I would not be the person I am today without my family. They are the people who raised, lived, dealt with me since I was born. Over the years, I have learned many life lessons through them.
One of the many values my father holds close to his heart is to never give up. The story he would always tell to show his determination is about waffles. When my dad was growing up, his dad had a waffle recipe that is delicious. Every Sunday my dad would ask his dad to make waffles. Of course, my grandfather caved and would make waffles for his son. Eventually, he got fed up with the frequent nagging and decided to stop making waffles. My dad, faced with a potential lack of waffles, decided to learn the recipe and make the waffles by himself. This kind of perseverance is one of the many values that I feel I share with my dad; we don’t like to let a simple obstacle get in the way of a goal. 
        My sisters, Sophy and Ally are 15 and 11 respectively. Both individually are great people however, the problem is when you bring them together and either of them is in a bad mood. They scream and fight over essentially nothing. Their arguments are generally summed up by one of them touched the other, or looked at the other, or just existed in a way that the other didn’t like. Their fights always end in a few minutes and they don’t talk to each other for a little bit, but then they are back to being sisters. They have their frequent scuffle, but then they mellow out. This vast contrast in their relationship has taught me to be more forgiving of people. Because no matter how many times they fight, they always make up. 
        Out of all of the things that my mother has taught me, being self-aware has been the most helpful lesson. Throughout my grade school years, I would constantly get into trouble at school. I would be loud and disruptive in class, go out of my way to annoy people I didn’t like, and sometimes even get violent. My mom would often talk to me about getting in trouble at school. One of the techniques to not get in trouble that stuck with me the most is to sit back, and look at what other people are doing. By checking myself against others I began to realize that nobody else was acting the way I was. This simple little truth helped me mature and become a better person. By constantly checking in on myself and seeing what the people around me are doing, for the first time, in freshman year, I was able to make it through an entire school year without being kicked out of a classroom or being sent to the principal. 
        My older brother Chris and I have supported each other throughout life by our shared love for fun. In our free time when we were younger, we would be playing together all the time. If it was playing in the play structure at our old house or building legos on the kitchen table when moving, we would always be playing some games together. Eventually our play times changed as we grew older from running around pretending to be batman to video games. We both share a hobby in competitive online multiplayer games and we frequently play together to this day. This shared interest means that we still talk daily even after he moved away for college.
        My family has been supporting and helping me since day one and I couldn’t feel more grateful for them. And even though we have our ups and downs, there are no other people on earth I would rather share a fresh batch of waffles with.
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[a]Josh, your montage structure is clear, and I see waffles as your focusing lens, bringing together under the umbrella of "perseverance" other values your family has taught you (forgiveness, self-awareness, supportive communication). It is a sweet essay that pays tribute to how your family has influenced you. The main issue, in my opinion, is that it's too much about them and not enough about you. You say they influenced you, but you don't show it specifically enough. The solution will be to condense those family lessons into 1/2 the current length and then use the remaining space to connect your own specific anecdotes about how the lesson played out in your own experience. I'm going to hold off on editing comments for now because I expect the essay to change significantly through this suggested revision.