Sweet Wisdom

People want to be happy. That's a simple straight up fact that no one can deny. You can go out on a street and survey 100 people, and ask them "do you want to be happy?", not a single person will respond with a "no". Furthermore, for the most part, a lot of things that people do in their life time relate back to, at least eventually, them being happy. But really though, how do you achieve happiness?

See, when I was younger, well actually, even up until recently, I used to believe happiness is something that just comes to you naturally. If you are meant to be happy, then you'll be happy - if not, then you won't be. That's just it. Or at least so I believed. But, I came to realize that's not true at all. As the matter of fact, if you want to be happy, you must learn how to be happy. After all, happiness is a state of mind, and only you can achieve it for yourself; it is all a matter of perspective. Let me tell you why this is the case.

Like I said before, I used to believe happiness is something that naturally comes to people. Sometimes that might seem to be true. You look around, you see people being happy when something good happens to them, or when they obtain something nice. For an instance, you just won a lottery for $1,000 - OMG you must be so freaking happy! Well, there's no denying them. But, that kind of happiness is just a temporary one, and it is not a true long lasting (or rather permanent) kind of happiness, which is what happiness is really all about. You are happy because you just instantly got free money, but what happens when you lose that money? Are you still happy? The answer probably will be, no. That goes same for all the other cases where happiness just "naturally" comes to you. You became best friends with this super cool dude, you are so happy. But times pass, and you guys drift apart and you are no longer friends, are you still happy now? Or what if you are happy because you were offered a nice job? But what if it's taken away.

See, different situations might bring or take away happiness to/from you. But at the end, it is your mind set that determines whether you are happy or not. It is not the situation itself, but it is the mind set you get under that situation that determines your happiness. At the end of the day, only YOU can determine your own happiness, no one or nothing else. Sure, there might be other people around you that make you happy, but it's because you allow them to make you feel happy. If you set your mind up that they are just annoying you, then even if they were trying, you'll still be annoyed rather than happy.

That's why I say you have to learn how to be happy, in order to be happy. How do you learn it? Well keep remind yourself to find good side in every situation or in every object, find something, even if it's a little thing, that'll make you happy. Let's use an example. Just a couple of days ago, I went to my bank, and I found out that I had been paying extra $8.50 per month for 10 months that I didn't have to pay. Of course I was upset at my bank. But, it was also my fault for not checking my bank statements. So, I talked to the clerk and she said that most refund she can make is for the past 90 days, so 3 months. I was like, "ok, well it's better than nothing". Then, she talked to her manager, and worked things out and actually gave me a refund for the past 6 months! I was actually really happy. When I walked out the bank, I was thinking "I could be happy right now or be upset right now, but let's just be happy." The thing was, I could've been all grumpy about that fact how I lost $34 for the 4-months refund I didn't get back. But, I chose to be grateful and be happy for the $51 I got back! The choice was up to me, and I CHOSE to be happy.

Of course, when you will often find yourself in tough situations where it's really hard to find any bright side. Or you might compare your life to someone else's and it just might not look as fantastic. But, with time and a little bit training of your mind-set, you'll be able to find true happiness that is within you. As my favorite ice-cream store's slogan says "Find Happiness Within". So, next time you get stressed out, perhaps try to write down what stresses you out, and also something that is at least, even a little bit, positive - and try to focus more on the positive points!

Erich Fromm was a German psychologist and social philosopher from early and mid 1900s. He is most well-known for his international bestselling book The Art of Love. You see, he is not exactly someone you'd call a romantic, if anything he's more of a realist who believes that love is a skill-set you must obtain - that it is not as magical and mysterious as it's made ought to be. However, he does make valid points that could perhaps help people to love better.

He has this quote: "Immature love says, I love you because I needs you; but, mature love says, I need you because I love you." This sounds perfectly legitimate and just plain amazing. I would not dispute his claim for any reason or whatsoever. However, I think there is something beyond that. I think there is something beyond Fromm's mature love. That is the plain simple "I love you". There is no conditions; you could call it, "Unconditional Love". That I think will be the true definition of genuine and real love, which is very rarely found these days. See, Fromm's definition of mature love is great, and perhaps he didn't mean it this way, but it would see like there is still that condition of "need". And, I believe that in a true love, sometime you have to give up that need for "need" as well.

A lot of relationships you look at these days are based on "conditions", whether it's a friendship, a romantic relationship or even a marriage. So, does love exist in those relationships? Yes, most certainly. But, is it a true unconditional love, probably not. A lot of romantic relationships between most people in our current society are based more so on its physical aspect, rather than the emotional aspect even though they both do exist. Trust me I know, I was one of those people who cared a little more about the physical aspect - and now I've learned that really isn't the most important thing. And, I'm not just talking about sex, I'm talking about just need for physical proximity or need for some sort of solid stuff - you know what I'm talking about. However, it a true genuine relationship where more genuine love exists - emotional aspect becomes the high priority of that relationship, and it feels good. You see, if you solely rely on the physical aspect of a relationship and you get your pleasure solely from that, then that pleasure won't last long, and you'll constantly need more, and when you don't get it for a while, you don't feel happy - you are just not satisfied. However, the emotional connection you have in a relationsihp and pleasure you get from it will last for a long time!

