Life Goals: Be rich, make big money, make money, $$. Not my life goals, but my university students' life goals. 

"Can money buy you happiness?" I ask curiously, trying not to sound too judgy.
"Well, I think so. I can buy many things. That will make me happy..."

I couldn't help but feel disappointed. This isn't just happening in image-obsessed Korea. One of the things I remembered clearly from the TED Talk given by Robert Waldinger about the longest study on happiness in history pointed out that 80% millennials wanted to be rich and 50% wanted to be famous. Check out the TED Talk here.  I get it. In a world where you can transfer money, download music, order delivery, and swipe left/right to date, who wouldn't want to be insta-famous/rich?

What ever happened to the struggle though? Do you remember having to make mixed tapes? Or anything in fact where you had to struggle? Wasn't the result that much sweeter? When I was in high school, we would painstakingly make mixed tapes for each other as gifts. It meant something. It took time, effort, agile fingers (to press pause/stop). Maybe the recipients of my mixed tape gifts weren't that impressed, but I certainly was. Yeah Ace of Base!

Next week, I will be going to Norway to speak at a global women's conference, where I will be giving my Happiness Workshop I created, and have brought around the world. Since I won't be able to teach during that week, I decided to assign my students The HAPPY video project (part of my Happiness Workshop) where they have to go around campus and make as many people around them as happy as possible.

Several students asked, "Is this mandatory?"

To them I ask another question, "Is HAPPINESS mandatory in your life?" I just get blank stares in response. But here's why we should choose happiness: the myth that being SUCCESSFUL comes first and then HAPPINESS comes second is just that: a myth. HAPPINESS comes first, and then SUCCESS follows. There's a reason people tell you to not follow the money, but follow your heart instead. For more on this research, check out Shawn Achor's work.

I get a lot of students who look at me in bewilderment and ask in disbelief, "How can you be happy ALL the time?"

Here's the HOW:

• BALANCE: After my mom was diagnosed with early onset dementia, I felt the earth shift from under my feet and shake me to my very core. Grappling with my depression soon after, I realized that to everything in life, there needs to be balance. I can't be sad all the time, but I can make the choice to CHOOSE HAPPY to balance some of that sadness.
• GRATITUDE: For over a year now, I started a gratitude journal. Research shows that people who keep gratitude journals overall, have a higher satisfaction with their lives. To me, it helped to maintain that balance in my life. Rather than dwelling on all the negatives, it helped me focus on all that I was grateful for. In case you want to read about the other benefits, there are a ton of benefits.
• MINDFULNESS: Ok, so I couldn't really get into meditation. I did give it a good go, but being present, taking mindful breaths and not stressing about the past/future is also key to balance. My all time favorite mindfulness activity is mindful EATING. Why don't you try it? Take yourself out to your favorite restaurant, or cook yourself your favorite meal at home, turn off any electronic devices and just savor every single bite. You can thank me later.
• POSITIVE MINDSET: I was the epitome of Negative Nelly before I met my hubby. Both of my parents tend towards negativity, although that has been shifting as of late. So it is possible that even if you grew up around negativity, you can change later in life. My husband always sees the positive in the negative, and solutions rather than complaints, no matter what. Period. And he is one of the most successful people I know. I didn't realize how all humans tend toward negativity, until I read Shola Richards'* book called Making Work Work. Did you know that humans have about 60,000 thoughts per day? Of which 95% are repetitive and 80% are negative? WHAAAAT?!
• BEING ACTIVE (OFFLINE): I feel like people are just running around in a device fog. Some students have even confessed to me that they have fallen down, glued to their cell phone screens, as opposed to looking where they're going (that's in life and just walking around). In a study on users who didn't use Facebook for a week, they were 1 point happier than the control group whose overall happiness level actually declined because they continued to use Facebook. In another study done by Harvard Business Review, they found that Facebook users overall mental health declined. Basically, the more people used Facebook, the worse they felt. So get offline, go exercise, get lost, take a hike, and don't post it on Facebook!!!!!
• IN-PERSON RELATIONSHIPS: This point is kind of related to my previous point about Facebook. Yes, we need to keep updated with who is vacationing on a picture perfect beach or drool over that plate of food, but going back to that Harvard study on Happiness, the one thing that kept people happy, and kept people living longer, was human in-person relationships regardless of socioeconomic status and money. So take that, Millennials!

