New Year’s resolutions tend to fizzle out, and the regret—“I should have done it back then”—returns again and again as time slips by.

Last year, I resolved to create work for myself, rather than for others. I tried all sorts of things to discover what I love and what I’m good at. I spent the year failing, getting discouraged, and picking myself up again.

And after a year like that, a question suddenly comes to me:
Is this really the right path for me?

If I had just settled into a job and kept going, at least I wouldn’t be struggling with a dwindling bank account. As I grow older, what if I remain stuck in this in-between state? If I fail again, how will I accept myself as someone who never quite manages to get anything right?

As these thoughts begin to crowd my mind, I find myself thinking of who I was ten years ago.

One day in 2017—
I was in my late twenties, with about four million won in my bank account and a plane ticket. Nothing more.

Leaving Korea back then was, in truth, an escape. I ran because I didn’t have the strength to face my problems. I was too overwhelmed to see even what was right in front of me, let alone think about the future.

Looking back now, I realize how trivial my current worries about the future really are. And with that realization comes a quiet sense of shame.

They say life moves in ten-year cycles. If that’s true, I may be standing on the edge of another great turning point. As I approach ten years since 2017—the year that changed my life—I want to reconstruct this story from the memories and fragments I left behind.

I want to revisit the person I was back then—
at my most lost, yet on the verge of my greatest leap.

So that I can gather the strength to move forward again.

Once more, I steady my breath.