[Voices of the MZ Generation Column] What Should Be at the Center for a Good Life

Social Activity Directly Affects Survival
Good Relationships Are the Key to True Happiness

Attorney and Cultural Critic Jiwoo Jeong

These days, my life goal is to live happily. I want to have a clear value standard that prioritizes happiness over greater success, honor, or power. Otherwise, life seems too easy to get sucked into a state of merely pursuing bigger achievements. Instead of living a life that calculates every moment of daily life efficiently for profit alone, I want to live a better life than that.

For happiness, above all, I want to appreciate the preciousness of people and times. Human connections can be forgotten forever after one meeting depending on one’s mindset, but depending on how one exerts will, they can become valuable relationships. The idea that fate governs relationships?that good connections naturally continue while those meant to leave will inevitably depart?feels like an overly convenient way of thinking.

On the contrary, relationships and connections require active care and attention just as much as anything else; otherwise, they can disappear like paper soaked in water. On the other hand, if you make an effort to care and nurture them, they can become paper boats that continue across the vast ocean.

At one time, I lived with a somewhat excessive fatalistic or passive attitude toward relationships. So, for a long time, I held the mindset of "not blocking those who come, nor those who leave." However, I now feel that this was merely an avoidance strategy to reduce hurt, not a proper way to build relationships.

Therefore, these days, I try hard to meet the people I like, and I believe that this is a happy life. Two books I read impressively this year, Robin Dunbar’s Friends and Mark Schultz et al.’s The Longest Happiness Inquiry Report in the World, have reinforced this belief. These books, which cover the science of friendship and research on relationships by a Harvard University team, unanimously state that good relationships are necessary for people to be happy.

Friends contains the following passage: "Surprisingly, the factor that had the greatest impact on the survival probability of study subjects was the level of social activity. Especially for people who had experienced heart attacks or cardiac arrests, the social activity scale had a significant effect." According to this, good relationships have a 'direct' rather than 'indirect' impact on our survival. Good relationships keep us alive.

The Longest Happiness Inquiry Report in the World summarizes research on happiness as follows: “Science tells us that if you have to choose only one way to most reliably guarantee your health and happiness, it is to develop warm relationships.”

In today’s society, the perception that 'money' is the most important thing is widespread. Since happiness in life is meaningless and impossible without money, few would object to living with money as the highest priority. Of course, we cannot overlook the importance of money in a capitalist society, but many research results say that life happiness and satisfaction are more related to relationships than money.

Living a good life means having good relationships by your side. Whether it is family, friends, or lovers. One might live aiming for a Gangnam apartment or a Porsche, but placing good relationships as a very important goal in life is not a foolish life. We need to worry and strive for better relationships today as well. To truly live a satisfying life that happens only once.

Jung Ji-woo, Lawyer and Cultural Critic

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