행복해지고 싶다면 딱 1개만 버리세요 — Transcript

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1. 0:00"Is that person happy?" You suddenly wonder while walking down the street or browsing social media.
2. 0:05Then you think, "When was the last time I felt happy?
3. 0:10When was the last time I smiled broadly?" Nothing readily comes
4. 0:14to mind. Eventually, you reach a conclusion: "Am I too greedy?
5. 0:18Am I someone who doesn't know how to be grateful?" However, psychology tells a slightly different story. The problem isn't your
6. 0:23personality. There are simply very old patterns
7. 0:27in the brain that keep us drifting away from happiness . And most people spend their entire lives
8. 0:31unaware of their true nature, looking for the reason for their unhappiness in the wrong places. Today, we explore why we
9. 0:35miss out on happiness and what we need to let go of to get closer to it
10. 0:39. I received a 3 million won incentive.
11. 0:43I locked the bathroom stall door. I screamed to myself, feeling like I was being hit in the mouth. But
12. 0:48when I returned to my seat, there was a single message in the team group chat. It was a senior from the next team. "I
13. 0:53got 5 million this time. Haha." At that moment, the 3 million won shriveled away.
14. 0:57I sent a reply saying "Congratulations" and flipped my phone over. My bank account
15. 1:01is clearly in the up, so why did my heart go into the down? It
16. 1:05’s not because I’m a snob. Imagine two monkeys. If you hand them a small stone,
17. 1:09they give you food. Both of them performed their task, fully satisfied with just a slice of cucumber.
18. 1:13But one day, exactly one thing changed.
19. 1:17They started giving grapes only to the monkey in the next cage. What happened to the monkey that received the cucumber?
20. 1:22It threw the cucumber, which it had been happily eating just moments before, at the zookeeper. It rejected the experiment itself and
21. 1:26protested vehemently. It wasn't that the cucumber suddenly became tasteless.
22. 1:30The single fact that someone next to it was eating grapes turned the cucumber, which had been sufficient, into something inedible
23. 1:34. This is a famous monkey experiment by primatologist Frans de Waal's team. It suggests
24. 1:39that the mind that compares itself may be an instinct formed very long ago during the process of evolution
25. 1:43. We believe ourselves to be rational beings. However,
26. 1:47more choices than we think are influenced by this ancient instinct. A research team at the Harvard School of Public Health
27. 1:52asked participants to choose between two worlds. In World A, I
28. 1:56earn an annual salary of $50,000, while others earn $25,000. In World B, I
29. 2:00earn $100,000 a year, while others earn $200,000.
30. 2:04More than half chose A. Even though, in absolute terms, they earn twice as much
31. 2:08. It means that they are more attracted to the "me" who is more successful
32. 2:12than others, even if I earn only 50 million won, than to the "me" who earns 100 million won
33. 2:17. It is the same reason why the monkey threw the cucumber. Our brains
34. 2:21tend to react much more sensitively to how much more we have than others, rather than how much we have ourselves. However, the problem is that this
35. 2:26comparison has become much more cruel now. The moment we turn on our phones
36. 2:31, news of a friend's promotion, a colleague winning a housing subscription, and peers our age
37. 2:35who have achieved great success in business pour in in real time. And we
38. 2:40compare our ordinary days with their shining moments. It may not be our reality that makes us unhappy
39. 2:44. That does not mean there are no difficulties in reality.
40. 2:48It simply means that even with the same reality, the pain can multiply several times the moment comparison is added.
41. 2:53The moment we grade our lives based on others' lives, we become unable to be satisfied no matter what score we receive.
42. 2:57Perhaps the reason we are not happy is that comparison is stealing away the happiness we already possess
43. 3:01. However, the comparisons that trap us
44. 3:05are not limited to others. Sometimes, there is something that follows us much more persistently because we know it better than anyone else
45. 3:10: our "past selves." Here are two people earning an annual salary of 100 million won
46. 3:16. A earned 200 million won last year, while B
47. 3:20earned 50 million. The number currently appearing in their bank accounts is the same: 100 million won. Who is happier?
