all in the eyes and say: “Drive Safe.”

These risk adverse statements are constant reminders that we should not fool around and most importantly be secure. Life’s to short ‘to risk-it.’ For most of us, it is not until we head off to college that we stray down the more edgy path. But after all of these years… what makes us do it? What was the catalyst that set us out; desiring to be an entrepreneur? Some of us work for no pay and ‘equity stake’ of an (idea)… taking a chance - contrary to everything we were raised to do.

How can parents raise children to take the safe road, but support them if/when they stray from the path? An even better question is: What makes one path better than another?

Recently I decided to take a year off from Law School. My parents were very concerned. Law School unlike other institutional centers of learning require you to complete your entire education within four years of beginning; or you forfeit everything. Most schools do not allow you to transfer-in after you have spent over 50% of your time at another institution and most schools are not accredited for part-time education. Furthermore, you are not allowed to spend 20+ hours a week ‘working’ outside of your studies.

So here I am… 66% complete. 1 year away from graduating and 6 months left before I am forced to make my decision of whether I return and finish for my degree or sacrifice it all.

The experience I have gained as an entrepreneur has been AMAZING. My working experience has allowed me to grow as a professional and no classroom can teach what I have been put through (exception being Babson College… very cool school). But with so much invested (time, $, work) and my parents’ risk-adverse teachings, wouldn’t you think I would head back to school to finish my ‘fall-back?’

As for my parents… they are extremely torn. To one degree, they have conditioned me to be all I can be, do what makes me happy, and they genuinely do see the upside of what has and can come from my experience. On the other hand, they spent 18 years teaching me to look both ways before I cross a street and to always fall back on my education because it is the one thing no-one can ever steal.

I find it amazing that we go our entire lives conditioned to not take chances… and here we are fighting to make it to the top of an amazingly huge mountain. Well… I hope we all drank “plenty of water ☺"