On inheriting the survival-first mindset

When you’re mingling at a gathering and the question of “what do you do?” pops up—do you feel good about your answer? Do you answer with confidence?

I never enjoyed telling people that I do design. Whenever I introduced myself as a designer, I felt like I was settling. Then again, I don’t think I’ll ever enjoy labeling myself or what I do as any singular thing. Happily, I’ve been able to avoid this discomfort for two years because in Berlin, talking about work isn’t a thing—passions and life matter more here. It’s not that I never cared about design, it’s just that I didn’t choose it for meaningful reasons.

In a conversation with a visiting friend, we talked about how difficult it is to move on from something when you’ve spent years doing it, and people keep telling you that you’re good at it. But being good at something doesn’t mean you should continue doing it, and it definitely doesn’t mean that it’s what you want to be doing.

Being good at something could just mean that you’ve found a talent or built some skill that others consider valuable and are willing to pay for (apologies for the lack of romanticism). Sometimes, it perfectly aligns with what you consider to be meaningful work. If this is your case, that is wonderful—please appreciate it. For many of us, this isn’t the case. Many of us learned to cling to the thing that we’re good at, or have become good at, because it’s how we’ve learned to contribute to society. We haven’t been taught how to separate “being valuable” from “meaningful work”.

“I wonder if it’s an immigrant thing”, I remember my friend saying.

This comment was the catalyst that turned my notes into this essay (thank you, B). It explains why conversations about privilege and value have always felt so not straightforward to me. Being a child of immigrants means navigating contradictions that are hard to explain to others. It means accepting that there are parts of you some people won’t ever understand, and that this is okay.

Occasionally, I’ll meet a fellow Hungarian, and sometimes they’re curious about which district I call home in Budapest. When I mention the 1st district, there’s often a moment of recalibration. A subtle shift happens as they place me geographically and perhaps socially. The 1st district and the “Buda” side of the city tend to be shorthand for privilege, you see. I know that the reactions aren’t malicious, and it doesn’t always happen, it’s just human nature to categorize. I just find it melancholic because it creates distance where there might have been room for connection.

These encounters tend to stir mixed feelings in me which has historically resulted in mixed reactions from my end. Sometimes, I’d get defensive. I’ll say things like “not everyone in the 1st district is rich”, or “we’re not rich”, or “there are plenty of rich people on the Pest side”. Other times, my voice would go quiet, and I find myself agreeing with a “yes, it’s where the rich people live”. All of these statements are true. All of them also point to my own difficulty to reconcile the contradiction of having had a privileged childhood, but also living with this inherited lack—an ambient shame of being an immigrant who once had nothing. If I could go back to these conversations now, I’d want my conversation partners to be curious. I’d want them to know that not all privilege is handed over on a spoon.

These days, I’m tired of being coerced into acknowledging my privilege, and I’m also tired of reminding others of theirs. Not needing a visa to live and work somewhere is a privilege. Having access to free education is a privilege. So is growing up in an environment where people look like you, having supportive parents, or having natural charm. I could go on and on. There are literally so many kinds of privileges, so why penalize each other for what one of us has and the other doesn’t? Why focus on our differences, on what we lack?

Not having to do what you don’t want is perhaps a privilege we all want but very few of us get. Many pieces of self-help content convince you that it’s kinda sad to do work you don’t want to be doing. I bought into this. I was also shown that you can ambitiously force your life to a place where you’re mostly doing what you want. Follow some of the people connected to the San Francisco tech scene, and you’ll see what I mean. I’m grateful for this, and I still feel inspired by this small subset of the tech bubble that I’ve brushed against but never merged with.

My story is different.

I watched my parents work tirelessly to provide me and my brother a life of more security and privilege than they ever had access to. They made it happen. They managed to move our family (just me at the time) from the 19th district of Budapest to the 1st district. They started from nothing, picking up a comically difficult language from scratch, selling things at markets, and starting businesses with no support or experience. They did it all by doing work that provided value rather than work they enjoyed, constantly in survival mode, and never stopping to ask if they need rest or give themselves even a few minutes to dream. Their dream was us. “Everything we do is for you.” I can still hear the echo of this household ringtone.

Time has gradually revealed to me that I have inevitably absorbed this survival-first mentality from just being around them, even though my own stubbornness and need for independence has taken me far away from my familial values. Their hypervigilance lives within me in the form of overthinking. I alternate between feeling abundant and scarce. The topic of money manifests an imaginary stone in my chest that weighs on my stomach. The lower baseline of trust in people and lack of innate safety—I could write an entire piece on my struggles with not feeling safe.

This kind of uncontrollable need to survive gets passed on through generations. My parents inherited it from their parents and so on. It’s rooted in a history of lived scarcity, of not having had basic physical needs met. A security-first mindset is scarcity mindset dressed in purpose. It’s our mind’s way of translating “not enough” into something actionable: “must secure more” through whatever means possible.

The constant need for more security, to no fault of my parents, created an anxious home environment. As any teenager wrestling with the tensions between their inner world and their surrounding, I found solace in escapism. I escaped into writing and creating. I’ll never forget the first piece of graphic I made with a version of Photoshop I downloaded from a dodgy website for a Myspace bulletin train (please don’t ask if you don’t know). In hindsight, I believe this was the first moment design was sold to me as a more useful and valuable variant of creativity. I’d found a way to be valuable through design, which felt more purposeful—more noble—than admitting that I just wanted to make things and that I wanted to continue doing that. Scarcity mindset followed me into my escape, into my dream.

I’m not saying that all designers end up in design for this reason, and I know that having the opportunity to be doing something creative is already a privileged position to be in. I’m also not saying that my experience is representative of the typical immigrant experience. I’m here to present a perspective. I’m here to write out “I am done with design jobs”. I’m here to articulate what my younger self would have wanted to hear: that it’s okay to stop doing something and you won’t lose value because of it. That self-expression is valuable. That inherent value is just as—if not more—important than market value.

The willingness to do what you don’t want to requires so much strength and humility, and this is something to be proud of. Watching my parents go through ups and downs has made this crystal clear. But there comes a time in the lineage where someone needs to stop and ask: “Do we still need to be in survival mode? Isn’t it time to change course?”

It takes courage to break familial patterns and to question the values and choices that have been passed down. It takes integrity to own your privileges as well as your disadvantages. And it’s absolutely worth reflecting on what to do with the unique privileges and disadvantages you’ve inherited. Not continuing the life driven by survival and security hoarding is honoring our parents’ hard work. Parents might not get it at first, and it might take time to bridge the gap between worldviews. I’m writing this whilst hoping that my mom will paste it into Google Translate and read it.

A parent’s perspective might be: “We sacrificed so you could live better”, but it’s our responsibility to decide what “better” means to us. Better to me means wholeness and authenticity. Better to me means healing from the survival-first mentality and doing the work to detach myself from the “it’s an immigrant thing” narrative. Because just like you, ma, I also want the best for my future children.

This brings me to what I really want to say to anyone wrestling with similar contradictions or inherited patterns. Dear children—especially daughters—when you’re choosing meaning and purpose defined by you, know that you are doing a service for your family and ancestors. The meaning and purpose don’t have to be grand. It could be as simple as taking your creative hobby seriously, raising a family with different values, or just giving yourself permission to prioritize your wellbeing. Make crappy art, start that business that might not succeed, sing for no one but yourself. Listen to what your inner child yearns for, and give her the space to express. You’ll be healing an entire lineage, and this is one of the most privileged and valuable things you can do.