★ A healing work on midlife by bestselling author Jung Yeo-ul, with a reader rating of 8.4: Jung Yeo-ul excels at blending literature and psychology to write about wounds and growth. This book focuses on turning forty, recording the life changes and inner revelations she experienced before and after entering her forties—a growth essay written for everyone.

★ Redefining forty: not an appendix to old age, but the wisest stage for rewriting your life: The author proposes that at forty, you are no longer as flustered as youth, nor yet as detached from the body and mind as old age. After years of struggling and striving in society, reaching midlife finally offers the chance to break free from organizational identity and seek one's authentic self. Midlife may be precisely the wisest period for changing your life—without the urgency of youth, and without the distance from body and mind that old age brings.

★ A book of life wisdom for those in their thirties, forties, and fifties: This book offers those in their thirties the wisdom to observe the anxieties of youth from a distance; it gives those in their forties reasons to fully embrace and enjoy the present; and it reminds those in their fifties not to forget the new strength and courage being born within midlife.

Jung Yeo-ul excels at blending literature and psychology to write about wounds and growth. Her prose is like a neatly pressed handkerchief—slowly telling its story, conveying gentle warmth and comfort. This book focuses on turning forty, recording the life changes and inner revelations she experienced before and after entering her forties—a growth essay written for everyone.

Just as thinking about death helps us better understand the meaning of life, facing forty directly allows us to understand the weight of both youth and old age. This book offers those in their thirties the wisdom to observe the anxieties of youth from a distance; it gives those in their forties reasons to fully embrace and enjoy the present; and it reminds those in their fifties not to forget the new strength and courage being born within midlife.

Forty is not an appendix attached to the years before old age—it is, rather, the wisest stage for rewriting your life. No longer as flustered as youth, and not yet as detached from the body and mind as old age. After years of struggling and striving in society, reaching midlife finally offers the chance to break free from organizational identity and seek one's authentic self.

From the perspective of a woman and a literary observer, the author records the bright thrills and quiet joys unique to midlife. This is not a conventional warning about age anxiety, nor is it aggressive self-motivation. When you have been young, been hurt, and criticized yourself for a long time, the newness of forty becomes possible. Learn to make peace with yourself, let go of past obsessions and regrets, and at this age, you can begin a new departure that belongs to you.

“Forty is the first time I began to love myself as I am.”

Jung Yeo-ul

Once covered in wounds, she now writes, teaches, and researches, hoping to become a healer who brings courage to others. She believes wounds are the best teachers. She graduated from the Department of German Language and Literature at Seoul National University and holds a doctorate in Korean Language and Literature from the same university. She hosts the KBS First Radio programme Lee Eun-sun's Cinema, Jung Yeo-ul's Library and the NAVER paid column Muse Salon.

Winner of the 2013 Jeon Suk-hee Literary Award. Representative works: Meeting Walden Again, The Courage to Keep Writing, One Page a Day, the World's Shortest Psychology Lesson 365, The Last Waltz, Bloom, The Introverted Traveler, and others.

Opening: Forty Is Not What Everyone Thinks It Is

Part One: A Brand-New Time
A Time That Is Thrilling, Worthy of Affirmation, and Radiant
A Life of Learning While Teaching
The Right to Be Renewed Every Day, No Matter How Others Judge
Never Avoid Happiness

Part Two: A Time to Live as Yourself
Saying Goodbye to the Peacemaker
The Power of Time Rising Within Me
Only by Learning to Refuse Can You Become Yourself
Shedding the "Organizational Identity" to Find Yourself
Some Things Only Look Beautiful from a Distance

Part Three: A Time of Reconciliation
Greeting the Self You Never Knew
Listening to the Inner Child
Making Peace with Your Complexes
Letting Your Complexes Become Light