Welcome to Hyunam-Dong Bookshop is a simple and heartwarming novel by Hwang Bo-Reum. When things fall apart, the protagonist decides to step away from her old life and pursue her dream of opening a bookshop. The tale that follows is how the protagonist and the characters find refuge in the bookshop and learn the art of how to live. It is not a book filled with profound insights but is one of the reads that offers warmth and comfort.
Here are 5 lines from the book that I felt applied to our professional and personal lives:
- “To know what you like you must first have the energy and bandwidth to begin exploring”
I’ve often seen this pattern in me and my conversations with clients – clarity rarely emerges when we are stuck and desperate for answers. Our instinctive response to stuckness is persistence, to keep trying and pushing harder. But most times, this effort is in vain. What works instead is stepping back, taking a pause, creating space, generating energy and then exploring.
A character in this book realises this when he takes an unexpected part-time position as a barista to earn some livelihood after years of desperately trying to find a job. The role offered him a space to pause, ease, and reflect on the larger questions he was seeking answers to before rushing into the race. You need energy to find clarity.
2. “Because harmony is preceded by dissonance, that’s why we think life is beautiful”
We all have this expectation that life should be happily ever after. At work too we expect our peak performance and results to continue year after year. We desire harmony to remain the status quo always. But would we appreciate the harmony without experiencing the unpleasantness of the contrast that we know is discord?
As much as we like our certainty and want only the good times to last, this line reminded me that our appreciation of the good times comes from our experience of the contrast. Without it, we may not learn to appreciate the harmony.
3. “Learn to think well of ourselves”
Another simple but profound reminder. Despite years of inner work, I still get caught up in the spiral of beating myself over little slips and mistakes. I’ve seen my clients go through the same vicious cycle and often wonder how different our lives would be if we could learn to think well of ourselves. Where we are not our worst enemies and embrace our imperfections. It will help us find ease in our beings and accelerate our growth for we are not wasting energy beating ourselves up.
4. “Whatever you do you will face challenges. In the end, it boils down to this: what kind of work do I want to do, despite all the worries? For me, I choose to worry as I run a bookshop”
I found this a profound reminder that every path we choose in life has its pros and cons. Our aim then, is not to eliminate the cons but to exercise our will to make a conscious choice on what cons we are okay to live it.
Being a salaried employee comes with its own benefits and challenges. Being a solopreneur or an entrepreneur has another set of them. The question we need to ask ourselves is what work would we want to do despite the difficulties. Worries won’t disappear, but making a conscious choice and accepting the trade-offs helps us to stop second-guessing ourselves and give it our best shot.
5. “A day well spent is a life well lived”
For the last decade or so, this is a question I’ve lived with, “what does it take to live life well?” Naturally, when I came across this line, it stood out to me as a simple but profound answer.
A life is constituted of our days. So if we consciously choose where to redirect our energies each day and spend it well, it adds up to a good life.
We often get stuck in the bigger picture and end up missing out on the little things that spark joy. This line reminded me to bring that focus back to the small units that add up to a good life and reflect daily on what would make today meaningful or fulfilling for me.
Which of these five statements resonated with you today? What would you choose to do differently?
