Start Here

For years I've done one thing without fail: eat out and tell people exactly what to order. The tiny place without a PR machine where the owner ages the galbi himself, the famous one that actually earns its queue, the spot on your corner you keep walking past. Over 700 restaurants now.

And somewhere in there, the thing I loved became a routine. It made life easy. I got comfortable. Everything that wasn't eating got the same three words: I'll do it later.

People say by 40, you're supposed to have it all figured out. I believed that. Before I turned 40, I watched a film called Here. One room, one spot, a whole life passing through it, everyone always meaning to do the thing, later. It felt like me. So I said it out loud: I'm going to write my bucket list. I bought the paper. I bought the pens.

Then I turned 41. The paper was still blank. A whole year, and I couldn't even write down a simple bucket list.

Try it yourself:

I told myself I was lazy. I do not think that was it. To write the list down I had to say what I actually want, and the things I want sound embarrassing. I want to meet someone famous. I want people to know who I am. I want a restaurant with my name on it. In Korea there is a word for saying that out loud. 나대기. You say it nadegee, hard g, like geese.

나대기 means showing off. The one with his hand up, the one who wants everybody watching while he tries. Kids grow up hearing 나대지 마. Do not be that guy. So I did not. I moved to the city where showing off is basically the job and still sat politely in the corner for years.

And it costs me. I go to influencer events and watch the extrovert ones become friends in ten minutes and make content on the spot, and I am the fly on the wall. I do not want to be that person any more.

Because here is what I cannot unsee. Everyone doing the things on my list put themselves out there to get them. They asked. They looked a bit cringe doing it and carried on anyway. The cringe ones are winning, and I have been filming them for years.

So I am not calling it a bucket list. A bucket list is for someday, and you have seen what I do with someday. I named it after the insult instead.

That is Nadègee: 65 things I said I would do later, filling in, in public, as I actually do them.