A Belated but Grounded Thirtieth Birthday
The term 'Korean age' disappeared on June 28, 2023. The Ministry of Government Legislation implemented the 'Unified Age System Act,' amending the Framework Act on Administrative Procedures and the Civil Act, and instructed people to use the international age system when meeting someone for the first time. Around late 2022, when Yoon Suk-yeol was elected and rumors circulated that the standard would shift to the international age system, I was twenty-nine. I thought I'd turn thirty next year, but with the implementation of the 'Unified Age System Act,' I realized my thirtieth birthday had been postponed by two years. Even though I knew nothing had actually changed, I thought, 'I've bought myself time. Thank goodness.'
From June 2022 until this summer, I experienced burnout multiple times and felt lost most of the time. I met with various professionals—financial advisors, career coaches, psychologists—and poured out my worries. For a while afterward, I felt happy, as if I'd found my path. But just when I thought I'd found it, I lost my way again. It would have been better if I had just admitted I was still wandering. But I couldn't admit it. I was convinced I had found my way, or that I would find it. I was smart, after all. I reflected often and documented my life. I think I overestimated myself, believing someone like me wouldn't get lost and wander aimlessly in my own life.
And so, I lingered for over two years between Korean age and international age, between twenty-nine and thirty.
Last Monday was the day I turned thirty by international age. Perhaps it was because I didn't let those two extra years slip away in vain. I landed a new job where I can leverage the expertise built from ten years of experience. It was the dream I declared in 2012 at Konkuk University's interview room, standing before a computer science professor: "I want to change society through technology." It was the promise I made during my interview as a unique engineering student double-majoring in philosophy: "Ultimately, I want to be someone who creates a better world through technology."And that hot summer day, when Joo-ha asked me what I really wanted to do, I replied, "Actually, what I really, really, really wanted to do was 'change the world with technology.' That was what I wanted most back then."
In that time, I was an engineering student studying philosophy, a village community activist, a social enterprise intern, a newly hired service planner at a game company, and someone who struggled against being trapped in tedious screen design before discovering TPM and setting off for a new challenge. When faced with problems, I only knew how to break, roll, and get back up—it was my inertia. Those times spent hiding and crying, trudging up stairs all over Pangyo and Seoul.
Birthdays are days meant for celebration, so naturally, I felt good. But what felt even better, thanks to the switch to the Korean age system, was the welcome from friends who were already thirty. That thirty, which I dreaded facing at the end of 2022, has now become a thirty I can welcome with even greater joy two years later. And that my friends, my sisters, stand before me on this path. Could there be anything more reassuring and grateful than this?
With a joyful heart, I must walk my path again. Even if I encounter obstacles and break down again, I've graduated from just crashing into them, crying, and enduring. I must navigate them anew, in my own way. As SomSom said, 'Life has only just begun!'
