Hi guys I am back in Korea after having spent two and a half months in China.
And I know that two to three months is not normally considered a long period of time but for me that
two months feels like it's been more than six months or perhaps a year because
every single day I was forced out of my comfort zone and
pretty much everything I did was
what I wasn't used to and what I haven't done before it so each day felt long,
although looking back
it feels like time very quickly flew by and
it was indeed a journey that
I needed at the exact right point in my life.
So my journey in China does not end with me earning thousands of dollars or
some miraculous fortune befalling me and getting to live a happily ever after' life.
In fact, it didn't end.
It's still ongoing
even after I returned back to Korea,
it's still alive in my life as a memory and
lessons that I am living out now and also as
a fresh mentality and perspective that were formed within me which are what I'm about to share in this video.
So when you feel so much and so deep and you learn so many things through that feeling,
it's hard to put all of them into words and for the past few weeks
I've been struggling to figure out how to put into words what I've learned that my heart knows
but my hands and mouth just don't know how to express, but now I'm glad that
my hands and mouth are finally able to catch up with what my heart knows
and I am happy to share them with you in this video.
And they are basically these two:
First, I was finally able to establish my own definition of spirituality, and it is being so grateful
to be alive to the point where you lose your sense of self and
you are willing to do whatever it takes to get closer to the dream that you want to fulfill
with the precious life that you have.
This is the state of mind that you constantly grow into, not what you achieve once
and it just stays there without you doing anything.
Second,
Happiness cannot be pursued. It must be ensued.
So when the gratitude you have for life is so deep,
you become willing to lose your sense of self or pour everything of yourself into whatever it is that you want to fulfill
with the life that you feel so precious to have, and you gladly do even the difficult things that you believe are needed
in order to fulfill and get closer to your dream,
whether that be waking up early in the morning,
having an uncomfortable conversation, learning something hard, doing extra hard work
taking courage etc without anyone telling you "This is what you need to do," or without you having to feel
that you have to do it because other people are doing it or because you want to be better than other people.
And that way, happiness follows without you having to chase after it.
In fact, happiness is something that cannot be
chased, because there is no magical formula or magic number for it.
Happiness is what happens while you are living your life and doing your own thing.
You can go on and on explaining what happiness is or the theory of happiness or scientific/biological
evidence behind happiness, but one simple truth is that it all starts from gratitude.
And I know the word gratitude
doesn't arouse
strong emotional effect on many people anymore because it's been used so many times that
we forgot how the real gratitude feels like.
And in today's world filled with greed,
competition, being better than people next to me,
we somehow take what we already have for granted, because the grass seems always greener on the other side.
Whatever we do to achieve,
obtain, or build on my side.
But once you notice the truthful blessing that you already have in your life, the greenery of your own life
then if the grass is greener on the other side,
you appreciate the beauty of its greenery and you are happy that it's green.
In fact, you see the green side in every living being
and you sort of feel bad when people don't recognize their own green side
because they are so distracted by the society's standard of what green is.
What creates and deepens gratitude is
experience. They say nothing can substitute experience, and this is so true.
There is nothing more powerful than
one's own experience,
even more so than other people's advice or reading lots of books,
although I'm not saying they're not important.
For example,
someone might tell you the basic truth that health is important, and I guess we all know that with our head because
we hear it everywhere from everyone,
but you are way more likely to start
desperately feeling the importance of health and to start taking active action to take care of your health
when you have experienced
severe disease or threat to your health yourself.
Or someone might tell you how difficult it is to learn
a foreign language or playing certain sports, and we all know that surface-level fact that it's difficult
but you don't feel the detailed struggles and
how it is difficult if you've never actively engaged in the learning process.
The truth is what is already there undeniably,
such as the sea is blue or I'm a human or the seeds don't become trees overnight,
etc and
nobody can ever escape the truth whether we are aware of the truth or not.
But, the more you experience and the more deeply you experience things with all your heart,
The truth feels more real and the truth comes more real to you, and if that experience
involves more challenge, more difficulties, and more hardship
which it inevitably will if you are willing to experience things in a deeper level,
then after the storm passes, the gratitude that you get to feel deepens,
and the happiness you feel from that gratitude
deepens as well and
this contradicts our conventional belief that happiness comes from pleasure and comfort.
And there is a Bible verse that talks about this contradiction.
