“This is the book I've given as a gift more than any other. If this book were a person, it would be that dependable senior who never gives you empty words.”
— Mieun Lee, online review
“Whenever I find a sentence I want to come back to, I fold down the top corner of the page. Most of the pages in this book have their corners folded.”
— Seulgi Kim, online review
240,000 copies sold in Korea
A comforting self-help essay on mental well-being of Millennials and Gen Z, on compassion, priority, and resilience
What do you do when there is no perfect answer, no mentor to follow, and no guarantee your choices will work out?
For more than a decade, Kyoungsun Lim has been the trusted “older sister” to countless Korean readers, offering warm but refreshingly direct advice on work, love, failure, and relationships.
In this book, she refuses easy comfort, empty optimism, or one-size-fits-all answers. Instead, she offers practical wisdom for facing life as it is, thinking for yourself, and taking responsibility for your choices.
Drawing on twelve years in the corporate world, her life as a full-time writer, and thousands of conversations with readers, Lim explores five qualities for living on your own terms: Spontaneity, Magnanimity, Honesty, Diligence, and Fairness. Her advice is firmly grounded in real life: there is no perfect choice, no job that is enjoyable all the time, and if you never want to get hurt, you may never begin at all.
Less a guide to how you should live than a conversation with the smart, straight-talking older sister you can turn to when life gets complicated.