The Strength Found in Understanding Others by Jacob

The Strength Found in Understanding Others by Jacob - January 2026 Scholarship Essay

The greatest realization I have made about my identity is that some weights are never chosen—they are handed to you long before you understand how to carry them. Expectations, stereotypes, and silent pressures often settle in quietly, shaping who you think you must be before you ever discover who you are. For most of my life, I didn’t recognize this as strength-building. I saw it only as pressure. It wasn’t until I reflected on how others around me carried similar burdens that I discovered a strength I hadn’t fully acknowledged before: empathy.
Growing up, I learned to define myself through warnings. Like many young Black children in this country, I was taught—out of love and protection—that I would have to work harder than the average person to earn respect and opportunity. As the son of an Air Force veteran who served in Operation Iraqi Freedom, I learned early about discipline, sacrifice, and resilience. These lessons shaped me into a high-achieving student-athlete, but they also taught me to internalize pressure. To avoid negative perceptions, I felt compelled to be perfect—on the football field, in the classroom, and in how I presented myself to the world.
For a long time, I equated growth with proving myself. I believed strength meant suppressing emotion, carrying stress silently, and outperforming expectations before anyone could impose them on me. But over time, I began noticing patterns—not just in myself, but in those around me. I saw classmates who hid their anxiety behind academic success. Teammates who played through mental exhaustion so they wouldn’t appear weak. And I recognized myself in all of them: capable, driven, yet quietly overwhelmed.
That realization marked a turning point. I began to understand that strength does not only come from endurance—it comes from awareness. Empathy allowed me to see that many of us were shaped more by pressure than by authenticity. Instead of viewing leadership as holding everything together alone, I started to see it as creating space for others to be honest and human. This shift required vulnerability, but it also allowed me to grow beyond performance and into purpose.
Empathy has since influenced how I move through every environment I’m part of. As a teammate, I listen more than I speak. As a student, I approach collaboration with understanding rather than competition. I’ve learned that when people feel seen and supported, they perform better—not because they’re afraid to fail, but because they feel free to grow. In a time when empathy is often dismissed as weakness, I’ve come to see it as one of the most necessary strengths we can possess.
As I prepare for college, empathy will remain the foundation of my growth. I hope to contribute to environments where vulnerability is respected, curiosity is encouraged, and personal development is valued alongside academic achievement. Understanding my own identity has given me the awareness to recognize the unseen weights others carry. And through that understanding, I’ve discovered a strength that continues to shape who I am becoming.
When people are given the space to understand themselves, they don’t just grow individually—they help others grow as well. That is the strength I carry forward