Speaker A
Yeah, before I begin reading my personal essay, I just want to say one thing.
Joowan reads his emotional college essay about caring for his mother, sharing how adversity shaped his life and inspired his path to Stanford.
Ask about this video. Answers come from its transcript only — with the timestamp, so you can check them.
Generated from the transcript and can be wrong — check the timestamp.
Key Takeaways
- Adversity can reveal unexpected beauty and deepen relationships.
- Caretaking can be both a burden and a source of profound love and growth.
- Personal stories of struggle can inspire empathy and connection with others.
- Writing a meaningful college essay is a difficult but rewarding process.
- Faith and support systems can be crucial in overcoming challenges.
What the video covers
- Joowan shares a deeply personal and emotional college essay that helped him get into Stanford.
- The essay recounts his experience growing up as a caretaker for his mother who suffered from severe chronic pain.
- He reflects on his childhood aspirations and how caregiving responsibilities altered his life.
- Joowan describes the emotional complexity of resenting and loving his mother simultaneously.
- He details the impact of his mother’s temporary absence and how it deepened their bond through daily calls.
- The essay explores finding beauty and love in adversity and the strength of their mother-son relationship.
- Joowan extends the theme of beauty in adversity to his interactions with others facing hardship.
- He emphasizes the importance of community, empathy, and shared human experiences in weaving a life of beauty.
- Joowan discusses the challenging writing process and the role of faith and support in completing the essay.
- He hopes his story inspires others and invites viewers to ask questions or provide feedback.
Chapters
- 00:00Introduction and disclaimer
- 00:21Birth and mother's suffering
- 00:49Taking on caretaker responsibilities
- 01:14Lost childhood aspirations
- 01:37Mother's departure and longing
- 02:00Rebuilding connection through calls
- 02:31Finding beauty in adversity
- 03:00Helping others and community
- 03:28Weaving beauty through shared stories
- 04:29Purpose of sharing the essay
Full Transcript — Download SRT & Markdown
Speaker A
It's really personal and a little emotional. So, just a disclaimer, but I don't want to waste too much of your time. And I'll start reading it now. I was 9 years old when I first asked my mother if she would have been happier if
Speaker A
I had never been born. After hours of screaming in pain, holding firmly onto the metal handles of the birthing bed, my mother finally found beauty beyond her suffering. She brought me into life.
Speaker A
However, my birth was both a blessing and a curse. After giving birth to me, my mom developed one of the most incapacitating conditions imaginable. Any movement, walking, sitting, or even lying down would cause seven bolts of unbearable pain in her pelvis. So, from a young
Speaker A
age, I learned to be a caretaker, taking on a household of responsibility to ease her strain. But as I was burdened with doing the laundry, washing the dishes, and applying cupping therapy to her back every day, I started to resent her. Why
Speaker A
couldn't I be like my friends playing freely outside? Uh, sorry, she would whisper in her delicate, trembling voice. Don't be sorry. There's nothing to be sorry for. I wish to say these words, but I remained silent, holding back tears because life felt unfair. As
Speaker A
a young child, I had so many aspirations: playing on the school basketball team, traveling the world as an entrepreneur, or even training to be a K-pop star. Yet, as I became confined to caretaking my mother, I saw my
Speaker A
aspirations fade away like dust. Then, she broke the news. She'd be leaving for a while to Korea to receive medical care. I imagined a life without her, a life unburdened by her pain, where I could play without worry, focus on
Speaker A
school without the constant dread of her next breakdown, and pursue my entrepreneurial dreams without the weight of her suffering. Would I finally be free? Reality quickly set in. The warmth of home disappeared. And with both my dad and my brother working
Speaker A
full-time to pay the bills, I was alone. I began to miss my mom. I yearned for the dishes I would wash for her, the lavender socks I would fish out from the dryer for her, and even the wafting
Speaker A
smell of fermented kimchi we would make together every week. So, I started calling her daily. Over the next few months, 3-minute phone calls turned into 30-minute video calls. Our conversation soon evolved from the casual "chai, good night" to a heartfelt
Speaker A
"I love you, Mom." As I eagerly awaited each morning to see your text, our relationship blossomed, bringing us closer than ever before. I found myself reframing our relationship from one of pain, guilt, and pressure to understanding the depth of love that lay
Speaker A
between us. In the ugly face of adversity, I found beauty. The beauty of an unbreakable bond between a mother and her son. The day of my mom's return was filled with hugs, kisses, tears, and never-ending laughter. However, reality
Speaker A
returned. My mom still struggled to wake up as pain surged through her body. I still did the chores, but something felt different. The burden of responsibility disappeared. It was replaced with beauty. Beauty in the quiet acts of love
Speaker A
that speak louder than words. Yes, that's what it was. A beauty too precious for just the two of us, stirring something deep within me. A desire to help others find the same beauty I discovered in the face of their
Speaker A
struggles. But as I step outside my home and into the unknown, where more adversity awaits, my definition of beauty changes. After tutoring my Iranian refugee student, I greet his mother, who works minimum wage to support our family. I leave her only a bag of
Speaker A
homemade kimchi, but she invites me in, serving me a rich dish and coffee brewed thick and dark. At church, I clasp the hands of my passionate Bible study chichu who lost her son when he was in high school as we prayed
Speaker A
together. While serving sandwiches to the unhoused, I share my story with an elderly man about how I found beauty in adversity. In exchange, he shares his story. Moments like these reveal that beauty isn't just something we find.
Speaker A
It's something we weave together in the spaces where our lives intersect and our hearts open to one another. That means I'm stitching my life of beauty not alone but with others, finding and sharing it in every thread. Lying side
Speaker A
by side, I turn to my mom and ask, "So, would you really have been happier if I had never been born?" This time, we exchanged smiles. So yeah, that was my personal essay. And the reason why I'm sharing this on YouTube is because
Speaker A
maybe it could just help you and inspire you the same way it did to me when I was searching other people's essays and trying to get more inspiration from those. And also the title says, um, this is my personal essay that got me into
Speaker A
Stanford. Um, and I just want to make a note that this essay was not the sole reason I probably got into Stanford. There were probably so many other reasons. So, it's really subjective in this whole process, like considering your stats, your ECs, your supplementals. So, this is probably not the sole reason why I got into Stanford. Last thing though, I really want to say this writing
Speaker A
process is so difficult. This took me from July to September or October to write. And I was really just thinking so much about this idea. And I always knew in the back of my mind that this idea was something that I was going to write
Speaker A
about for college apps because I really do think that it's something that really defined me. But I really just couldn't have done it without God, without my friends and other people who supported me and really answered my
Speaker A
questions as I was needing desperate help for this essay. But one thing that really, really helped me is before every single writing session, I would just pray to God because I am the one who's writing these essays. But at the end of
Speaker A
the day, it's God who dictates where I go to, whether that be at Stanford or UNC Chapel Hill or some other school that I just never really expected. But yeah, I just hope that was a little bit
Speaker A
inspiring and helpful for your journey. If you have any questions, you could just ask me directly. Um, if you think this essay is terrible, you can even comment down below as well. Yeah. Hope you like that essay.
Speaker A
inspiring and helpful for your journey. If you have any questions, you could just ask me directly. Um if you think this essay is terrible, you can even comment down below as well. Yeah. Hope you like that essay.
Topics:college essayStanford admissionspersonal storycaregivingmother and sonovercoming adversityemotional essayinspirationwriting processfaith
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