I wasn’t ready for it to be a book on psychology.
This book, written by a Korean woman named Baek Hee, explores her struggles through life, caught in a cycle of ups, downs, and mood swings. At some point, she finally decides enough is enough and plucks up the courage to take herself off to therapy. The book consists of a series of chapters, with lengthy dialogues between the writer and her therapist.
While looking through Goodreads for reviews of this book, I saw many people complaining about it being harsh and mean towards people with mental health issues, and how many issues were glossed over lightly.
I agree, but I also disagree.
I think this book is not something you read to relax or just for some light, comforting “chicken soup” for the soul. You won’t grasp its essence unless you take the time to dive deep into the conversations between Baek Hee and her therapist, while applying the lessons to your own life, stories, and experiences. It’s a book of self-reflection rather than one you read solely from a third-person point of view. Here are the useful points I picked out from the book, which made me start being aware of how I was looking at and analyzing certain circumstances.
I personally think this is the whole reason for reading a book. There are no badly written books or poorly told stories, to be honest – only less effective methods of conveying a message or crafting a narrative. There is a lesson in everything, including a so-called bad book or bad story.
Try viewing this book as a set of suggestions, rather than a do-it-this-way-or-you-will-be-forever-depressed guide. It calls for building the practice of mindfulness.
♠ I think you tend to focus too much on your ideals and pressure yourself by thinking, I have to be this kind of person! Even when those ideals are, in fact, taken from someone else and not from your own thoughts and experiences.
♠ When you’re having a hard time, it’s natural to feel like you’re having the hardest time in the world. And it’s not selfish to feel that way.
♠ Your perception of reality is so polarised and extreme. you’re only able to see within the framework of ‘Everything about us is the same’ or ‘Everything about us is different.’
♠ You should try to stop yourself from reflexively falling back on thinking patterns you normally default to.
♠ I don’t think it’s a problem that needs fixing. It’s all a matter of how you see yourself.
♠ You’ve got to stop falling into the binary trap of thinking you’re either all-ordinary or all-special. ‘Good’ and ‘bad’ are not the only ways we think in black and white.
♠ Your emptiness and fear are all mixed up, and you’re asking for help to defend yourself. But if you depend on another person for help, it’ll satisfy you only for a moment, and you may not be able to stand on your own two feet later.
♠ Do you think every behaviour falls into a category of, ‘They did this because they hate me’ or ‘They did this because they like me’? The whole point of not liking your friend’s behaviour means you don’t like her behaviour, not your friend as a person. But right now, you keep interpreting every behaviour exhibited by your friend as rejection. Your mind immediately goes to the most extreme explanation instead of stopping to think of the many other reasons your friend could be doing what she’s doing. You keep applying these extreme standards to others. In effect, it’s your own thoughts that are torturing you. Learn to differentiate the parts from the whole. Just because you like one thing about a person, you don’t need to like everything about them. And just because you don’t like one thing about a person, it doesn’t mean the person as a whole isn’t worth your time. I think you should get in the habit of thinking differently.
♠ Love comes in different shapes, and I shouldn’t judge someone else’s love by my own standards.
♠ Many people think they’re the foremost authority on themselves, but you should be more sceptical. You’ve got to ask yourself, ‘Do I really know myself well?’
♠ Your very real problem is that you bring this same judgmental attitude on yourself.
♠ No one was looking down on me except myself.
♠ I feel like I talk about the same problem every time. And you always give me the same answers. I don’t change myself, which is why the same problems keep coming up.
♠ Your perspective of yourself is so narrow and self-critical that you’re unable to see things from a wider perspective, and so you goad yourself into choosing just one angle, which is the easiest way out.
♠ I hope you will listen to a certain overlooked and different voice within you. Because the human heart, even when it wants to die, quite often wants at the same time to eat some tteokbokki, too.
♠ Meeting someone who moves your heart, writing something until it moves the hearts of others, listening to music and watching movies that depict love–I want to always be motivated by love. If pure rationality keeps forcing itself into the spaces in between, I shall lose the shine and comfort of my life–which is why I want to be an emotionally bright person, even if it means becoming impoverished in terms of rationality. I want to hold hands and march with those who feel similarly to me.
♠ I often look for books that are like medicine, that fit my situation and my thoughts, and I read them over and over again until the pages are tattered, underlining everything, and still the book will have something to give me. Books never tire of me. And in time they present a solution, quietly waiting until I am fully healed. That’s one of the nicest things about books.
♠ When you’re having a hard time, it’s natural to feel like you’re having the hardest time in the world. And it’s not selfish to feel that way.
♠ Your perception of reality is so polarised and extreme. you’re only able to see within the framework of ‘Everything about us is the same’ or ‘Everything about us is different.’
♠ You should try to stop yourself from reflexively falling back on thinking patterns you normally default to.
♠ I don’t think it’s a problem that needs fixing. It’s all a matter of how you see yourself.
♠ You’ve got to stop falling into the binary trap of thinking you’re either all-ordinary or all-special. ‘Good’ and ‘bad’ are not the only ways we think in black and white.
♠ Your emptiness and fear are all mixed up, and you’re asking for help to defend yourself. But if you depend on another person for help, it’ll satisfy you only for a moment, and you may not be able to stand on your own two feet later.
♠ Do you think every behaviour falls into a category of, ‘They did this because they hate me’ or ‘They did this because they like me’? The whole point of not liking your friend’s behaviour means you don’t like her behaviour, not your friend as a person. But right now, you keep interpreting every behaviour exhibited by your friend as rejection. Your mind immediately goes to the most extreme explanation instead of stopping to think of the many other reasons your friend could be doing what she’s doing. You keep applying these extreme standards to others. In effect, it’s your own thoughts that are torturing you. Learn to differentiate the parts from the whole. Just because you like one thing about a person, you don’t need to like everything about them. And just because you don’t like one thing about a person, it doesn’t mean the person as a whole isn’t worth your time. I think you should get in the habit of thinking differently.
♠ Love comes in different shapes, and I shouldn’t judge someone else’s love by my own standards.
♠ Many people think they’re the foremost authority on themselves, but you should be more sceptical. You’ve got to ask yourself, ‘Do I really know myself well?’
♠ Your very real problem is that you bring this same judgmental attitude on yourself.
♠ No one was looking down on me except myself.
♠ I feel like I talk about the same problem every time. And you always give me the same answers. I don’t change myself, which is why the same problems keep coming up.
♠ Your perspective of yourself is so narrow and self-critical that you’re unable to see things from a wider perspective, and so you goad yourself into choosing just one angle, which is the easiest way out.
♠ I hope you will listen to a certain overlooked and different voice within you. Because the human heart, even when it wants to die, quite often wants at the same time to eat some tteokbokki, too.
♠ Meeting someone who moves your heart, writing something until it moves the hearts of others, listening to music and watching movies that depict love–I want to always be motivated by love. If pure rationality keeps forcing itself into the spaces in between, I shall lose the shine and comfort of my life–which is why I want to be an emotionally bright person, even if it means becoming impoverished in terms of rationality. I want to hold hands and march with those who feel similarly to me.
♠ I often look for books that are like medicine, that fit my situation and my thoughts, and I read them over and over again until the pages are tattered, underlining everything, and still the book will have something to give me. Books never tire of me. And in time they present a solution, quietly waiting until I am fully healed. That’s one of the nicest things about books.
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