A Career Heretic! Somehow, Anyway, Marketing It Is

The Quirky Past of a Quirky 'Habni'

Ever since I was little, I was a bottomless pit of curiosity — everything in the world fascinated me. I wanted to experience absolutely everything. As a kid, I expanded my horizons through TV and books, and I used to constantly worry: "What if I die without visiting this place or that place, without trying this thing or that thing?"

Thanks to that quirky personality, I had a rather chaotic school life, and once I became a college student, things got even more adventurous.

For example:

• Taking a leave from school and getting a full-time job offer after joining the night shift at a factory — just out of curiosity
• Completing a 20-day cross-country march from Busan to Seoul, sleeping in a tent every night without a break
• Making subway signs
• Handling a subcontractor factory for a famous brand
• Providing protocol services for foreign diplomats
• Assisting with concert planning and taking charge of all poster and banner designs
• Buying one-way tickets and backpacking for months at a time

And so on...

The Adventures of a Career Heretic in Search of a Calling

Having always had so many things I wanted to do, I was able to stack up countless experiences through precious opportunities — but strangely, the more I did, the harder it became to actually get a job. Perhaps it was because I felt deep in my bones that my "calling" — the thing that would take up the biggest part of my life — had to be something I truly wanted to do, something I was sure about, and above all, something I felt desperate for and deeply cared about.

I had to find that calling. In this curious, wonderful world.

So while my friends were steadily landing proper jobs one by one, I turned my back on the job market and decided to do things my way. I declared myself a career heretic and shouted "Jobs can wait!" I worked odd jobs to save money, took off on trips, then hustled again to try whatever I'd been wanting to do. I lived in an endless adventure until I found what I was looking for.

There are many stories about my grand adventure, but I'll save those for later. In this post, I just want to say that my adventure has been a success so far, and it's because of that journey that I'm standing on this path today.

It took me a long, winding road to find my calling, and there are surely mountains of challenges still ahead. But looking back on all those days, I can say with confidence that I don't regret a single thing.

A path never just drops from the sky. Through all those grueling days of walking countless roads, endlessly wondering "Is this right? Am I doing okay?" — it was tough, but not a single moment was meaningless. I arrived at this path because I kept walking. Every winding road was connected to this one all along.

One Single Regret, and the Beginning of 'Have-been'!

But once I started walking the path of a marketer, one piercing regret suddenly hit me. It was this: "If only I had documented all those quirky, winding days and left them as evidence."

People who love something, feel passionate about it, and turn it into their career and their life — every single one of them had a record of their passion and trial-and-error. Whether it was running a personal blog for years, writing manuscripts and publishing books, or running a YouTube channel.

And those people always seemed to turn what they wanted into their career and their life. What people call "success." Their secret lay in personal branding built on "documentation" and "consistency" — and I realized this far too late.

If only I had consistently documented my quirky days like that. Then I could have found my path more authentically, more quickly — and maybe even created my own path to walk.

But when you think it's too late, it really is too late! There's no more time for regret. The roads ahead will keep winding, and I know better than anyone that my life will keep being wonderfully unconventional. So I have to start now.

From now on, I'm going to document my past life and the days yet to come — leaving records, leaving evidence — and build my own path. I'm going to put my heart into personal branding right here.

I want to carefully and consistently document everything: my beloved career, my hobbies, my travels, all my past days, all my experiences — everything I've done. To carve out a clearer path for the road ahead.

Alright, here we go! This is Habni's 'Escape from Unemployment' — dreaming of the good life!