[One Thousand Characters a Day] Professor Seo Eunguk's 'Where Does Happiness Come From?' <5>

Editor's Note"Eating delicious food with someone you love is the surest happiness." Professor Seo Eun-guk of Yonsei University, author of , says that happiness can be summarized in this one scene. Happiness is not a grand concept but a concrete experience. It is positive emotions rooted in pleasure, such as joy and delight. Since these experiences essentially occur in the brain, they need to be approached with biological logic rather than philosophy. Although we live immersed in civilization, our primitive brain still gets most excited and delighted by these two things: food and people. Word count: 814 characters.

Whether to live a valuable life or a happy life is a personal choice. What I want to emphasize is, first, that these two are not the same, and second, that depending on where you place the emphasis, your life choices and interests will differ. To evaluate what is valuable, a standard is needed, and often the role of that standard is played by the evaluations of others. What takes precedence over what I like and want to do is how others evaluate my choices. Being recognized as a thoughtful and strong person in others' eyes becomes more important than what makes me feel good and joyful right now. As explained earlier, happiness begins to face headwinds here.

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Until now, we have been brainwashed to look down on the carefree summer grasshopper who lives joyfully without thinking about tomorrow. Because of two concerns. First, the pleasures of hedonists are low-class. Second, the end of such a life will be miserable. Both are unfounded concerns. There is no evidence that all grasshoppers in the world become losers. The conclusions from numerous recent studies are rather the opposite.

Studies that have tracked happy people over a long time show that the happier the person, the healthier they become in the future, the more successful they are at work, the richer their social relationships, and the more responsible citizens they become. This phenomenon appears equally in Korean and American societies.

How did these studies define a 'happy person'? Not someone who lives receiving praise and compliments from others, but someone who experiences positive emotions (such as joy) more frequently in daily life than others. In other words, the very image of hedonists whom we often stigmatize. Their lives may seem a bit clumsy when viewed day by day, but the story is different ten years later.

- Seo Eun-guk, , 21st Century Books, 18,000 KRW

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.