Dreams and Uncertainty.

Question:

The past year has felt like a couple of lifetimes. My mom found one of your audio books while browsing through the library and out of curiosity I looked up some of your other works and began to read them because I’ve been in a state of confusion for quite some time. I’m writing to you for a number of reasons. My father is 51 and quit his corporate job 3 years ago, to start his own company in Shanghai, China. A start-up company is a difficult feat, let alone beginning it in your late 40s. So far, he has used most of his and my mom’s life savings as capital for his business and the company has yet to turn profit.
My mom is an engineer and since his venture she has been our family’s only breadwinner. I know she wants to retire soon (she’s the same age as my dad), but can’t because my dad has yet to make money. Her job is quite stressful and I know she gets really frustrated because she feels like she has to work even though she doesn’t want to. Money is becoming tighter and tighter and we don’t know when the company will be able to support our family.
My dad works so hard every day and I know he feels so sorry for putting my mom and I through a start-up company even if he doesn’t say it. We all so badly want the company to succeed because so much time, effort, and money has been put into it not to mention the fact that if it does, it will allow my mom to move back to Shanghai to be with her parents during their last years. She has spent much of her adult life away from her parents since she immigrated to the United States 17 years ago. I feel like our family is stuck between a rock and a hard place. Does my dad stay to continue to try to make things work or come back empty-handed forced to go back to the corporate environment that he so gladly left?
I don’t know what to do or what to say. I just don’t know. How do you make a decision like that? Other people are amazed that my parents are still married because they only see each other a few times a year. My dad and I have a good relationship although I only see him a couple of months out of the year. I’m used to being away from him for long periods of time, but I can’t imagine how that must be for my mom as a wife. I know that I would not want to live like that if I was married.
I do believe in God and I tell myself that everything is going to be ok because we can only trust that God has whatever he has planned for our family, but what do you do in the meantime? I just don’t know when things are going to get better. Recently, I’ve turned 22 and have grown despondent because my life is one big state of confusion. I don’t like my job, but what I really truly want to do is something that I don’t know if I can do. I feel like it’s so far-fetched that I can’t even bring myself to tell you what it is. I’ve had this dream for a few years, but lately I’ve felt like I want to do it so badly that I just don’t want to do anything else. For so long I’ve been living for this dream that I don’t know if I can fulfill. If I could get my foot in the door and pursue this path, I would work so hard. The problem is, the industry that I want to go into is highly competitive and success is not determined by how smart or how impressive your resume is.
But, if I was successful I would be able to support my parents regardless of what my dad’s company becomes. I would like to give them everything they’ve given me and everything they’ve never had. I would like it if they could do things they really wanted, like travel the world, find their spiritual side (my mom is a little further along than my dad), and work for things they believe in because they’ve already spent so much of their lives working to survive.
I’m sorry that this is so long, I really haven’t put all these thoughts in writing before, but I just feel so helpless. Thank you for taking the time to read this and I would be so grateful for your response. Thanks again.