In March 2003, self-employed business owner Jae S. received a phone call from an acquaintance urging him to try meditation. Jae scoffed at the idea. “I have too many urgent things going on right now,” he deflected. “I’ll go another time.”
His friend’s response was brutally honest: “You’ve been running around desperately all this time—but what have you actually accomplished? Nothing will collapse just because you’re gone for a while, so just come.”
The words stung his pride, but he knew they were true. At the time, his life was in absolute ruins. After a catastrophic business failure, he was buried under hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt and struggling to survive.
This is the incredible story of an entrepreneur who hit absolute rock bottom—battling severe depression, suicidal ideation, and a crumbling marriage—and how he used meditation to clear his mind, save his family, and achieve staggering success once again.
The Crushing Weight of Debt and Despair
Following the collapse of his business, Jae’s reality felt completely hopeless. He hadn’t paid the rent for his damp underground apartment in over a year, intentionally coming home late at night just to avoid his landlord.
The financial stress quickly mutated into severe depression. As dawn approached each morning, he would fall asleep wishing he would never wake up. The desperation grew so dark that while walking outside, he would secretly hope a luxury car would hit him. “If I die and the insurance money comes out, at least my wife and children could escape this miserable room,” he reasoned.
Living with this toxic mindset destroyed his physical health. His face grew dark and exhausted, and by the afternoon of each day, he was so physically drained that he would often collapse. Seeking medical help felt impossible; scraping together enough money for a few meals and heating oil was a far more urgent priority.
A Brutal Awakening and the Journey Inward
Determined to find a lifeline, Jae finally attended the meditation training. On the very first day, as he listened to the systematic method of emptying the mind, a foreign feeling began rising inside him: hope.
As he started discarding the countless minds he had accumulated over fifty years of life, the physical relief was immediate. His head cleared. The suffocating heaviness inside his chest loosened, and his exhausted body gradually began to recover.
But the mental realizations were much more profound. Jae had always believed he was a conscientious, honest victim of circumstance who never harmed anyone. Through meditation, he realized the exact opposite was true. He uncovered an enormous reservoir of selfishness inside himself. He saw how his inferiority complex and cowardice had been cleverly disguised as confidence, and how his hypocrisy, stubbornness, and self-centeredness had deeply wounded the world around him. Confronting this truth, he burst into tears of repentance.
Saving a Marriage on the Brink
The financial ruin had also pushed his marriage to the absolute edge. He and his wife—who had already endured her own tragic losses earlier in life—had been together for ten years. As poverty dragged on, their mutual encouragement curdled into bitter blame. They fought constantly. Although they never said the word “divorce” out loud, they were both silently waiting for the end. The day before Jae left for the meditation center, they fought as though they would never see each other again.
But after Jae completed his first week of meditation, his wife came to visit him. Her face looked strangely peaceful. For the first time, Jae looked at her without his defensive ego and sincerely asked for her forgiveness. As she quietly looked back at him, she appeared unbelievably loving and gentle.
Later, she revealed something remarkable: “While you were at the meditation center, my hatred and resentment toward you suddenly disappeared. When I saw you after only one week, I couldn’t believe a person could change so much in such a short time.”
When the Mind Changes, Reality Changes
Soon after, his wife also began practicing meditation. Together, discarding their false selves and discovering their true minds became the greatest blessing of their lives.
With a clear mind and renewed energy, Jae’s business miraculously began recovering. Today, the enormous debts that once crushed him have almost all been repaid. In a beautiful twist of irony, the man who once wished a luxury car would hit him so his family could survive on the insurance payout is now the proud owner of one of those exact luxury cars.
Before meditation, he was too exhausted to work past the afternoon. Now, he meets around 150 customers every single day and works late into the evening with energy to spare. Most importantly, he no longer sees customers as transactions, but as precious connections. “Because they exist, I exist too,” he says.
When people ask him how he managed to pull off such an impossible life recovery, his answer is always the same: “I changed my mind.”
Jae S.’s 3 Insights on Overcoming Rock Bottom
1. Desperation is Not the Same as Progress “When you are failing, you tend to run around frantically, thinking you are working hard. But as my friend pointed out, all that desperate running wasn’t actually accomplishing anything. Sometimes, you have to stop everything and fix your mind before you can fix your life.”
2. Victimhood Masks the Ego “I thought I was an honest, hardworking guy who had just been dealt a bad hand. But when I objectively looked at my mind, I saw that my stubbornness, hypocrisy, and selfish pride were the real root of my suffering. True recovery starts with radical self-honesty.”
3. Gratitude is the Engine of Success “When I was depressed, I blamed the world. Now, when I meet my 150 daily customers, I realize that I only exist because they exist. When you approach your work with a genuinely grateful and empty mind, the energy to succeed naturally follows.”
