Having a Hard Time

Before anything else, I want to get one thing out of the way.

I’m not someone who defaults to blaming circumstances, people, or the environment. That’s never really been how I work. When something feels off, my first instinct is to look inward. What did I choose? What did I miss? What should I have done differently? Responsibility, at least for me, always comes before blame. That’s the mindset I’m writing this from. I’ve been meaning to write for a while now. Not because I lacked things to say, but because there was almost too much to unpack. A lot has happened since my last post, and when I step back and look at it honestly, most of it circles back to work. My work life, my sense of identity, and my relationship with something I used to genuinely enjoy.

If I had to compress all of it into a single sentence, it would be this: working in Korea has been slowly draining my passion, my confidence, and my sense of self. Not because I dislike the work itself, but because the way work is done here feels fundamentally misaligned with how I think, communicate, and create.

And that’s the part that’s been hardest to reconcile.

I’ve always liked working. Not in a grind for the sake of it way, but because work, at its best, is a place where ideas are tested, boundaries are pushed, and people grow together. For me, work has never been just about output or stability. It’s about curiosity. Exploration. Learning through friction. Sometimes even failing, as long as something meaningful comes out of it. When that’s present, work feels alive. When it’s not, you feel it immediately...

Lately, that feeling has been fading.

What I’ve been experiencing instead is a system that leans heavily on rigid judgment and inflexibility. People are evaluated quickly, often decisively, and rarely with the assumption that they can change or evolve. Once you’re measured against a certain standard, that assessment tends to stick, regardless of context or growth. Naturally, that affects how people operate.

Adaptation isn’t encouraged. Experimentation is seen as risk rather than possibility. Even when there’s clear reasoning behind a different approach, deviation from established methods is often met with resistance instead of curiosity. Over time, you start to feel that the safest option is silence, not contribution.

That’s deeply frustrating for someone who believes progress comes from tension, debate, and uncomfortable questions. Good work doesn’t happen in perfectly smooth environments. It happens when people are allowed to challenge each other constructively. But here, those discussions either don’t happen, or they’re reduced to something surface-level, filtered through hierarchy, or quietly shut down in favor of “how things have always been done.”

And that kind of environment slowly wears you down.

Closely tied to that is another struggle I didn’t fully anticipate: how advice and external perspectives are received.

There’s a noticeable reluctance to take input from the outside. Sometimes I wonder if it’s cultural. Sometimes I wonder if it’s situational. And sometimes I wonder if it’s simply me. Maybe the way I communicate doesn’t land well here. Maybe my approach feels too direct, or not contextual enough. That’s something I’m still trying to understand.

What I do know is this: I don’t assume I’m right. I’m fully aware that I don’t have complete information, and I’m the first to admit when I need help. I want discussion. I want back-and-forth conversations where ideas are challenged and refined. I strongly believe no single person should design everything from start to finish alone. Good products are built when people rely on each other’s strengths and compensate for each other’s blind spots. That belief hasn’t changed, even if the environment around me has.

All of this feeds into the hardest part of the experience: communication.

I’ve struggled with communication here more than I ever expected to. And it’s not just about language. It’s about how intentions are expressed, how feedback is delivered, how disagreement is managed, and how silence is used as a tool. So much is implied rather than said. So much is left for you to infer. And you’re often expected to “just know.”

When you miss those signals, even unintentionally, the consequences can be real. I’ll be honest: I haven’t fully adapted to Korean work culture. Maybe I’m still unfamiliar with its nuances. Maybe there are things I don’t fully understand yet. Or maybe there are aspects I simply can’t accept. I’m open to all of those possibilities. But regardless of the reason, the communication style makes everything heavier than it needs to be.

Simple conversations become draining. Feedback arrives too indirectly, or too late to be useful. Issues are acknowledged but rarely resolved. Tension accumulates quietly, instead of being addressed openly. And when misunderstandings happen, they don’t disappear. They linger, leaving you constantly guessing where you stand.

Living in that uncertainty takes a real toll.

What makes it even harder is that my passion for the work itself hasn’t gone anywhere. I still care deeply about my craft. I still get excited about ideas, visuals, systems, and the potential of meaningful creative work. That part of me is still very much alive. In many ways, it’s the only constant I’ve been holding onto. But passion alone can’t carry everything.

When work stops being enjoyable, when it stops being intellectually rewarding, and when it starts feeling like a daily exercise in restraint and emotional endurance, you naturally start asking yourself why you’re still there. Lately, I haven’t been able to come up with a convincing answer. Not because the work lacks value, but because the environment makes it feel unsustainable.

At times, I question whether this is just a personal issue. Maybe everyone else is fine. Maybe I’m the one who can’t adjust. The one whose expectations are misaligned. I think about that more often than I’d like to admit. Yet even when I try to accept that explanation, something still doesn’t sit right. It doesn’t feel dramatic or explosive, just quietly wrong. I know my professional foundation was built in the United States. That shaped how I think about collaboration, leadership, feedback, and creative ownership. Differences were always inevitable. I’ve understood that from the beginning.

At the same time, I’m someone who’s very comfortable stepping back and looking at myself objectively. I know what I’m capable of right now, and I know where my limits are. Because of that, I’m always open to outside input and ready to adapt when it makes sense.

That’s also why this current role feels increasingly unstable. The position I’m in is slowly drifting out of alignment with who I am and how I work. I’ll probably know soon whether it’s truly the right fit. Maybe it hasn’t been long enough. Maybe I should give it more time. But even in this relatively short period, I don’t see myself being able to show up fully as myself, given the nature of everything around me.

The longer I stay, the clearer it becomes. Not in a dramatic, hostile way. No one is pushing me out. It’s subtler than that. It’s the constant friction. The feeling of swimming against the current every single day.

Belonging isn’t about nationality or language. It’s about whether your values, instincts, and way of thinking can coexist with the environment you’re in. Right now, it feels like mine can’t. Or at least, not without giving up parts of myself I’m not willing to sacrifice.

I don’t have a clean conclusion. I’m still in the middle of all of this. Still trying to understand what it means for my career, my identity, and whatever comes next. Maybe this is just a phase. Maybe it’s a signal. Maybe it’s both. All I know is that I miss enjoying work the way I used to. I miss feeling aligned with the people around me. And I miss the version of myself that didn’t feel slowly hollowed out by something that was supposed to matter.

For now, this is where I am. Having a hard time. And trying to be honest about it.