48. 3:25Most people would assume B is happier.
49. 3:29This is because we don't look at the numbers, but at the direction of change—whether it is going up or down
50. 3:34. We react to that trajectory. In psychology, this
51. 3:38is called "anchoring dependence." Our brains react with incredible sensitivity to differences relative to an anchor point
52. 3:42. What is that anchor point, you ask? Past salary, the neighborhood we used to live in, or
53. 3:47who we were back then. The "shining self" we remember
54. 3:52becomes the invisible standard by which we evaluate our present.
55. 3:56There is a study that demonstrates just how terrifying a trap this is. Psychologist Philip Brickman's research team tracked lottery winners
56. 4:00. On the day they won, the world must have looked entirely rosy
57. 4:04. However, that dazzling luck actually became poison to my sense of happiness
58. 4:08. As time passed , I could no longer feel the same joy as before in the small pleasures
59. 4:13of daily life, like eating and chatting with friends
60. 4:17. My ordinary day felt insignificant. Why is that?
61. 4:22It is because the peak of the past has become an excessively high standard for evaluating the present. Winning the lottery
62. 4:26might seem like something that has nothing to do with you. But this trap
63. 4:31manifests most cruelly in places much closer than you think. Consider those who have been told "You are special" since childhood.
64. 4:36Teachers remembered their names even before they entered school, parents
65. 4:40frequently said, "My child is at the top of the class," and everyone said, "This kid is different."
66. 4:46They were the center of attention for their grades throughout elementary, middle, and high school. They even received scholarships after entering university. They were showered with
67. 4:50expectations, with people believing, "This kid will succeed at anything." But
68. 4:54the moment they graduate, the game begins to change. In school, grades
69. 4:59proved who I was, but in society, there are no right answers to begin with.
70. 5:03You landed a job that others consider decent. Even if you receive good evaluations at work,
71. 5:08they simply brush it off with the thought, "This is just how you are supposed to be. " A feeling that something is missing. "I
72. 5:12was definitely special." Even if it looks like success to others, you constantly
73. 5:17feel like something is missing. Your standard is set on "the special me of the past." That is why today's
74. 5:22achievements feel like a loss rather than joy. Your standard
75. 5:27has been stuck too high for too long. So, how can we escape this trap
76. 5:31? Professor Teresa Amabile of Harvard Business School
77. 5:36analyzed the daily records of hundreds of office workers. When were the days when people were most energetic and motivated
78. 5:40? It wasn't the day they received an incentive or praise.
79. 5:45It was the day they felt they had made some progress, even if small. This
80. 5:50is called the Progress Principle. It means our minds respond to the question, "Am I getting a little better than yesterday?"
81. 5:54So, you just need to change the direction of your comparison in just one way.
82. 5:59Not "the special me of the past," but "the me of yesterday."
83. 6:03Did you learn one more thing you didn't know yesterday? Did you offer one more opinion in a meeting than yesterday? Did you finish the work you couldn't
84. 6:08complete yesterday? Happiness is not about dwelling on the moment you shone brightest. It might come
85. 6:13as you move forward step by step while accepting yourself just as you are right now
86. 6:16. I understand comparing yourself to others, and
87. 6:21I understand comparing yourself to the past now. But there is one more trap for us that is even harder to spot
88. 6:25: the 'future me' we have envisioned in our minds.
89. 6:29Thirty-three. I was on my way back from a friend's wedding. I gave the congratulatory money, took a picture,
90. 6:33and smiled while congratulating them. But on the subway ride home,
91. 6:37as I suddenly looked at my reflection in the window, this thought struck me: Am I
92. 6:42living my life well right now? Suddenly, my entire life feels like it has fallen behind. But
93. 6:46isn't that strange? Why does not getting married at thirty-three weigh on my mind to this extent
94. 6:50? Who set this timetable? Getting a job at twenty-five, getting married around thirty...
