▲ Professor Daehee Jeong

Prologue. Things we need after the pandemic

The COVID-19 National Health Survey on 2,063 adults announced May this year shows that 18.5% are categorized in the depression risk group and 11.5% thought of suicide. The figures are alarming compared to the figures before the pandemic in 2019 of mere 3.2% depression risk group and 4.6% thought of suicide. The depression risk group includes people in their 30s who experienced a decline in earnings. Looking at these figures, I thought it meaningful to quote sayings of professor Daehee Jeong.

“More and more people seem not to love themselves. Our body and spirit have a limit and therefore timely rest is important to recover the energy to start again. But people seem to run until they become sick and exhausted. One must love oneself and one must know about one’s body. Knowing myself better leads to sound spirit and mind. One’s social stability and richness start from relationship and without relationship materials are meaningless. Therefore, we must love ourselves first.”

 

Part 1. Mind healing over body healing

Living in a city, we cannot help breathing bad air. Nevertheless, being healthy is very important like Jeong says. He encourages us to eat healthy instead of extreme dependence on drug, to value more of natural order than artificial environment and to learn one’s physical constitution than to learn anything carelessly. Serving the president of the International Natural Healing Association, he says:

“Sunchun Meongri Hakdang runs for high school students to 35 year old young people to deepen their understanding about life through meetings and discussions on social issues. Four pillars of destiny and physical constitution are the two areas of my expertise but the program covers far more areas to deepen our understanding about life.”

 

Part 2. Listening to the sound of mind

“One of the topics of the Sunchun Meongri Hakdang is anger. Why we get angry and where it comes from. Angry in a way means that I feel not satisfied about something. If someone forces us not to sleep, we get angry. If someone plays with food we eat, we get angry because that is not right. Of course it depends on person to person. As the situation happens anytime, we had better prepare how to deal with anger flexibly.” 

If bringing up solutions was the subject of the meeting before, finding the cause and process is the subject now. 

“Many things in our life remain as unsolved due to lack of understanding. The good starting point I think is to take the other person as it is and then move onto how I react. It is understanding first and reaction later. Lack of understanding leads to lack of thought and action that are resulted as not agreeable.”

 

Part 3. Conditions for happiness

People work hard to earn bread and butter. But despite we earned bread and butter, we feel that something is not fulfilled. Many people today live in material ease but not in ease of mind. 

“Those who are rich in mind can live in any harsh environment. Those who are rich in materials are always hunger for more because materials are exhausting. No matter how much they fill up the jar, the jar is never filled. Materials are relative. We might complain even if we earn $10,000 a month in a big city but we might be happy if we can earn $5,000 in the country. City dwellers are in limitless competition. This is a good point to start throwing the question: what is it I really want in life? And self-confession is a good way to reach to the answer: was it really my decision? or did I work to earn money or to live my life?, ect. My advice is that do what you really want to do even if you earn less by trying. Just earning money to survive a day does not give any lesson but only regret.”

Part 4. Spreading healing and refreshing

“You are the only one who change yourself and it takes determination. We should think hard and open ourselves to our hearts. We need to talk with our mind and do not be afraid of talking it out only because the exposure might play vulnerable to oneself. But in fact, it will create a mutual ground for understanding. I will soon open a cafe and I named it ‘Inbon’ where people with open heart and mind share their stories at ease.”

 

Part 5. We all should play mind consultants

“Communication is the keyword in relationship. Saying everybody is a psychology counselor. Each other will be the perfect friend to talk with on everything and anything. Being a family doesn’t mean they know each other better than non-family members of the society. In fact, people have more chance to talk with colleagues at work than family members. In other words, being a family requires more engagement in talking than others. Asking what food a certain member of the family like when dinning out is a good example to be getting know each other better. It sounds trivial but the effect is great.”

 

Part 6. Learning about true life

“Understanding from open communications is very important. Everybody needs to play a consultant in this. Learning a theory and putting it into practice is two different areas. We need to learn by experience and we need to widen our understanding through open talks. Learning in class is waste of time and money unless it is not used in life. 

 

Epilogue. People first

People are most important in all things. If there are no people, there are no materials, environments, cultures and such. Yet we often find we are not that importantly treated. 

“If I am an important person, so is others. Me, me, me is not helpful to build a society for all. We cannot live alone so we had better live together in understanding and open communication. This way, we can grow together.” <PowerKorea> 

지윤석 기자  jsong_ps13@naver.com