"inferiority complex" - MIT most significant challenge essay

Hi guys please comment and critique ( i know its not that good )

Pulling yourself out of suicidal thoughts is one thing; doing the same for somebody else is a lot more demanding. The absence of our father coupled with the fact that my brother had no real friends meant that I had to bear the brunt of his feelings.

I am still unsure about the cause of his inferiority complex. Social awkwardness, peer pressure and the list can go on and on. From what I had deduced from his confessions; all he was doing was assuming that people would not like him behind his back. I first went hard on him; scolding him for believing what he only had assumed. Only later I realized that my brother was building stone walls around him; I tried to remove them my own way yet was overwhelmed by the fear of crippling the walls over him.

I had almost given up on him; mostly out of frustration while blaming him for not changing his beliefs. But I was forced to rethink my strategy when he confessed to me about having suicidal thoughts. Maybe I was doing the wrong thing by being inflexible with a stubborn individual. I tried to put myself in his shoes , something I had never thought of before, and realized that what he required was confidence boosts, not scolding. I tried to improve my attitude towards him; encouraging him for the tiniest of appreciable deeds. Gradually he did get out of his suicidal stupor.

The major lesson I learnt from this experience was that blaming other's for one's failures can be called "consoling yourself" at best -"satisfying your ego" at worst. Continuous failures do not indicate that one is not capable of doing something; merely that one is trying to reach his goal, the wrong way.

I have tried to find some grammar errs.

There are always two sides of a picture and what I may perceive to be correct may not be the case with some other people . Life will always present you with problems; sometimes it is just better to take your time in solving them rather than over-stress yourself over them.

Good Luck!

thank you very much

please can you tell me the overall effect of the essay ( i mean is it lacking something or not... ?)

To this day I am uncertain of the root cause of my brother 's inferiority complex. Raging hormones, Social awkardness , peer pressure -- and the list can go on and on. At first I did not pay much attention to his unorthodox views, but instead simply tried to reconcile them with my own perception of the world. Yet my approach had a very basic flaw which I realized a lot later.---->great self-analysis!

How about using " " marks:
What I learned from the experience is that blaming others for your own failures can be called "consoling yourself" at best -- and "satisfying your ego" at worst.

avoid you's, it challenges the reader

I'm not sure that your essay answers the prompt. it wants to know who YOU are, not your brother. You seemed to have interpreted the prompt as an experience, but it's challenge. Where's your challenge in this, and what did you do to solve it?

Awesome, thanks for giving that excellent explanation. Yes, I think "you"s are... presumptuous? merriam-webster.com/dictionary/Presumptuous

ok guys here is the revised version and thanks for all your help

Hey, this is not a good disclaimer to use n your work! The thing is, it is all good if it is genuine. It has the essence of you. Criteria for judging what is good vary from one reader to the next.

For one thing, your intro is excellent. Nothing catches the attention quite like mentioning suicidal thoughts. That first paragraph is like a big wind up with no pitch, though. Proclam your thesis statement boldly at the end of that first paragraph. Add a third sentence... one that catches the theme of the whole essay (thesis sentence).

After writing that thesis at the end of the first para, the moral of the story, elaborate on it more in the last para.

You might also want to mention getting permission from your brother to write about his process, and mention that his suffering became more meaningful as you tapped into his experience to write this essay, which is so important for your own process.

Does this kind of intervention have anything to do with your career plan? That would be cool...