On holiday in Korea I asked almost everyone I met,
"What do you like? What do you want to do?"
Most people could not answer.
Having no desire means you are not living as yourself. [The Patterns Humans Draw, Choi Jinseok]
In Australia, the same question brought all kinds of answers.
Why do people in Korea struggle with this question? (Not everyone, of course.) I kept thinking about it while I was there.
One of the things that felt uncomfortable in Korea was how loud the outside voices are.
For example:
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At this age you should be settling down.
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You should have a house before you marry.
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You should act your age.
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You should also be investing.
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You should be preparing for retirement.
Those things can be true. But you hear them so often that you start to feel you have to do them even if you don't want to. Skipping them feels like falling behind. Once you start doing them one by one, life fills up and every day becomes very busy. The problem is this: there is no time left to feel your own desire. There is no time to notice what you like, what you want, or when you are happy.
Looking back, I often chose things other people said were fine, or things I was told I should do, rather than things I truly wanted. The trouble is that this way of living eventually brings a hollow feeling. I had worked hard, and life still felt empty.
In Australia I got lucky with a lot of time alone. If I didn't try to meet people, there often wasn't a chance. I didn't have the same circle of friends as in Korea, and after work people preferred to be with family. The population is also thinner, so you can go outside and still meet no one. Time alone grew naturally, and I had more time to meet myself.
Then I became curious: What do you like? What do you want to do? At first, nothing came up. I kept asking the question and reading, and small feelings started to appear. I followed those small feelings one by one. They grew, and at some point it felt like I was talking with myself. This was the important part. Once I could talk with the inside of myself, a sense of happiness arrived, the feeling was good, and my mind became quiet. The world even felt a little like heaven. I also felt I could do anything.
After feeling that, the difference was even clearer when I visited Korea.
Then I read Choi Jinseok's The Patterns Humans Draw. It says this:
The reason we are not happy is that we do not have a self. [The Patterns Humans Draw, Choi Jinseok]
In other words, if you find yourself, you become happy. The book also says: don't live as "we." Live only as "I."
My conclusion was this: to be happy in Korea, you have to deliberately make time to look at your own desire. Block the outside voices that never stop, look at what you want, and live a life led by desire, a life as yourself. Then you can be happy without that hollow feeling.
Why not meet yourself a little today?
#HOWBIM, #Australia, #Korea, #happiness, #Choi Jinseok