When You’ve Never Seen It Done Before: The Hidden Cost of Generational Knowledge

I didn’t take a lot of risks growing up. Not because I lacked ambition—

But because I felt like I couldn’t afford to fail.

When you grow up in survival mode, “risk” isn’t about reward.

It’s about danger. It’s about what might happen if the car breaks down, or if the check doesn’t clear. I didn’t have a financial cushion. There was no family safety net to fall back on.

Even doctor visits felt like a luxury. I remember canceling doctors appointments because I didn’t want to burden my parents. Every dollar was spoken for. Savings weren’t for dreams—they were for disasters.

My parents, like so many first-generation immigrants, came to America hoping for better. They worked long hours, never complained, and lived with the kind of quiet sacrifice that breaks your heart in hindsight. They gave me what they could. But what they couldn’t give me was a map.

No one told me how to navigate college tours—so I went alone. No one helped me fill out FAFSA—so I struggled through the forms myself. When I asked questions. I got scolded. Called stupid. I stopped asking.

My parents' version of success was simple and noble: Go to college. Get a job. Make money. Survive.

They weren’t wrong.

But they were working off an outdated map—drawn with limited tools.

So I followed it.

I enrolled in pharmacy school, like they asked.

I studied. I kept my head down. I tried to fit into a mold that never fit me.

When I failed out, I was ashamed. I transferred schools and changed majors—to Building Construction Management. But I couldn’t bring myself to tell my parents. I told them the “B” stood for Business. Because that was one of the “approved” paths: medicine, law, business. Anything else was too risky. Too foreign. Too hard to explain.

But the truth was—I wasn’t just limited by money or opportunity.

I was limited by something much harder to see: generational knowledge.

The Invisible Advantage

There’s a kind of knowledge that isn’t taught in school. It’s absorbed—by watching, by listening, by being in the room. It’s knowing how to ask for a raise, how to build a network, how to read between the lines in a performance review.

It’s knowing that sometimes the promotion doesn’t go to the hardest worker—but to the one who knows how to “show up” in a room. How to self-brand. How to navigate politics.

I saw this in real time. I’d start a job with peers who had similar roles. My work was just as strong—sometimes stronger—but they moved up faster. They asked for more. They got more. Their parents had been in corporate jobs. They’d seen it done before.

I hadn’t. It wasn’t just about race or class—though those mattered too. It was about exposure. Access. Permission. If you’ve never seen someone leap, it’s hard to believe it’s allowed.

How could I talk to my mom about the glass ceiling when she never knew there was a ladder? She worked in a candy factory her whole life. Promotion wasn’t a goal. Stability was. Branding? That was for products, not people like us. Not for people like us. I put myself in that box for so long because I just accepted that things like that just didn’t happen for people like me. 

I Didn’t Know What I Didn’t Know

When I saw someone “follow their dreams” or move to New York to become a writer or artist, I didn’t feel inspired—I felt envious.

Not because I didn’t want that life.

But because I didn’t know it was an option. I put myself in that box for so long because I just accepted that things like that just didn’t happen for people like me. 

When you’ve never seen it done before, everything feels like a risk.

Everything feels like a leap without a net.

• So we play it safe.
• We cling to what’s known.
• We do what’s expected.

And sometimes, we suffer in silence.

There was a time in my life when survival mode turned into despair. I was so lost, so consumed by fear, that I started to question my existence entirely. The only thing that kept me going was the thought that if I left this world, I didn’t want to leave behind debt.

Even my death felt like a budget line item.

It took hitting the lowest point in my life to finally uncover a deeper strength I didn’t know I had. In the darkness, something shifted. I realized this was my inheritance. My version of generational knowledge wasn’t corporate savvy or financial literacy—it was grit. It was adaptability. It was surviving when everything said you shouldn’t. My parents didn’t teach me how to negotiate a promotion, but they showed me how to keep going when the world felt impossible. They survived war. They started over in a foreign country. They raised five kids with no safety net. That’s not weakness. That’s a kind of strength most people will never understand.

The Cost of Playing It Safe

But here’s what I’ve learned:

Just because you’ve never seen it done doesn’t mean it can’t be done.

Just because your parents didn’t have certain tools doesn’t mean you can’t build your own.

And maybe—just maybe—the tools they did give you were exactly what you needed. Not the ones you expected. But the ones that got you through. That’s the quiet revolution of being first-generation.

• We don’t just survive—we rebuild.
• We don’t just walk the path—we carve new ones.
• We stop waiting for permission—because we’ve learned no one’s handing it out.

So we give it to ourselves.

• We’re the first to fill out the FAFSA.
• The first to sit in the interview room.
• The first to question what was always accepted.
• The first to imagine more—for ourselves and for those who come next.

Don’t let what you lacked define you. Play your strengths. Adapt. Learn fast.

And remember: you’ve already come further than you were ever supposed to.