[Eunji Jeong's Reality Essay] I Wasn't Falling Behind. I Had Lost My Pace

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[Korea Lecturer News, Columnist Jung Eun-ji] For a while, I lived with the feeling that I was falling behind. People around my age seemed to be settling into their lives to some extent, while I felt as if I was always one step behind. I was not quite sure what I was doing well, or where I was heading. My mind kept growing impatient, and that impatience only made me more anxious.

I felt the same way when I started my first job in Seoul. After about a year, I had become familiar with the basic tasks, but my clinical skills did not improve as much as I had hoped. I was not particularly slow with my hands, but whenever I felt someone watching me, my body would strangely freeze first. Whether I was taking an X-ray, pouring a dental cast, or preparing for treatment, the director’s gaze was always close by. And before anything else, the words I heard were always, “Hurry, hurry.”

The more those words were repeated, the faster my heart beat. As I lost my composure, mistakes became more frequent, and the work gradually began to lose its joy. I started to think that clinical work did not suit me. So I began looking for another direction, and naturally, patient reception and consultation work caught my attention. In the treatment room, I often froze, but when I was dealing with people, I strangely still had energy left.

From then on, I decided that I wanted to become a desk manager. I was still working in the treatment room, but I knew that to become a manager, I needed to understand the flow of clinical work well. So I became more proactive in clinical tasks than before, and little by little, I also learned desk work and insurance claims alongside the manager. After six months, one day, I submitted my resignation for a new beginning at another clinic.

The clinic I moved to afterward had a different atmosphere from the previous one. Instead of scolding me for being new to the manager role, they told me it was okay to make mistakes and that we could try again together. They also suggested and registered me for necessary seminars. Only then did I feel as if I could finally breathe while working.

Then one day, the treatment room became so busy that I had to step in briefly as clinical backup. I realized that my hands were much steadier than before. It was not because I had practiced more, but because I was less tense. Many of the things I had thought were problems of ability were actually related to the pace of my mind.

Bill Gates once said, “I choose a lazy person to do a hard job. Because a lazy person will find an easy way to do it.” At first, I could not understand that statement. I could not see how laziness and ability were connected. But over time, I came to understand it a little. What matters is not always moving fast, but finding a way to work that suits you.

This experience also influenced the choices I made afterward. When I first thought about becoming a lecturer, I had the desire, but I could not move right away. I would look into different things, then put them aside, thinking, “Maybe it is not the right time yet.” But I do not think that time was meaningless. I was not standing still. I was closer to adjusting my pace. Then, when I clearly felt, “I cannot miss this,” I started again. By then, I was less impatient and less shaken than before.

When I started working as a lecturer, I once again faced the issue of pace. I would make plans, but the days when I was slow to act kept repeating. I often found reasons not to do something and put things off until tomorrow. I did not want to explain that only as a lack of willpower. There was clearly a limit to the pace I could maintain when moving alone.

So I decided to start working every morning with lecturers whose mindset matched mine, as if we were “going to work” together. In today’s terms, it was a kind of body doubling. We would turn on our screens and each do our own work. In the morning, we shared what we planned to do, and in the evening, we looked back on the day. It was not a competition to get ahead of someone else, but a time to check each person’s own pace. As we did that, my laziness decreased, and my work began moving forward again.

Looking back, I was never someone who always moved quickly. At certain times, I clearly seemed to be falling behind, and I also took long detours. But because of those times, I came to understand what made me easily shaken, what kinds of environments drained my energy, and under what conditions I could come back to life. The time I spent slowing down did not hold me back. Instead, it allowed me to keep going longer.

In his UN speech, BTS leader RM said, “Tell me your story.” It was a message about telling yourself who you are, where you are from, and finding your name and your voice through that story. I interpret those words a little differently. “Speak your own pace. Protect your own rhythm. It is okay even if your pace is different from everyone else’s.”

Even now, I adjust my pace depending on the situation. There are times when I need to move quickly, and there are times when I need to pause for a while. What matters is not whether I am moving at the same speed as others, but whether I am moving in a rhythm I can handle.

I have learned through experience that choices that seem like detours can sometimes become the path that protects me. And more than anything, what mattered was believing in myself. For a long time, whenever my heart wavered, I have asked myself, “What can I do to become more grounded?” The answer was not a grand resolution or a special turning point. It was closer to how I accepted and interpreted each day.

After passing through times when I easily fell apart over small things, I gradually developed standards that could hold me up. As my thoughts changed, the way I approached relationships and choices also changed. In the end, what changed the situation was not the environment or luck, but my own attitude as I moved through that time. And that attitude continues to move me forward even now.

Columnist Profile

Columnist Eunji Jeong is a dental hygienist, writer, and lecturer who also runs the YouTube channel “Nabi Only.” She is the author of This Is How Dental Hygienists Work and My First Time in Society, among other works. She is currently enrolled in the master’s program in Educational Technology at Hanyang Cyber University Graduate School, where she is strengthening her ability to design lectures and educational content more effectively. Her lectures are mainly delivered at universities and educational institutions, covering interview training, career branding, and motivational topics. She also provides dental consultation lectures for medical professionals.

Society often demands quick competence from those who are experiencing something for the first time, rather than giving them enough time to learn. Through her writing, she hopes to share stories about what kind of standards are needed to avoid exhausting the self in that process, and how a person can protect themselves beyond their job and role.

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