[JOTO Plate Recommendation] Become Yourself First, Before Becoming What Others Expect
The longer I continue studying, the less I believe life truly follows a standard timeline. There are always people telling us what age we should graduate, when we should find our direction, or when we should produce an impressive-looking result. Listen long enough, and it begins to feel as though even breathing must keep pace with some invisible schedule—as if slowing down means falling behind.
I spent longer in university than many others. Graduate school, too, has unfolded more slowly for me. Of course, there are people around me who found their place earlier, accumulated achievements faster, and knew exactly how to move toward a clear goal. Pretending I never envied that would be dishonest. But over time, I realized something important: if a person spends all their energy trying to catch up with everyone else’s rhythm, the first thing they often lose is the reason they started in the first place.
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I have never been the kind of person who excels at aggressively pushing forward. What others sometimes see as slowness often feels, to me, like a deeper kind of sorting and rebuilding.
For me, studying was never only about finishing credits, completing a thesis, or polishing a résumé. I have always known clearly that I want to become a sociologist. But what I want is not a role that can be quickly recognized—and just as quickly replaced.
I want to become the kind of sociologist who cannot easily be substituted. Not out of arrogance, nor because I intentionally choose a more difficult road, but because I know that what truly sustains a long journey is neither anxiety nor comparison. It is the intellectual path itself. The books I have read, the moments that shook me, the detours and crossroads I have passed through—these will eventually become the way I understand the world. And these things cannot be rushed. Nor should they be.
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The outside world loves to frame growth as a perfectly organized competition, as though the first person to arrive automatically deserves more recognition. But genuine learning does not work that way.
Some people thrive under pressure and move forward quickly. Others need more time to process, question, dismantle, and slowly rebuild knowledge into something that becomes part of their own structure. Neither way is inherently superior. Yet we so often mistake someone else’s speed for our own standard.
We watch people around us graduate, settle into careers, or step into lives that appear stable, and we begin wondering whether we are too slow, too disorganized, too incapable. But much of that anxiety does not actually come from lack of ability. It comes from measuring ourselves too early against someone else’s ruler. The ruler itself is not wrong—it simply may not be capable of measuring what you are truly trying to become.
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I only became more accepting of my own pace after admitting something honestly: what I truly want is not to shape myself into someone who merely fits expectations, but to first understand myself clearly.
By “self,” I do not mean stubbornness or avoiding effort. I mean understanding how I learn, how I think, and what kinds of questions genuinely call to me. I know I need more time to digest ideas deeply, and I know I do not want to skim past important questions simply to appear efficient.
Many people see slowness as procrastination. But some forms of slowness are actually a process of growing roots. A tree with shallow roots can still grow—but the stronger the wind becomes, the easier it shakes. If I truly want to become a sociologist with weight and depth, then building my own language, intellectual concerns, and way of judgment is not a detour. It is the road itself.
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So now I believe more and more that becoming yourself first, before becoming what others expect, is not simply a comforting phrase for those who feel left behind. It is a more grounded way of living.
There is nothing wrong with arriving slowly, so long as you are actually walking your own path. There is nothing wrong with arriving later, so long as what you carry with you truly belongs to you.
The world will continue urging people forward. It will continue presenting polished definitions of success. But if a person cannot even protect their own rhythm, then even after arriving somewhere impressive, they may no longer understand why they are standing there at all.
I still want to become a sociologist. That direction has never changed. But more than becoming someone instantly recognizable, I want to become, step by step, a person who is fully myself—and because of that, someone who cannot easily be replaced.
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