{"id":34246,"date":"2025-10-05T15:41:25","date_gmt":"2025-10-05T15:41:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/usa\/im-the-only-person-in-my-family-to-go-to-grad-school-and-become-an-entrepreneur-i-often-feel-guilty-for-making-it\/"},"modified":"2025-10-05T15:41:25","modified_gmt":"2025-10-05T15:41:25","slug":"im-the-only-person-in-my-family-to-go-to-grad-school-and-become-an-entrepreneur-i-often-feel-guilty-for-making-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/usa\/im-the-only-person-in-my-family-to-go-to-grad-school-and-become-an-entrepreneur-i-often-feel-guilty-for-making-it\/","title":{"rendered":"I&#8217;m the only person in my family to go to grad school and become an entrepreneur. I often feel guilty for &#8216;making it.&#8217;"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i.insider.com\/68dec4b85dbc4fd10daa1074?format=jpeg\" alt=\"a woman in graduation cap and gown looking down\"\/><figcaption>The author is the first to earn a master&#039;s in her family.<\/p>\n<p>Iuliia Burmistrova\/Getty Images<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<ul>\n<li>After going to grad school and starting my own business, I realized I had &quot;made it.&quot;<\/li>\n<li>I&#039;m the first in my family to do either, so I often feel guilty.<\/li>\n<li>I&#039;m trying to let that guilt go and break the cycle.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>I was lying under a cabana in Playa del Carmen, Mexico, working on my computer. My two children were playing in the sand 10 feet away from me. It was at that moment that I realized that I had &quot;made it.&quot;<\/p>\n<p>An overwhelming sense of pride swelled inside me, but almost immediately, it was followed by guilt. I was proud of everything that I had accomplished, but I felt guilty about surpassing my family.<\/p>\n<p>Being the first in anything is a huge accomplishment, but it comes with responsibilities that are often invisible. I&#039;m trying to move past these difficult feelings.<\/p>\n<h2>My education and entrepreneurial journey<\/h2>\n<p>Growing up as a first-generation American and as a daughter of an educator, college was a requirement. I started with an associate degree, but when I completed my master&#039;s degree as a salutatorian, I felt a deeper sense of achievement.<\/p>\n<p>Even while in school, I had an entrepreneurial spirit. I started a tutoring company, which laid the groundwork for what was to come next. After graduation, I founded Infusion Enterprises, a marketing agency, and today, I&#039;m running a tech startup called 4kiddos.<\/p>\n<p>As the daughter of a teacher and a hospital tech, I did not have a model for entrepreneurship. If you looked up trial and error in the dictionary, you would find my picture. Every milestone was built from scratch without a blueprint to follow.<\/p>\n<h2>The invisible weight of being first<\/h2>\n<p>Sometimes, I feel like I am the goal itself, setting the bar for what is possible in my family. But have I set the bar too high?<\/p>\n<p>I&#039;m also feeling the guilt of achieving more than all my family members. It feels like I&#039;m leaving some of them behind \u2014 even though I know I&#039;m not.<\/p>\n<p>It&#039;s tough to be a leader when there is no safety net. I wasn&#039;t born into generational wealth or with a silver spoon. If I failed, there was nothing to fall back on.<\/p>\n<p>I used to quietly grieve for what I did not have, such as a financial cushion, family business connections, and a road map. But that grief fueled my ambition. It made me driven, resourceful, and yes, sometimes a perfectionist.<\/p>\n<p>It doesn&#039;t stop there. As a mom, I feel guilty about not spending enough time with my kids. As a daughter, I worry about creating a legacy for the family name. For myself, I constantly feel like I am neglecting my own self-care.<\/p>\n<h2>Motherhood and building a new blueprint<\/h2>\n<p>Now I am both a mother and a business owner. My children hear my calls, see me in meetings, and watch me work late nights. They know I am building something bigger than myself.<\/p>\n<p>It inspires them. My son has told me he wants to start a business. I feel proud knowing I can provide them with the direction and support that I never received.<\/p>\n<p>Still, the guilt lingers. I wonder if I&#039;m doing enough for my kids. I often feel out of place in my family. They know I am always doing something different, and sometimes they think I am doing too much. But I cannot rest until I provide my kids with the foundation that wasn&#039;t given to me.<\/p>\n<h2>Breaking cycles while healing<\/h2>\n<p>I want it to be clear that everything I do is bigger than me. It is not just for financial security. It is about breaking generational cycles and healing simultaneously.<\/p>\n<p>I did not choose this journey; it feels like it chose me. But I am taking it stride by stride. Any time guilt resurfaces, I pause and reflect. I remind myself that I deserve everything I have worked for and more.<\/p>\n<p>&quot;Making it&quot; has not erased the weight, but it has given me the strength to carry it.<\/p>\n<p>Read the original article on Business Insider<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The author is the first to earn a master&#039;s in her family. Iuliia Burmistrova\/Getty Images After going to grad school and starting my own business, I realized I had &quot;made it.&quot; I&#039;m the first in my family to do either, so I often feel guilty. I&#039;m trying to let that guilt go and break the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":34247,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-34246","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-usa"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34246","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34246"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34246\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/34247"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34246"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34246"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34246"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}