This is where the importance of a genuine "unconditional love" kicks in. One day, I was listening to this talk from a Catholic Priest, who was renowned for healing people's [emotional] wounds. Obviously, we often hear about G-d's unconditional love. But, he wasn't just talking about that, rather he was focusing on how people get hurt - how people get hurt in a romantic relationship or a marriage, or even other forms of relationship. He said that people get hurt because when they give something to their partner, they want something in return. Even if it isn't the feeling of want, they are still expecting something. People get hurt from this, because sometimes that something would not return to them. It could be the case that the partner purposedly won't return the "favor" (let's just say that), but more than often it will be the case that the partner just doesn't realize that they need to. But, either way it hurts your feelings.

But, if you love someone genuinely, and unconditionally, then you won't be hurt by that. You see, when you love someone without expecting anything in return, then you won't get hurt. As the matter of fact, people who can love truly, will be happy simply from the fact that they can love this person that much. They'll find happiness in loving them, and giving them their love.
I was amazed by how true this is. However, I also knew how hard it is to love like this. As human beings, we do look out for self-interests. So, this isn't an easy task, but if, nay, when you love someone so dearly to the point where you just want to make them happy - then it will all seem to make sense. Perhaps it will take some practices, as Fromm argues that love does. In then end though, it all comes from your heart -as cheesy as that may sound.

So, next time you hear the phrase - "never make someone a priority who only makes you only an option", well think again about it - if you truly love that person, then none of that "priority" stuff will matter. You just love them unconditionally.

A Self Fulfilling Prophecy (SFP) is a prediction that directly or indirectly causes itself to become true, by the very terms of the prophecy itself, due to positive feedback between belief and behavior. At least that is the Wikepedia definition of it. So, why did I want to talk about it? It's because I realized that our behaviours in our daily lives are heavily influenced by SFP through my own experience. I might have heard of the term a long time ago, but I didn't realize how much influence it had on my actions in the recent past. Along with this I also learned that SFP has its beautiful side, the good (or rather average) side, and its UGLY side, which I also believe to be the most common side among many people or at least it was for me.

So, to talk about Self-Fulfilling Prophecy, I want to start off with the Good/average. You see, SFP is not necessarily something that only happens to and influence specific people. It happens to everyone on daily basis, pretty much regardless of who you are. Even our body functions that way. Don't believe me? Ok, well let's take an example of eating breakfast. You wake up in the morning and you feel "hmm, I'm hungry, I think I should eat", and 15min later, you are eating your breakfast. Or maybe you wake up and you don't feel any hunger, and you think not eating until lunch time will be good enough, then you can go until lunch time without feeling any hunger, and without a doubt you'll skip breakfast. Sounds pretty stupid eh! But look at the definition of SFP, you set out a certain prediction of what's going to happen, and it actually happens! See this is the good side of self-fulfilling prophecy, because it's something that we do everyday, even with every small actions we take. That's obviously why I called it the average side as well. But, clearly SFP does not end here, otherwise I would not have set myself out to write this.

So, up next is the Beauty. A Self-Fulfilling Prophecy can be a wonderful tool, if you use it properly. You could achieve pretty much everything as long as you believe it's going to happen, unless it is something that defies the laws of physics (who knows, maybe you could even defy them). It was a couple of years ago, a friend of mine at the time texted me in the middle of a night, and told me he was going to do this "adventurous thing" that I wish to not get into specifics of on my blog. I told him that there was no way he could actually pull it off. But then he told me that it was going to happen, he could just see it happening. Then I told him, yet again, that it was an impossible task. Then he told me not to be a hater, and he also told me how people thought Neil Armstrong was crazy for wanting to go to the moon, but then he built a freaking rocketship and flew himself to the moon. That was pretty much the conversation ending message for me, I was just thinking to myself "he needs to go to bed". Now, the next morning, he told me he actually pulled it off, then he told me something along the line of "hahaha in your face sucka!". I was quite amazed, but until now, I still don't believe that he actually managed to do it, there was no way. The point I wanted to make from that story was not so much about my friend, but about what my friend said about Neil Armstrong. Yes, the story was not as simple as my friend's text to me - but the point is, that there were people who believed that something could happen, nay, something WOULD happen even if it was against all odds - then they landed human beings on the moon. What this tells you is exactly the beauty of SFP. If you have a strong belief that you WILL do something or you have a faith that something is going to happen, then, well, maybe it won't happen, but the chances are highly in favor of you pulling it off. That's what SFP does to you, for you.

