Dec 03, 2024 – Arrival in Korea
Hello. Today is the day Sunim returns to Korea after a 5-night, 6-day visit to India and Bangladesh.
Yesterday, after delivering 6.36 million bars of soap to the Rohingya refugee camp in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh, Sunim departed from Dhaka airport at 11 PM and traveled by plane throughout the night.
After a 3-hour and 30-minute flight, he arrived at Guangzhou Airport in China, the intermediate stopover, at 4:30 AM local time.
While waiting at the gate to change planes, Sunim worked on manuscript corrections and various other tasks. After waiting at the airport for 5 hours, he departed from Guangzhou Airport at 9:25 AM. Sunim took a short nap on the plane.
After another 3-hour and 30-minute flight, he arrived at Incheon Airport at 1:50 PM Korean time.
Upon leaving the airport, Sunim headed directly to the Seoul Jungto Center. He arrived at the Seoul Jungto Center at 3:40 PM and unpacked his luggage.
When departing from Korea, it was snowing heavily, and upon arriving in India, there was heavy rain due to a cyclone. Returning to Korea, bitter cold was waiting. Sunim could feel the rapidly changing weather as he traveled to the opposite side of the globe.
Sunim went to bed early to recover from the fatigue of the night flight.
He woke up at 10:30 PM and learned through breaking news about President Yoon Suk-yeol’s declaration of martial law. After watching the situation unfold through broadcasts and seeing the National Assembly pass a resolution demanding the lifting of martial law, he finished his daily routine and went back to bed.
As there was no Dharma talk today, I will introduce the content of the Happy Dialogue Dharma Q&A lecture held in Pohang on the 25th.
I Wonder If I’m a Useful Person
“When we’re not good at something, even after trying it a few times, we have two options. First, we can move towards what we’re good at. Second, we can practice more intensively on what we’re not good at. We can practice to reach at least an average level, even if we can’t excel like others.
Usually, we choose one of these two options, but in your situation, you’re thinking, ‘Am I a useless person?’ If so, you might have a minor mental health issue. Not being able to properly prepare administrative documents or finding it difficult to care for patients in the field isn’t a mental health issue. It could be that your talents or temperament don’t match that job. However, if you think, ‘Am I a useless human being? Wouldn’t it be better if I died rather than living like this?’ because the job doesn’t suit you, that could be considered a mental health issue. So you might need to go to a psychiatric hospital for a check-up. This isn’t because you’re not good at administrative work.
Everyone can be bad at some things and good at others. You might think I’m good at everything, but I’m really bad at music. I still can’t read musical notes properly. When I see people singing some notes long, some short, some high, and some low, it looks really amazing to me. When I was young, I had a friend who wasn’t good at school studies, but he could perfectly sing a song after hearing it just once on the radio. To me, he seemed like a musical genius. People have different talents. I was good at math and science, but I was really bad at music, art, and physical education. Especially, I’m not good at remembering faces. Just a moment ago, someone greeted me at the event, but I couldn’t recognize them right away. Fortunately, they comforted me saying, ‘You meet so many people, so it’s understandable that you can’t distinguish them.’ But actually, it’s not because I meet many people. I’ve had trouble remembering faces since I was young. Do I seem to have a great memory to you?
Everyone has strengths and weaknesses like this. If someone points out a deficiency, you can either say ‘I’m sorry’ and live with it, or occasionally confess, ‘Please understand. Although it might not seem so to you, I actually have this problem.’ You can live your life this way. But if you think, ‘I can’t even distinguish faces well, so I must be a useless person. Maybe it would be better if I died,’ that’s a sign of illness. You should go to a psychiatrist as soon as possible, even tomorrow. If your mind is sound, even if you’re not good at something, thoughts like ‘Am I useless?’ or ‘It would be better to die’ don’t occur. You just think, ‘I need to work harder to improve my weak areas,’ or ‘This doesn’t suit me, so I should do that instead.’ Which option will you choose?”
“I will try to improve and work harder on my weak areas.”
“You want to work harder on what you’re not good at? As a nurse, couldn’t you just go to the field or a hospital and do nursing? You could go to a nursing home for the elderly and do nursing there. Of course, there’s a bit of administrative work wherever you go. Because you need to keep records or enter data into computers. Since you mentioned being a civil servant, it seems you’re only doing public health administration and not nursing. Is that right?”
“Yes, that’s correct.”
“If you’re doing almost entirely administrative work, is there no way to move to a position working in the field? Or do you dislike that too?”
“Yes, I came to this side because I didn’t like that side.”
“If you came to the administrative side because you didn’t like the field, but you don’t have much talent for administration, you have no choice but to keep practicing. Otherwise, you’ll have to resign.”
“I understand.”
“That doesn’t mean you’re useless. You could be useful as a cleaner or in various other jobs. Not being able to do a particular job doesn’t mean your existence is useless. If a soccer player injures their foot and can no longer play soccer, does that make them a useless human being? Of course not. But because they’re so fixated on soccer, when they can no longer play, they think, ‘I’m no longer a useful human being.’ This is what we call a mental health issue.”
“I understand well.”
“Which option will you choose? Will you choose to be a useless person and go to a psychiatrist? Or will you choose to be someone who’s not very good at their job?”
“I will choose to be someone who’s not very good at their job. Thank you.”
Tomorrow morning, Sunim will broadcast a live Dharma assembly for Jungto Society members in Seoul, then immediately move to Yeongju in North Gyeongsang Province to give a lecture at the Yeongju Character Academy hosted by Yeongju City. In the evening, he will return to Seoul for a meeting with North Korea experts at the Peace Foundation office.
