Most of us were brought up to employ ourselves, that is, to sell our services.
The prime example
In 90% of households, the head of the family was or is the provider of the economic income that will serve to meet all the needs that arise in the home, from housing, food, clothing, education, etc., which He achieves based on the work he performs in an industrial, commercial or state company as a "wage earner." Surely this example prevailed in the parents of our parents.
We get used to avoiding risks as little as possible, and as far as possible going the safe path. Having a stable job means that every week, decade, fortnight or month we will have an income that will serve to fulfill our life mission. Today this attitude is known as a comfort area or space.
In families in which the father was always independent, this way of acting was also copied, surely from his father, accustomed to not having economic dependence on companies or any third party, used to generating his own income, not only doing business, but also dissimilar trades such as carpenters, shoemakers, shopkeepers, blacksmiths, etc., there could be a tendency to repeat trades or activities for generations.
For the previous case, not only the example of independence prevails but also that of the trade or activity.
Time has been showing the new generations that there is no reason for the example to prevail and that it is necessary to think and act without ties, unless they really deserve it. And here the example prevails again, but this time so as not to repeat the activity or profession of their parents, basically because time taught them that continuity in the same did not offer the possibility of future progress.
The advancement of civilization has shown clear and rapid progress every day, full of technology and extravagant luxuries, some of which are difficult to achieve for people with meager incomes. The foregoing is related to the generation of accruals, some just others not, but used to meet a large part of personal and / or family needs.
The ambition to have the best and to be able, hopefully, to enjoy all the wonders that the modern world offers us have, indirectly, changed the approach of the new generations who in a respectable percentage are not thinking of being employed but in being entrepreneurs.
The governments of the world have been working in recent decades to instill in students the entrepreneurial mentality attacking it on the side of creativity and placing visionary examples such as those of Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Ramón Ramos, etc., some applicable examples others very far from being applied, but that should not be discarded as an example of life and success.
Education and employment
Education and opportunities in this regard have a lot to do with the vision that ordinary people may have in the sense of creating a company. A high percentage of the population, with adolescent children, only wait until they are of the age to produce before they go out to the labor market to get help for the family economy and so that they can somehow pay for their primary expenses in their personal life. Even very common in Latin American countries, very young boys and girls are forced to work in order to be able to support themselves and provide some kind of help to their parents.
We are educated under the philosophy that "he who does not study is nobody", that only the people studied will be allowed to advance and achieve progress. There is a lot of truth, like that, a lot of fallacy.
We were referring to children “forced” to work, those who manage to reach an older age, pre-adolescents and / or adolescents who, if they have achieved an intermediate education, must enter the labor market, for the reasons stated above.
When the child or young person begins to have the ease in handling money, all they will want to do is see how they get more, but very seldom will this thought be accompanied by the need to continue training, since they rarely instilled the relationship study / progress and indeed progress / income.
It is advisable that under no circumstances are children allowed to work.
Education and opportunities
Work or study? That is the dilemma.
The answer is contingent on the economic situation of the family and the valuation of the concept that progress and opportunities somehow go hand in hand with education.
It is common to think of supporting young people up to a certain degree (bachelor, or technician in some trade) to give them the foundations that they achieve "some" work relationship, hopefully, with some orientation towards their personal dreams, that is, what the young person wants to do, or whatever it is, but to be linked to work. At this stage, parents can seldom continue to exert some kind of influence on the thinking of young people, since from now on they will begin to fly alone, if this situation was not occurring before obtaining their first job.
What comes from here on is related to the personal interests of young people, their aspirations and dreams and how deeply rooted they are in their personal goals to think about the sacrifice of working and studying in a combined way.
There are many who have been willing to make this sacrifice for their own future and for the present of their family group.
It is never going to be easy to go to school, academy, institute or university after having completed 8 long hours of work in a company. But the truth, the sacrifice is worth the future results.
On some occasion I came across a poster on the Internet that read “Study they said… You will find a good job. They were saying…." The sarcastic thing about the phrase is that the poster is wielded by an unemployed person.
When I was a teacher, I constantly emphasized to my students the importance of study and the future possibilities that knowledge offers. And there were many occasions in which some argued that once they reached the objective of their studies, they would surely have to work in anything, except for what they studied, and what would be worse, accept poverty wages.
Going further, some made comparisons with income. They made fun of what they could earn compared to what people engaged in informal jobs and many times without any type of education could achieve.
Wage justice
I consider wage justice, that people earn a fair wage, according to their knowledge if they are being applied in their work or trade.
Wage justice does not exist. In our country, for example, all employment situations want to handle it with the minimum wage or with figures very close to it.
If there is no wage justice, social justice is entangled in these parameters: Study / progress.
Salary levels are set by the market. If there is demand and there is no supply, wages will be fairer. But what hope is there when the offer exceeds a job opportunity by hundreds.
Trying to hide reality is difficult, there is much truth in the above.
Undertaking: an opportunity
We are going to refer to forced entrepreneurship. And we are going to define them as the only option that some people have when after working for many years in the private or public sector, they become unemployed, due to unexpected circumstances and even with a great burden of personal and / or family responsibility.
Although its vital energy is present, the years of life inexorably take it out of the market. Age discrimination begins. Employment is not possible, but the need to generate income persists.
The solution at first glance is to "create a company", become an entrepreneur. And the million dollar question is what do I do? Or what do I do?
Many people take advantage of their work experience. Some will have the knowledge and experience to start walking alone. Others, it will simply be up to them to improvise and in improvisation there is danger, and in danger the fear of risking the few resources available for this new adventure.
At this point, how useful is having a good knowledge base? And it could be the case of entering the stage of lamentations: if I had studied, it would be something else, etc.
Fighting fear: complicated
Fear can give us the possibility of being cautious, but it can also close our eyes to opportunities.
Many are the people who enter business life as entrepreneurs driven by adverse circumstances: a dismissal or the untimely closure of the company for which they worked. Oros, they have simply been planning, saving and cementing their idea over time, until the moment they decide to embark on the adventure of creating a company.
The latter will be clear about where they are going and their objectives well defined. The natural fear of adventure will not disappear, but they will be accompanied by a high dose of personal confidence, which will provide them with enough mental support to achieve the proposed goals.
The opportunity is in trying to be independent. In creating a company and when we reach this goal, we must not forget about social justice and the right to opportunities that all human beings have.
