[The Build] New Way

What You See Only When the Path You Believed Was Your Everything Disappears

The end of my time in Russia was glamorous. The community I built connected countless students, and among Koreans there, my recognition was at its peak. I graduated with a good academic record and was smoothly building toward my next goal of becoming a ‘cultural diplomat’.

However, two events, completely beyond my control, shattered all of my plans.

1. The Pandemic and the Closed Skies Due to COVID-19, the path back to Russia was blocked, and I was stranded in Korea. It was okay. I could prepare for graduate school while working as a researcher in Korea. I even received a letter of recommendation from my professor and was proceeding with my new plan without a hitch.

2. The War and the Unverifiable Diploma… The Russia-Ukraine war broke out. In the aftermath, the route to get a document notarized in Russia — a document absolutely essential for my graduate school admission — temporarily vanished. In that moment, my seven years of time, the proof of my effort, and my plans for the future all evaporated because of a single piece of paper.

I was suddenly left high and dry. My reputation in Russia meant nothing in Korea, and now I was just a ‘stranger’ that no one recognized. I had to start again from zero.

But I decided to turn this “lost year” into a “year of rediscovery.” I threw myself into studying English all day and dove deep within myself by reading over 50 books in a year.

Then one day, in one of those books, I encountered the new world of ‘AI and IT’. I felt that to have a real impact on the world, I had to enter the mainstream of this era. The moment I read that book, I literally got goosebumps.

My biggest failure in life was actually an ‘invitation’ to my real career. If my path to graduate studies in political science and diplomacy hadn’t been blocked, I would never have discovered the path I’m on now.

Have you ever had a moment of failure, where you thought everything was over, that turned out to be the starting point of a new beginning?

P.S. This is a photo from 2020 when I was quarantined at the airport for 12 hours with a foil blanket after mentioning I had allergic rhinitis on my flight back to Korea from Russia haha.

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