Hello! I’m Sujin, a marketer. 🙋🏻♀️ Today, I’d like to share the story of how I first began my tea journey.
Everyone has a beginning. Even for me—now someone who owns tea tools and enjoys tea every day
as part of my routine—there was once a time when simply sitting at a tea table filled me with
excitement. This is the story of how tea helped me quiet the noise in my mind and rediscover the
rhythm of my daily life.
I used to love MapleStory, the game that defined an era.
Leveling up in a two-dimensional world, advancing through different classes, completing quests alongside party members, and gradually growing stronger — perhaps it’s an exaggeration to say it felt like self-realization, but somehow, it truly did.
After surviving the turbulence of my twenties and entering my thirties, life itself has started to feel even more game-like than games. Recently, while studying neuroscience and the ideas surrounding slow aging, I’ve begun to better understand the mechanics of how I function as a human being.
When my condition feels off or my mood sinks, I ask myself, “Have I not moved enough today?”
If sleepiness crashes over me in the afternoon, I wonder, “Did I eat too much sugar at lunch?”
Sometimes, when I give in to cravings and eat too many simple carbohydrates, I end up doing squats to burn the sugar away.
Whenever work becomes difficult or I run into problems, I seek out my seniors. Like collecting walkthrough guides in a game, I carefully record their experiences one by one, thinking about how I might apply them to myself.
These days, I’ve even created an imaginary club called #NightStudyClub, where I spend time studying every evening. Posting little updates online, I feel as though I’m steadily acquiring new skills for the next stage of life.
Life is more game-like than games themselves — and honestly, even more fun. When I think of myself as “a character I am raising,” criticism and self-loathing begin to fade. Instead of saying, “Why can’t I ever follow through with my plans?” I start asking, “What does this character need in order to move the way I intended?” It becomes the perspective of a designer rather than a judge.
And through all of this designing and rebuilding, I hope you might keep one particular potion close at hand: tea.
This mysterious elixir has a way of making life sharper, more delicate, quieter, and calmer — allowing you to see your own life with greater clarity and intention.