The family I come from has never really been into starting or running their own business. My family was always about getting a job from someone else, making a living, finding hobbies, starting a new family. My family was also about always wanting their children to have better lives than they did. That meant providing as much as they could for them, helping them out when needed, helping them to get a better education and so on. But because my family was never much into starting their own thing, I never really learned much about it.
I’ve never had a huge inkling to start my own business. I’ve never had an inkling to run my own business either, simply to do well and continue to progress in my career. Because of the problems I was having at my former place of employment, I was presented with this situation. A situation I now consider was a huge opportunity. A chance to try striking out on my own, with a partner that partially knew what he was doing, and to try something totally different. Something that could mean more to me than paper pushing and answering to people who really didn’t care.
I chose to give up a stable income. I chose to give up what was known, what was easy. I chose to begin a path that would allow me to create my own future. Albeit, hacking down the bushes in a jungle to start your path is a rough way to start, but sometimes you have no choice.
In all honesty we’re lucky. We looking into two entirely new markets. We’re learning tons about how things work within programming and how to start a business. We’re learning how to control our own bad habits and what financially is more important.
I used to think all I wanted was to have more freedom to my schedule, to have more flexibility. In part I was right. I wanted more flexibility, but I don’t think I ever realized how much I wanted the ability to be more challenged every day. Not challenged by the amount of work I had to do. Not challenged by the multitude of different people I had to understand in order to get my job done. But challenged by all the different and interesting tasks I could present myself with.
I get to write everyday. I write about myself and my challenges. I get to learn better ways to express myself. I get to learn how to program and understand technology better than I ever have before. I’m learning how to use graphic editing programs, which allows me to create art all the time. I can make beautiful things. I can write beautiful things. I can create. Best and worst of all I get to learn how to deal with my mistakes. The longer I work at this, the better I get to know myself. The better I seem to accept myself. I don’t think I could have made a better decision. Even if this business doesn’t pan out. Even if we have to put a stop to all these wonderful things, I will have been a better person because I had the time to learn who I was and what I was capable of. After feeling abused and harassed at my previous job, and despite the difficult challenges I put myself through, I don’t think any other path would have been as rewarding or as satisfying as choosing to start a business.