As I struggle to convince an entire country why they need to choose HAPPY--a country that statistically needs it the most--perhaps I am TOO balanced, grateful, mindful, positive, active, focused on cherishing in-person relationships (ie. HAPPY)? And perhaps that struggle will result in the most awesome mixed tape ever.

Will you choose HAPPY?

*I actually was so taken by Shola's book, that mid-reading, I emailed him to ask if we could connect/collaborate. He actually emailed me back, and we had a phone call while I was in California last month! Such a cool guy. If you can get your hands on his book, I highly recommend it. Oh and Shola, like my husband, is living/breathing proof that being HAPPY -> SUCCESS.

**This blog post is dedicated to my husband: A man who chooses HAPPY every single day, regardless of the struggle. 

I care about EVERYTHING. Here are some things I care about and in no particular order:

• What the ajummas ("middle-aged women" in Korean) at the gym will think if I don't shower before I get into the pool
• What the ajummas at the gym will think if I don't wash my shower bucket out before returning it
• My mom's health/well-being
• My dad's mental sanity in being my mom's primary caregiver
• Not being liked by students/friends/community
• Failing and how that will be perceived by those around me

What (society tells me) I should care about but I don't:

• Brushing my hair before I leave the house (my husband will often chase me around the house with a hair brush)
• Making sure I don't have leftover toilet paper remnants on my face after I dry it in the morning
• Cleaning/organizing my desk both at home and at work
• Laughing less loudly so I don't disturb others around me in public
• Grooming myself more (hair removal, make-up, nails, etc.)

My first week teaching at GMUK (George Mason University Korea), my husband asked me how it went, and I burst into tears. I lamented how students talk over me, they don't listen to me, they speak Korean the whole time, and don't really do the fun activities I asked them to do. I spent my first two weeks, stressing about this, and a few students who were on the extreme end. I vented to friends, family, and basically anyone who would listen to me.

Did I care too much?

Then I decided to tell the students openly and honestly how I felt, so I recounted the exact same story of how my husband had asked how my first week went and I had cried. Almost immediately, I could feel the air in the room had totally changed: gone were the attitudes, students started sitting up, paying attention, speaking English, and actually doing the activities. The change was palpable.

Had I not cared enough to tell them, would they have cared enough to change?

At a ladies lunch this past week, an expat friend lamented about how she felt judged for showing up at school not dressed to the nines. Her comment was greeted with "WHAAAT?!" all around, and another expat friend chimed in saying that she felt judged for driving the "crappiest" car of all the hagwon ("after-school academic center" in Korean) owners when she used to own a hagwon.

"What kind of car do you drive?" I asked, half expecting her to say a Honda or a Toyota.
"A Chevrolet Spark," she replied. Again, she was met with a chorus of "WHAAAT?!"

More and more stories were revealed about the pressure to look, act, dress a certain way. As the ladies were talking, I started thinking: Why do women put that kind of pressure on other women? I mean, let's face it, if we could, we would all walk around in our pajamas, right? Or was it a matter of caring? Did the women who dressed up care too much about how they looked? And for the women who didn't get dressed up, did they care too much about what people would say if they didn't? After all that's said and done, shouldn't we be worried about what kinds of mothers people are on the inside, rather than how they dress on the outside? 

Perhaps all the caring was misdirected. Imagine if all of that energy put into caring about what other people thought was put into caring about themselves?

During this past week at GMUK, I cared a little bit less--about 10% less. Even though there were a few students who seemed spaced out, not paying attention, chatting with their friends, I didn't take it personally. As a student myself in Bootcamp, I was recently "caught" chatting with another friend during an exercise. I loved my Bootcamp class, I loved my instructor, and I loved my fellow class-mates. It was nothing personal. As humans, we get distracted, we want to catch up with friends, and try our darndest to multi-task, knowing it's a dying art.

So I guess my takeaway is care, but care 10% less about what (you may perceive) people are thinking of you. Use that extra 10% to care for yourself.