Eric Siu reflects on living rent-free with his parents and how his father's financial support let him take bigger risks without fear of failure. He acknowledges this is a privilege, but argues the stability made all the difference in what he could attempt.
Living at home afforded me a lot of opportunities that I probably would have not had otherwise because I wasn't paying rent. Right. And so when it came to taking on a risk, I had the support of my father in terms of just like free stay. He never asked me for rent payments. He never even asked me to pay the utilities. Like obviously I would try to help out, you know, throw him a couple hundred bucks every month, but he never asked for it. Wow. And so I think having that stability and also that to fall back on is coming from a place of privilege. So I need to acknowledge that. And I know that not everybody has that, but if you do have that, it can be a huge, huge leg up because you can take on some risk and not be too afraid to fail.
