Challenge Yourself and Find Your Own Way in Life
Challenge Yourself and Find Your Own Way in Life
  • Lee Jae-woo (LIFE 19)
  • 승인 2022.01.07 00:43
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During our lifetime, we often face unfamiliar, effort-demanding events. And in most cases, it is hard for us to deal with or conquer them. No matter how much you struggle and spend your time dealing with stress, a positive result does not always follow. Sometimes it might give you a dramatic failure, and you may have regrets. And sometimes, you may think you should not have even started to begin with. However, regardless of the result, those challenges can always turn into a tremendous opportunity: a trigger to change your life. That is to say, it is up to you to digest (or to interpret) such precious experiences into a negative or a positive.
In Oct. 2021, my club P-FUNK’s music video was released on YouTube. With my team, we spent almost a whole semester until we made the final version. I swear that it was one of the most challenging events in my life, and my brain is still full of inspirations, memories, and feelings from it. Let me just share some stories of the lessons that I learned from the project.
Last semester, I had time off from school. Having a semester off after entering into my major, I felt skeptical about if I was going in the right direction. I learned a lot of good quality knowledge and spent considerable time in a lab as a demo version of my future life. But through those experiences, I was not sure if it was “the value” I was looking for. It was not like I felt bored from studying, or wanted to run away, but something inside my mind was unclear. So, I decided to take a break from studying, to find out what I truly wanted to do.
During this time, my whole daily life was a cascade of challenges. Mainly, I used to spend most of my time making and listening to music. I felt that the field of art is more ambiguous, abstract, and addictive compared to what we learned from school. Nevertheless, through countless trials, I developed my way of expressing ideas and emotions with music. 
Apart from this, I built a connection with a start-up, and once was offered to join a team. The company started from college entrance consulting, and they were building a personal branding platform. With just a few meetings, I found that I was interested in building others’ Masterplans, so I had a six-month intern-like experience, which unfortunately did not end well.
While having a regretful day, I got a call from Wonderwood, a famous YouTube channel creating hip-hop content. We were already preparing for the POSTECH-KAIST Science War,  and had finished our song for it. However, given a chance to showcase our video a bigger platform, we needed to make a new song that was appropriate for Wonderwood’s qualifications. Thus, we star-
ted again, and through the experiences I had, we decided to make a song which showed how we enjoy the music itself. This was the key. We could perform ourselves  on camera while having fun. Then the result did not matter anyway.
Looking back, with these challenges based on experience, I could feel that my brain was getting bigger. This is not to say that I am now a perfect person, but the important thing is that now I know how to better deal with life’s challenges. Do not think only about loss; think about what you earned from it. Take risks and keep challenging yourself. Do not be afraid of failure; if you are satisfied, then that’s worth it. If you learn just a single lesson from it, such a momentary downturn is worth it; you will have an upgrade. In the end, it depends on you to decide the way of your life. To study, to make music, to find love, etc. Among them, nothing is meaningless. The key is to find “value”, and with these values, you can go further to reach for your goals.
The biggest challenge is to deal with your life. What do you want to do in the future? Spend time thinking about how to deal with it, and such deliberations will give you a key.

Lee Jae-woo (LIFE 19)
Lee Jae-woo (LIFE 19)