95. 6:56Owning a home in your mid-to-late 30s. The problem is that at some point, that script ceases to be a hope and
96. 7:00becomes a scorecard. Psychologist E. Tory Higgins explains that
97. 7:06three selves exist within us : the real self, the self we want to be, and
98. 7:10the self we ought to be. It is the last one that exhausts us the most. "By this age, I
99. 7:15should have done this much," "All my friends are doing it," "Why am I the only one still here?" At that moment,
100. 7:20a model answer appears in your mind, and you begin to constantly deduct points from your current self.
101. 7:25The problem isn't that you are thirty-three. It is simply that the thirty-three you imagined at twenty-five
102. 7:30is different from who you are now. According to Higgins' research, the gap between your actual self and the self you ought to be
103. 7:35pushes you into a swamp of endless anxiety and guilt.
104. 7:39This is because it gives you the feeling that you have failed to fulfill your obligations.
105. 7:43The reason you feel unhappy right now may not be because reality is bad. Of course,
106. 7:47that doesn't mean there are no difficulties in reality. However, in many cases, what torments us the most may not be
107. 7:51reality itself, but the internal timetable telling us that we should be where we are right now
108. 7:56. Parents, colleagues, friends, social media...
109. 8:01I am talking about the order of life that our society has constantly presented to us. Why do we
110. 8:05obsess over the idea that our lives must go according to that plan?
111. 8:09It is because we believe that we can control the outcome as much as we put in the effort. In psychology, there is a concept called the "illusion of control." We
112. 8:14believe that if we work harder or prepare more perfectly, the future will unfold according to plan
113. 8:18. So, when plans go awry, we blame ourselves before the situation. "I
114. 8:23should have worked harder," "I should have been wiser." But think about
115. 8:27it. We do not know when we will meet the right person, what opportunities will come our way, or what events
116. 8:31will change our lives. The future is inherently
117. 8:37closer to something to be faced than something to be controlled. If we cannot let go of this illusion of control, we
118. 8:41may be forced to live our entire lives as slaves to the scripts we have written. However, the
119. 8:45bigger problem is that this desire for control can even destroy relationships. "My
120. 8:49spouse should do at least this much." "My child should be this kind of person."
121. 8:53Before we know it, we hand others scripts with their respective roles written on them. But those
122. 8:58people have never actually received that script. Unhappiness begins the moment you expect others to live
123. 9:02exactly as you envision them . That expectation turns into disappointment,
124. 9:06disappointment into anger, and anger gnaws away at relationships. Perhaps
125. 9:11what makes us most unhappy is the timetable that dictates, "At this age, you should be doing this."
126. 9:16It might be the mindset of punishing ourselves for failing to fit into that schedule.
127. 9:20I am not saying you shouldn't set goals. I am simply saying you must acknowledge that not everyone moves at the same pace
128. 9:24. Some people start anew at forty, while others
129. 9:28boldly change direction at fifty. What matters is not how late you arrived, but
130. 9:33whether that direction was truly the one you wanted. A screenplay
131. 9:37should serve as a compass. It should not become a standard for punishing your present self.
132. 9:41Try doing just one thing today. Ask yourself, just once, whether
133. 9:45the timetable you are chasing is truly what you want, or if it is a script written by someone else.
134. 9:50Perhaps we are not late in life; we may have simply been running on someone else's timetable
135. 9:54. We may have always judged ourselves based on standards set elsewhere
136. 9:58. We graded our present based on the lives of those around us
137. 10:01, diminished today by our shining pasts, and
138. 10:06rushed the future that had not yet arrived with the timetables in our heads. That is why this very moment could never have been enough
139. 10:10. Perhaps happiness is not a reward given upon reaching a goal, but rather
140. 10:14the feeling of discovering that it was there all along the moment we paused to compare
141. 10:18ourselves to others. If watching today's video
142. 10:21reminded you of the comparisons that often weigh you down, please share them in the comments. Even a single line from you
143. 10:25could become the reason someone grappling with the same struggles endures today. Comments and
144. 10:29shares are the greatest source of strength that allows us to continue making videos like this.
145. 10:32Brainbites
146. 10:36sincerely supports you as you seek happiness based on your own standards, not those of others.