There was a time when I truly felt that my life had collapsed. Driven by the hope of making something big, I poured nearly everything I had into an overseas business venture. It failed. I returned to Korea having lost most of what I owned.
1. The Season When Everything Fell Apart
For a long time afterward, simply getting through each day felt difficult. I survived on a transportation card my wife handed me so I could at least take the bus. I took whatever work I could find. Despite my poor physical condition, I even tried manual labor jobs.
I also reached out to people around me for help. But more often than not, what came back was quiet rejection and awkward silence. At one time, I believed I could survive on pride alone. But desperation has a way of stripping away the luxury of choosing what you will or will not do.
More than the poverty itself, what exhausted me was the feeling that nothing was truly improving. I kept trying to rebuild my life, but reality did not change easily.
2. At the National Pension Office
Eventually, I went to the National Pension office. I asked whether it might be possible to receive my pension contributions as a lump sum payment. At that point in my life, survival in the present felt far more urgent than security in the future.
But the answer was firm. Legally, it was impossible. After sitting there silently for a while, I finally said: “What is the point of saving a feast for a special day if you starve to death before it even arrives? If I cannot survive now, what meaning does future security really have?”
Nothing changed. Looking back now, the employees could not have done anything differently. They were simply explaining the rules of the system. I walked out of the building exactly as I had entered it.
3. What Time Eventually Revealed
Years later, I now receive my national pension every month. It is not a large amount of money. But the fact that it arrives steadily on a fixed date each month holds my life together far more firmly than I once imagined.
Sometimes I still think about that day. Back then, survival was the only thing I could see. I believed that if I could just get my hands on that money, I would somehow be able to start over. But looking back now, I doubt the outcome would have been very different.
In my anxiety and desperation, I would have used it simply trying to put out the fires directly in front of me. It probably would have disappeared quickly, like sand slipping through my fingers. Those were years when I was running blindly just trying to stay alive.
In the end, the refusal I once resented may actually have protected my future self.
Sometimes the meaning of certain events is impossible to understand in the moment. Things that once felt cruel can return years later wearing an entirely different face. Perhaps that refusal was one of those things for me.