Leaving Japan, Starting Over in Korea

I worked as a systems engineer in Japan, and this year, I moved back to Korea.

A few things came together at once — stress, a growing sense of doubt about how I was living, and the fact that I finally had something else I wanted to do. But the real turning point was my mental health falling apart. I stopped sleeping well, and every so often I’d find it hard to breathe. It felt like my brain had picked up on some kind of danger and was reacting to it.

When I pictured myself grinding through overtime and stress like that for the rest of my life, working at least 9 to 6 every day, it felt suffocating. The pay wasn’t bad, but I kept asking myself: is this actually making me happy?

I didn’t want to spend my whole life just working. I wanted to live doing the things I actually wanted to do. As long as I can cover my living costs, that’s enough for me — I figure the income will grow naturally as I keep building things up. In short, I wanted to build my own lifestyle.

For the first two months back in Korea, I just rested. I met up with friends I hadn’t seen in a while and we talked and hung out like old times. At some point, travel came up in conversation and someone mentioned you could get to Fukuoka cheaply by ferry, so I put together a trip and went. (That’s a story for another post.)

I went to a friend’s wedding, watched some movies — Spider-Man: Brand New Day and The Odyssey are both worth seeing, by the way.

But the longer I stayed home doing nothing, the more I felt myself turning into a shut-in. I’d originally planned to rest for just a month, and somehow it had already become two. I’d meant to keep living with my parents while working on what I’d planned, but once I actually tried it, it didn’t feel right — so I decided to move out on my own.

Since I needed to earn at least enough to cover rent, I ruled out anything too physically demanding and started looking for part-time work on Albamon, Albachunguk, and Danggeun Market (Korean job-listing and secondhand-marketplace apps). I found something that looked decent, applied, interviewed, and got it — a spot at Busan Tower, one of the city’s better-known landmarks.