The duvet and inside pages of the U.N.’s World Happiness Report / Captured from the report
“Are you content?” It’s a easy query, and on the floor, there’s nothing uncommon about it. But many individuals hesitate to reply sure. Life could really feel typically okay, however admitting happiness typically appears to require having a bit extra.
Statistics counsel the identical. In keeping with the U.N.’s World Happiness Report 2025, launched in March, Korea ranked 58th amongst 147 nations. It positioned close to the underside amongst developed nations and ranked decrease than Taiwan, Vietnam, Thailand, Kazakhstan, Japan and the Philippines in Asia. Koreans love evaluating rankings and converse typically of therapeutic, but nonetheless hesitate to name themselves completely happy. Why?
Suh Eun-kook, a psychology professor at Yonsei College and writer of the ebook whose Korean title interprets as “The Origin of Happiness,” affords one clarification. He argues that individuals ought to search “Darwinian happiness relatively than Aristotelian happiness,” a phrase which will sound summary however has resonated deeply. The ebook has offered greater than 200,000 copies, reflecting Koreans’ intense preoccupation with happiness.
Suh studied underneath Ed Diener, thought of a founding father of happiness psychology, whereas in the US within the Eighties. In the present day, happiness is a extensively mentioned subject, however at the moment — and for roughly the subsequent decade — happiness psychology remained exterior the mainstream.
That was as a result of psychology started with human unhappiness. The sector’s premise was easy: if unhappiness is decreased or eliminated, individuals will change into completely happy. The self-discipline targeted not on defining happiness however on figuring out the causes of unhappiness and learn how to eradicate them.
Amassed analysis, nevertheless, finally revealed one thing essential: Not being sad doesn’t mechanically make one completely happy. It’s doable to really feel happiness even amid hardship. This realization shifted psychology’s central query from “How can we keep away from unhappiness?” to “How can we domesticate happiness?”
This was additionally the motivation behind Suh’s ebook. Drawing from a long time of analysis, “The Origin of Happiness” identifies key insights into how individuals can enhance their sense of well-being.
Amongst many factors, Suh highlights ten core concepts:
1. Happiness isn’t rational; it’s animalistic and instinctive.
2. People are essentially animals — solely with greater intelligence.
3. Free your self from obsession with “happiness strategies” reminiscent of emptying, gratitude and slowing down.
4. Values reminiscent of self-actualization have little to do with happiness.
5. Happiness isn’t strongly tied to goal life circumstances.
6. Cash, well being and training perform like nutritional vitamins; past a sure level, extra is pointless.
7. Happiness comes from the frequency of pleasure, not its depth.
8. Happiness comes from experiencing small pleasures typically and in lots of kinds.
9. Individuals who get pleasure from social interplay really feel happier.
10. Really completely happy individuals maintain themselves able to really feel pleasure and know learn how to entry it when wanted.
Mukbang and the primal roots of happiness
To be happier, Suh stated, individuals should first settle for their animal nature. Animals prioritize survival and copy, and the human mind developed round these features. The muse of each begins with sharing meals with individuals one likes and feels comfy with — laughing, speaking and enjoyable over a meal. Whereas some could scoff on the recognition of mukbang (on-line movies of individuals consuming massive quantities of meals), he stated it represents some of the primal types of happiness.
Actor Lee Jang-woo, proper, eats sundae soup with Mukbang YouTuber Tzuyang. Screenshot from Tzuyang’s YouTube video.
Suh stated individuals shouldn’t search endlessly for ideas like soul, ego or the interior self. As a substitute, they need to maintain shut the small issues that reliably convey pleasure and lift the likelihood of happiness — “mates, Pyongyang chilly noodles, espresso, Messi’s passes, Bach, a great ebook, driving, touring” — and keep a state of readiness to benefit from them.
However he stated Koreans battle with this. A robust collectivist and hierarchical tradition has created a society the place individuals develop weary of each other. On the floor, private networks appear considerable — seniors and juniors, older brothers and youthful siblings tied by blood, hometown, faculty or office — but the standard of relationships stays skinny and inadequate. What Korea lacks, he stated, isn’t financial wealth however “social wealth.” For Koreans, who now stay past subsistence, unhappiness stems from a scarcity of that social wealth.
In a short Q&A with the Hankook Ilbo, Suh revealed a bit extra about his ebook and its secrets and techniques to true happiness.
Throw away compelled happiness and compelled therapeutic
Professor Suh Eun-kook speaks throughout an interview with Hankook Ilbo at Yonsei College in Seodaemun District, Seoul. Korea Instances photograph by Ha Sang-yun
“The Origin of Happiness” is a skinny ebook, so I felt completely happy whereas studying it.
“Ha ha, that’s true. After returning to Korea, individuals typically recommended that I write a well-liked ebook as a result of I had formally studied happiness psychology. I stored declining, however finally wrote one rapidly and comfortably, simply as I’d converse to shut mates.”
Almost 200,000 copies have been offered. You need to really feel fairly pleased with the royalties.
“I used to be shocked. Although I wrote it in a simple fashion, similar to speaking with mates, it’s not totally mushy — it incorporates principle. I assumed maybe 5 hundred copies may promote. I by no means imagined it might proceed promoting for this lengthy, or that I’d obtain a whole lot of lecture requests annually.”
The ebook begins by saying that happiness isn’t one thing grand.
“We Koreans are likely to hyperlink happiness to nice achievements like self-realization or social success. We admire what’s ethical, moral and spectacular. So when requested if we’re completely happy, we expect our lives lack these nice accomplishments and reply no. However happiness is none of that. Merely put, happiness is no matter makes you’re feeling pleasure. Why should that pleasure be nice or extraordinary? There isn’t any purpose in any respect.”
You additionally stated happiness isn’t a objective however a way.
“That concept seems typically in self-help books: we have to be completely happy, so we must always follow and work onerous to change into completely happy. However happiness is an emotion, and feelings should not managed by the mind’s reasoning. Sudden bursts of delight or displeasure can’t be commanded by logic. So no quantity of effort or rehearsal will make somebody completely happy. There may be far an excessive amount of compelled happiness and compelled therapeutic.”
This text from the Hankook Ilbo, the sister publication of The Korea Instances, is translated by a generative AI system and edited by The Korea Instances.
