On the Idea of the “Young 40”

Last week, I tried to write a personal essay—an observational piece—on Korean “young 40s” 1 . To be clear, this isn’t about everyone in their forties, but a specific subset: those in positions of power whose ambition, habits, and behaviors I’ve observed closely in my professional experience. I wrote it all out and even pressed publish, but I unpublished it not long after. The speed of my own…