📖 Introduction
Many students spend years chasing academic success, leadership positions, recognition, and achievement, believing that accomplishing more will eventually bring happiness and fulfillment.
Yet beneath outward success, many quietly struggle with loneliness, homesickness, anxiety, self-doubt, and depression. No matter how much they achieve, something still feels missing.
In this meditation testimonial, Jun shares her journey from being a high-achieving international student battling loneliness and depression to discovering genuine happiness and self-acceptance. After leaving Korea alone at the age of fifteen and building an impressive record of academic and leadership accomplishments in the United States, she found herself facing a question that many people eventually ask:
“Who am I?”
Through meditation, she learned that true happiness does not come from constantly pushing harder, achieving more, or comparing herself to others. Instead, she discovered a way to live with greater freedom, peace, and joy simply by being herself.
💬 Meditation Testimonial: Finally Found a Way to Be Happy Without Pushing or Stressing
By Jun
I often describe my younger self as a fish trying to climb onto land.
When I came to the United States alone, I was filled with ambition and desire. I was hungry for knowledge, achievement, recognition, and success.
I constantly pushed myself toward bigger goals.
Better grades.
Higher positions.
More accomplishments.
More recognition.
In a relatively short period of time, I achieved many of the things I had set out to accomplish.
I became a senior student leader, president of the Junior Classical League, and a costume designer and director for my school’s theater production.
My schedule was packed with AP and honors classes, extracurricular activities, leadership roles, and endless responsibilities.
From the outside, it appeared that everything was going well.
But one day, I realized something painful.
All of those achievements were only hiding my weaknesses.
I wanted others to see me as strong, independent, and successful.
The truth was very different.
I was lonely.
I was homesick.
I desperately wanted someone to lean on.
Leaving home alone at the age of fifteen had forced me to grow up too quickly.
In many ways, I felt as though my childhood had been taken from me.
🎓 When Success Could No Longer Hide My Pain
When I finally allowed myself to acknowledge that pain, something inside me collapsed.
I suddenly became aware of how much I feared losing everything I had worked so hard to build—my grades, my leadership positions, my achievements, and my image.
The shadow that had been quietly growing within my mind eventually overwhelmed me.
The remainder of my senior year became a battle with depression.
In May, I graduated with high honors, medals, and awards.
Yet despite all of those accomplishments, I felt empty.
I felt ashamed.
I felt lost.
I kept asking myself:
Who am I?
What have I really been doing for the past three years?
I returned home to Korea carrying those questions, but no answers.
Even after spending several weeks resting in my homeland, I still felt that something important was missing.
🌱 Returning to Meditation and Starting Again
That was when I decided to follow my father’s suggestion and return to this meditation.
I had actually practiced this meditation briefly before leaving for the United States at the end of 2005.
At the time, I didn’t fully understand what I was doing or why I was cleansing my mind.
However, I knew that something within me had begun to change.
Looking back, I now realize that the meditation helped me adapt to a completely new environment and culture.
Unfortunately, there was no meditation center near Angier, North Carolina, where I lived with my host family.
As time passed, I gradually forgot the importance of cleansing my mind and simply continued chasing success.
Thankfully, life gave me another opportunity.
I returned to the meditation center and started again from the beginning.
That summer became one of the happiest periods of my life.
Originally, I planned to stay for only one month.
One month turned into two months and then a little longer.
The more I emptied my mind, the lighter I felt.
The burdens I had carried for years gradually disappeared.
My smile returned.
The joy and excitement I had once felt as a child returned as well.
For the first time in a long time, I felt genuinely alive.
✨ Learning How to Be Happy as I Am
By the end of the summer, I was ready to return to the United States and begin a new chapter of my life in college.
Today, as a student at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, I am enjoying life more than ever before.
I continue to practice this meditation and share it with my friends because I have personally experienced its power.
My hope is that many others can discover the same freedom and happiness.
The fish who once struggled to become a horse or an eagle no longer feels the need to become something else.
She has finally learned how to be happy as she is.
Without constantly pushing.
Without constantly stressing.
Without constantly comparing.
By becoming one with the universe, she has found a happiness that feels limitless, peaceful, and complete.
And that, for me, has made all the difference.
🌈 Conclusion
Many people spend years pursuing success, recognition, and achievement, believing those accomplishments will finally make them happy.
Jun’s story reminds us that genuine happiness comes not from becoming someone else, but from discovering who we truly are.
Through meditation, she learned to let go of comparison, pressure, fear, and the constant need to prove herself. As those burdens disappeared, a deeper sense of freedom, peace, and happiness naturally emerged.
Her journey shows that lasting happiness is possible—not by constantly pushing harder, but by learning how to live as your authentic self.
🌱 Learn more about this meditation at Santa Clara Meditation.
