Instead, She Turned to Bookstores As an Alternative Place of Learning

Mo Yoo-jin, a self-reliant young adult and singer-songwriter with Glorifi, writes about how reading helped her find meaning in life after growing up without parental support. In her essay, she reflects on how a bookstore that once served as a refuge from a daunting world has become a creative space where she writes her own life story. Mo describes her teenage fear of turning 20, when she would no longer be protected as a minor.

While peers dreamed of adulthood and independence, she felt the cold boundary of a world that would not wait for her or teach her the things parents normally would. She often skipped school because it did not teach her how to manage rent, handle household problems, or care for herself when sick. Instead, she turned to bookstores as an alternative place of learning.

Years later, at 30, Mo found herself again sitting in a bookstore, searching for sentences to live by. She had been weighed down by the future, rushing through tasks while her mind wandered. Reading about Fred, a 91-year-old man who said the present is precious because the future may never come, made her look up and see where she was — surrounded by people quietly immersed in their own worlds.

Mo connects this perspective to the socioemotional selectivity theory by psychologist Laura L. Carstensen, founder of the Stanford Center on Longevity. Older adults focus energy on what brings immediate joy, while younger people prefer accumulating new experiences and knowledge for the future. Mo notes that constantly preparing for what comes next can turn the present into a waiting room rather than a stage for living.

She recalls believing that real life would begin only after getting a job, saving money, or owning a home — an error she compares to treating her current hardships as a beta service before an official launch. Quoting John Leland, author of "Happiness Is a Choice You Make, who closely interviewed six people aged 85 and older: "If you live this moment properly, you can face the next moment when everything gets better. Mo concludes that life is not a service that officially starts after all preparations are complete — today, however incomplete, is already her life.