Finding my center in the midst of the storm
[PERSONAL INFO]
NAME: Doela
AGE: 22
BASED IN: South Korea
KEYWORDS: #variety #identity #color
[INTRO]
“In my early twenties, I suddenly realized that I had lost myself.
The child I once was — bright, full of dreams — was nowhere to be found.
Inside, I felt hollow, like a body that looked intact on the outside
but empty within, almost like a corpse dressed in skin.
Perhaps it started in middle school.
Everyone my age sat at the same desks, studying the same things,
while society quietly ranked lives according to grades.
Without ever having the time to ask what I wanted or what I was good at,
I struggled desperately to raise my scores.
The result of that cruelty was losing myself.
Maybe I loved myself too much
— so much that I didn’t want the version of me inside a game designed
by society to end up as a loser.
Maybe I loved myself so fiercely that I fought, almost violently, to protect myself.
But back then, I didn’t realize it.
I loved myself so much that I ended up unable to love myself at all.”
Doela agreed to this interview to share her journey with those
who may be experiencing confusion similar to her own.
Someone who has always tried harder than anyone else to understand herself
— now, let us listen to Doela’s story.
[Q&A.1]
Q. If someone asked you to describe your soul in one sentence, what would you say?
A. “I would say: a soul that loves a world filled with countless colors.
From a young age, I was always drawn to variety — different colors, races, cultures.
I loved encountering many different elements and imagining new ideas
by letting them merge together.
And I loved the world where all of that exists.
For example, imagine two seemingly unrelated keywords:
‘South America’ and ‘mechanical engineering.’
When I think of South America, words like the Amazon,
vast nature, green, passion, and vibrancy come to mind.
Mechanical engineering, on the other hand,
evokes robots, machines, gray tones, rigidity, problem-solving.
Then I start combining them:
‘Amazon + gray = global warming’
‘Vibrancy + rigidity = isolation’
Within each keyword exists its own color and temperature.
As they mix, the world becomes richer, more layered.
In that expanding landscape, I feel my soul truly alive.
[Q&A.2]
Q. When was the most difficult period in your life, and what made it so hard for you?
A. Honestly… I don’t think there was ever a time when life wasn’t difficult.
In middle school, I struggled with an inferiority complex
because I wasn’t part of the “successful” group.
In high school, that inferiority still lingered,
but something else hurt me more deeply.
I never had enough time to properly build foundational understanding,
yet exams were always right around the corner.
Studying in a rush for tests turned all my efforts into surface-level learning.
Naturally, there were limits to the problems I could solve
— and throughout high school, I never managed to break through those limits.
The moment I recognized that boundary, my self-esteem collapsed.
During that time, I constantly felt empty inside.
The emptiness was overwhelming —
as if I barely existed. I even wished I could reset my life from the beginning.
Looking back, that period was probably the hardest.
That struggle, which began in my first year of high school, stretched well into my early twenties.
When I entered university, the confusion reached its peak.
In high school, I had a clear goal
— getting into college —
so even though my inner world felt hollow,
I kept moving forward toward that destination.
But once I entered university, there was no longer a goal to break through.
That’s when immense emptiness arrived,
along with deep confusion about who I was.
As a child, I loved variety and curiosity.
But when I looked at myself in college, I saw someone chasing stability,
someone drawn to monotone colors instead of vibrant ones.
Questions haunted me endlessly:
“Who am I?”
“What kind of child was I?”
“What kind of world did I once dream of?”
I cried a lot during that time.
I couldn’t even look at photos of my younger self
— the child smiling brightly in them.
I felt unbearably sorry to her.
I knew it then: I had lost myself.
But what matters is that this period of wandering eventually
shaped the solid person I am today.
As I revisited each painful phase one by one,
the tangled thoughts and emotions began to loosen.
I recommend that everyone sit with this question deeply at least once in their life.
[Q&A.3]
Q. How did you overcome that difficult period?
A. “Overcome”… well, I’m still struggling in many ways.
But it’s a different kind of struggle now. The texture has changed.
Today, I have a clearer sense of who I am and what I dream of.
But there’s another fear
— that if this adventure I’m walking now leads me astray,
I may be forced to return to reality.
That thought itself feels heavy.
When I look back on how I endured that earlier period,
honestly, I don’t remember anything remarkable.
There wasn’t some special mindset or heroic determination.
I simply lived.
Even at the peak of confusion, reality demanded my attention.
I had to go out, attend classes, keep going.
I spent months like that.
Toward the end of my first year in college,
I checked my grades — hey weren’t good.
Even though I had tried.
It felt like high school all over again.
That’s when I realized: this path wasn’t mine.
So I let go of everything and decided to pursue
what genuinely sparked my interest.
I tried filming videos, editing, designing pamphlets
— touching many things lightly, without pressure.
There was no income, but it was fun.
Slowly, I began using talents and sensitivities
I had always known I possessed but never knew how to apply.
Through creating my own work,
I felt as if I had rediscovered the child I had lost long ago.
It was the moment I freed myself from society’s rigid standards
— the moment I found my own center within a massive storm called the world.
By finding myself again, that suffering quietly passed.
[Q&A.4]
Q. Finally, how do you approach the rest of your life now?
A. This is a mindset I’ve always carried.
We’re fragile beings.
We don’t know when we’ll die, or what might happen next.
A fire could destroy everything we own tonight.
We could lose our lives crossing the street to a drunk driver.
Or, in an incredibly rare chance, be struck by lightning on a rainy day.
Because of that, I want to love my soul and body
— which may part at any moment —
as fully as I can while I’m alive.
By nature, I’m restless and driven.
I feel most at peace when I’m doing something,
when I’m challenging myself.
That’s when my mind clears.
So until the day I die, I plan to live this way
— constantly challenging myself.
Now I know that this is how I love myself.
[EDITOR'S NOTE]
Doela’s story is less about “overcoming” and more about reclaiming.
She doesn’t claim victory over hardship;
she allows herself to admit that she is still struggling.
Throughout the interview runs a perspective
that values honesty with oneself over finished answers.
We often label periods of instability as failure.
But Doela’s confession shows that there are sensitivities
and understandings that can only be reached through instability.
She became solid because she was shaken.
Reading this interview, we are left with questions of our own:
How far have we drifted from ourselves?
And what must we let go of to return?
With the awareness that life may end at any moment,
choosing to trust one’s own senses and take one step forward
— loving oneself through challenge rather than certainty.
Her choice is not grand, but it is firm.
Perhaps this is not the story of someone extraordinary,
but a record of a question many of us once lost along the way:
“Who was I — and can I still be myself?”