However, on the other end, a Self-Fulfilling Prophecy can be your worst enemy and nightmare. This is the UGLY side! What's terrible about this is that, this is what happens to many people, a lot more common than the Beauty. You see, when I was running for the University Students' Council President at the University of Western Ontario. I did not really have faith in myself to win. Surprise! I was telling everyone that I liked my chances, and how it could be anyone's game at the moment and etc to put up my "politician's face". However, deep inside, I was thinking that I was probably not gonna win. That's the prediction I had made. Now, there were reasons behind - much later start to the preparation in comparison, just poor preparation in general and a few others. But, even before the election really started, I was rather discouraged. When the campaign period started, I felt like I was much behind other candidates and my confidence level, at least internally, went down really low. See, I had already lost the fight before it even really started, and I didn't even really try to put up a decent fight half way through the campaign period. The end result? I ended up losing the election, terribly too! This is a horrible impact SFP can have on your actions. There is another example, possibly even worse than my USC Presidential election experience - which by the way meant everything to me at the time. It's still hard for me to talk about it in detail, so I'll just put it this way. Not too long ago, I had lost [another] one of the most important things in my life, even more important now than I thought before I lost it. But to simplify the story, I lost this "thing" because of the ugly, ugly side of SFP. I was at the lowest point of my life, at least top 3 lowest points. Even when I had "it", I believed that I hadn't. I believed I was losing "it", so I pushed and acted in a way that was leading me to actually start losing "it". Then, next thing I know, I was losing "it" even more, because I was very sure that was going to be the final outcome. I even got to a point where I was like "Ok, I've tried my best, and if I'm going to lose "it", I'm gonna lose "it", it's out of my hand now." Then I just completely gave up. The end result? Of course I lost "it". The thing was, it was all in my mind from the beginning, then that forced me to act in terrible ways that was hurting both me, another party, and the "thing". If I look back now, I didn't "try my best", I didn't even try my worst, I just didn't try at all. This is when I realized that Self-Fulfilling Prophecy had become my own worst enemy.

The important thing to take out of is this though: Self-Fulfilling Prophecy can be your strongest weapon or it can be your internal weapons of mass destruction. In the end, it is up to you to decide which one it will be. The reason why SFP, more than often, becomes the latter of the two options, is because many people lack in self-belief. They lack in faith. Even the most confident person sometimes gets scared. But, when you have that self-belief and faith, then SFP can bring you wonderful things. Yes, it is a lot easier said than done. You are not gonna easily get to the point where you'd be able to freely control SFP in your favor, and take it away from screwing up your actions - unless you have a complete faith that you can do it ;). So, why don't you start from an easy stuff. When you wake up in the morning tomorrow, think 'today is gonna be a wonderful happy day!', and smile. The end result? More than often, you will have a fantastic day with bright smile on your face!!!

So, when I was a kid, my parents used to tell me that Korean was the most scientific language in the world. I never really understood why, and I still don't quite get it - but I just believe it to be true, because they said so. But, also when I was a kid, my sister used to tell me that Korean was the most beautiful language in the world as well. I never really understood that either when I was little, but now I think I get it.

This summer, I feel like I have been more exposed to Korean language more than ever before - just from dealing with my family, but also attending the only Korean Catholic Church in Toronto as well, since my parents started attending there. I just have been exposed to it a lot this summer, but finding the true beauty of the language came from my exposure to K-Pop. You see, my sister [and my parents] love it, and as I spent more time around at home, I just got to listen to it more and more. Then, as I started to get what the lyrics were saying, it just hit me - 'wow, this language is beautiful'.

The thing is, a lot of these K-Pop songs that my sister listens to are supposedly romantic songs that hit Top 40 in Korea (or something equivalent). To get the attractions of the fans, it is obvious that these songs were composed of words and phrases that are as romantic as possible. So, after hearing a few songs, I got to understand what they were saying, and what they were supposed to express. It was the most beautiful thing ever. It seems like there are 100 different ways to express one single feeling, thus creating various impacts on the ones who listen to them.
Sure, for instance, in English language, there could be many ways you can describe the feeling of love. You could use different metaphors and similes and what not. However, you couldn't possibly come up with more different ways than you could do with Korean.

Another interesting thing is, you could try to translate the language into English - word-by-word - but it just would not hold the same impact. Perhaps that's what makes the language itself to be so beautiful and romantic. I just fell in love with some of these lyrics, and how sometimes I could emotionally relate to them. See, when I was a kid, I used to be embarrassed that I knew Korean, because I felt like it made me different from all the other kids. As I grew up, I realized it's something to cherish and I also realized it gave me some advantage - since knowing a second language always helps. But now, I'm actually really glad that I can understand this language and even speak this language to an extent - mind you I got WHOLE lot better at in over the summer as well.