[One Thousand Characters a Day] Sad Feelings Are Also a Habit<3>

Editor's NoteAsia Economy provides daily 1,000-character transcription content for the 'One Day Ten Thousand Steps, One Day One Thousand Characters' newsletter readers. The transcription content is carefully selected and delivered daily and monthly according to themes, including Eastern and Western classics, Korean literature, notable columns, and famous speeches. This week, let's read together the book ＜Depressed Minds Are Also Habits＞ by psychologist Professor Park Sang-mi, who talks about taking responsibility for one's emotions and living a happy life. It is a story about the secrets of cheerful and bright people and the power of optimistic thinking. Word count: 919 characters.

We all have the desire to be happy, to laugh, and to live cheerfully. Even in pain, we can cultivate the strength to do our best to live cheerfully. There is a sentence in the book by Georg Luk?cs.

"Cheerfulness is not the absence of pain or the stability of existence, but an action and response arising from inner desire."

This is a sentence I really like. There are people who always live cheerfully and brightly in any environment. Is it because they have no pain and are always in a stable environment that they can live brightly? As Luk?cs said, cheerfulness is not given by the environment but arises from inner desire.

"I want to live brightly. I want to find happiness even in unhappiness."

Cheerfulness starts from such a desire of mine. It is not that we laugh because we are happy, but because of the desire to be happy, we laugh and live more cheerfully, and then happiness naturally follows. Laughing a lot, thinking positively, making efforts to live as cheerfully as possible?these efforts, choices, and habits determine the direction of life.

Do not set success as your goal.

The more you set success as your goal and target it, the farther you get from it. Like happiness, success is not something you can find but something that comes to you. If you live joyfully every day, happiness will surely come to you. This means you should try to be indifferent to success so that it comes naturally. This is what Viktor Frankl said.

When success and happiness become goals, you actually move away from true happiness. Because of the burden. If you worry about what will happen if you fail to achieve your goals, you become anxious. If you listen to the voice of your conscience and act for what you want, success and happiness will naturally come, and you should live every day joyfully and gratefully with that expectation, isn't that right?

- Park Sang-mi, 'Depressed Minds Are Also Habits', Evening Moon, 18,800 KRW