I'm sure most of you heard of this verse, and it goes like this:
This implies you will never truly feel
content and happy long and deep enough if what you've been seeking
were pleasure and comfort.
And, more on this verse,
Jesus didn't mean to say that you shouldn't defend yourself at all or take any action when you've been
harmed, been placed in injustice or hard situation.
But we often face circumstances that are entirely out of our control
whether that comes from my own mistake or other people's mistake or
nobody's mistake.
That situation could be where you have lost your wallet because you were not being cautious, or
someone is acting horribly to you because that person is in a bad mood,
or you were supposed to have a very anticipated event today, but it was canceled because of the weather and
none of them are what we have control over.
But humans are by default
very easy to be negatively affected by the matters that are out of our hands
You know, humans by default are the most complex and messed-up creatures on the planet
and by humans I am of course including myself.
And in religion, there is this term called sin and many people think sin is something so
unforgivably horrible,
but if you study the scripture more carefully, it is easy to know that we all commit sins with
thoughts, emotions and even small deeds every single day.
We're just not trained to be consciously aware of it
And I believe every sin comes from lack of gratitude.
But when you feel the gratitude in every aspect of your life, even in the darkest storm,
you grow into a unique mind state that allows the mind to
see new opportunities and bright sides
and give you the strength and courage to
formulate creative and positive solutions to the problem.
And you just have no time or you just don't want to indulge in "sinful,"
self-destructive emotions and thoughts,
and that's how you get to feel the true sense of happiness
without any thoughts or emotions that get in the way of feeling happiness.
And as I told you earlier in my previous videos,
in China,
every day was a difficult and new task for me to deal with.
I have experienced even poverty, homelessness and incomprehensible treatment.
And everyday I had to face fear and come up with a way out from whatever I was faced with.
But then I came back to Korea,
and what happened was, I felt the rush of gratitude pouring into me, especially for the first few days.
I lived in the pool of gratitude. I even found blessings and the things that I never
even considered could be "privilege"
such as, I have a mother tongue, I was even more grateful for the fact that I have a second language,
I am in a country where I am an official citizen of and I have a country that I am
officially a citizen in and
I have a place to sleep and take shower
people I get to meet,
Just so many things
I felt so grateful for because it was right after I've gone through so much.
Three months ago, I was in the exact same spot
but now I'm seeing the same things with new different eyes.
The level of gratitude and happiness I feel in the exact same place is different and
miraculously the more gratitude I feel,
the more courageous I become.
Ever since I came back,
I've been doing the things that I normally would have avoided doing or have not even thought of doing
because now I'm thinking "I've been to way worse, and this is heaven, so I can do this."
And also
my journey taught me so many other things that I would not have otherwise learned
about the world and the people, and they all together helped me shape new dreams and
think deeply about what I should be doing and what I want to do.
But as I said, I know
that this state of deep gratitude is something that's not going to stay forever without paying the price for it.
Humans or human brains are by default
designed to chase after things that are comfortable and pleasurable, so I know I have to try to
defy the gravity and
constantly feed myself and build inner muscles
with uncomfortably new experiences.
And the experiences don't necessarily have to besomething drastically new and challenging as my journey in China had been.
It could begin with the little things that you want to do that you were sort of afraid or hesitant to even start before.
such as visiting visiting a country that you were curious about,
learning new instruments, language, or sports ,
reading a new book that arouses your curiosity
exercising in order to feel the energy of your buddy that is thankfully functioning well.
Anything that you truly wants to do.
Whatever your heart wants to do and tells you to do, big or small,
there you will find
yourself, your treasure.
And you will be able to experience the deep gratitude and joy of being alive
which is your natural state,
and that's how you begin your spiritual journey
and the course of your journey will make a squiggly line,
not a straight line, whether you like it or not,
but even if you're tired
you keep on walking and not cease from exploration and at the end the very exploring will be to arrive
where you began, and to know that place for the first time.
So the journey never ends.
Life goes on things come and go, but what doesn't change is your spirit,
which is in constant search of the next treasure, the next dream, the next adventure,
the next you.
So before I wrap up, let me share two inspiring quotes about exploring.
So what are you waiting for?
Go out, follow your heart, and mess it up and
every day feel the sensation and gratitude of being alive.
Every day can be an exhilarating adventure
where you constantly renew you your treasure,
or depressing repetitive repetitive 24 hours
where you chase after the same thing over and over again, but never really getting there.
Thank you so much for watching, and I will see you on my next video
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