If Only I Had Spent My Whole Life Doing What I Loved and Did Well

Harvard students, and those living on borrowed time.

I am sharing quiet conversation with a high school friend at a serene café on the edge of town, the air laced with the scent of coffee.

We are, as always, sparing with words. Meeting him is, in a word, an hour of blank space—of quiet margins.

Today, too, we sit for a long while in silence, drinking only our coffee. Now and then, Lee Jang-hee's unhurried melody drifts through the room—

"I will give you my everything..."

Then, breaking the silence, he asks, out of nowhere:

"Are you happy, right now? What is your measure of happiness?"

I only smiled, and did not answer.

He passes along something he heard on YouTube not long ago. It was intriguing, so I share it here.

—

Years ago, 746 incoming Harvard students, all nineteen years old, were asked: "What do you believe will make you happiest?"

About eighty percent answered "money" and "fame." To them, perhaps, conquering the world and achieving something monumental looked like the highest form of happiness.

Seventy-five years later, when they had passed ninety, they were asked again.

Their values had changed; they had come to understand what true happiness is. In the end, they discovered that "good relationships" are the foundation of happiness.

Over the course of a lifetime, they had learned that the warm bonds woven between one person and another—understanding, love, and empathy—are life's true abundance, the thing that makes a life rich.

Meanwhile, the same question was put to people living out their final days.

They answered: "To treasure every moment, and to enjoy what you love without minding what anyone else thinks."

Within their words lies the freedom and the joy of expressing oneself. This is another path to happiness: to live savoring one's passion and one's love of life.

Then how shall we live from here on? How can our lives grow richer and more meaningful?

We must pour our strength into our relationships with people. It matters that we deepen our bonds with family, friends, and neighbors, and spend our time in their company. We must understand one another, love one another, and be one another's strength.

And we must also live for ourselves. This does not mean living selfishly. Rather, it means pursuing our hobbies, our passions, and our dreams, and finding our own ways of expressing who we are. Through this, we will feel greater happiness and contentment in our lives.

And so, happiness lies along the road we walk, and that road lies within us.

We must cherish our ties with others, love ourselves, and, upon these two foundations, go on discovering the depths of life.

Then our lives will fill with boundless possibility and abundance.