I’m 26 years old, I’ve been the GM of my family’s restaurant for the past 4.5 years. I’m set to own it in another 5 (it will not be handed to me, I will have to take out a sizable loan to purchase it). The business does roughly 2.5 million in sales per year with a roughly 10% profit margin. I make ~75k per year before taxes, and work 55-60 hours a week. Before this I was a college student (criminal justice major, ~3.5 GPA) on my last year of school before Covid hit and completely derailed my college trajectory. I meandered around for a year before the restaurants old GM left and I took his place January 1st 2022.
I took the position because I felt the need at the time to prove that I was more than my failure in school. To me the opportunity to make ~300k a year and own my own business was too good to pass up. In 2023 I began to resent the industry I work in, the people, the work, the guests. I feel like I’ve grown a lot as a person in the last 4.5 years, I don’t feel like I’ve failed by dropping out of college and that I need to redeem myself for it. I want to change directions, I want to go back to school and get a degree in mechanical engineering. I’ve never been good at math, but the last time I took math classes I didn’t know how to get better at something that I’m not naturally good at.
I’ve felt like this for a long time, maybe 3 years. I feel like I’ve fallen way behind, I’ve never not worked in the restaurant industry. In between semesters of college I worked as a waiter for a few now closed down locations of the restaurant I run now. When I dropped out I spent a year working for Pizza Hut and as a waiter for the restaurant I currently run. I fear that it’s too late to change my path, like I’ve only done this for so long that I can’t do anything else. And I also fear that if I give this up I’ll never have an opportunity like this again.
I feel trapped, the owner (my step father) has said repeatedly that if I quit he will sell the restaurant, so this is the one chance I have at this. However, I am being crushed by the weight of the operation, I no longer have the passion, or maybe the self hatred I had when I started that pushed me to succeed.
I’m sorry if I’ve been vague, I will provide any details you folks might need. Any advice helps, thank you.