I Want to Die but I Want to Eat Tteokbokki

by Baek Se-hee

‘If you want to be happy, you mustn’t fear the following truths but confront them head-on: one, that we are always unhappy, and that our sadness, suffering and fear have good reasons for existing. Two, that there is no real way to separate these feelings completely from ourselves.’

I wasn’t deathly depressed, but I wasn’t happy either, floating instead in some feeling between the two. I suffered more because I had no idea that these contradictory feelings could and did coexist in many people.

Why are we so bad at being honest about our feelings? Is it because we’re so exhausted from living that we don’t have the time to share them?

In the end, my hope is for people to read this book and think, I wasn’t the only person who felt like this; or, I see now that people live with this.

I’ve also realised that revealing my darkness is just as natural a thing to do as revealing my light.

Sometimes the best thing to do with people who would never listen to you in the first place is to avoid them altogether.

If it doesn’t make you feel good, don’t go out of your way to do it.

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.

You need to accept that different people will have different responses to the same conversation.

We need to live with others in a society, but we need our own space, too. It’s natural for these contradictory feelings to coexist.

If you have unrealistically high standards, you will forever be creating reasons to see yourself as inadequate, as someone who needs endless improvement.

Which is why you shouldn’t torture yourself with questions like, Why can’t I be happy with what I have?

I think you should start allowing yourself to forget and let go of things that have already happened.

What I’m saying is, don’t compare yourself to other people. Compare yourself to your past self.

why did I torture myself by comparing myself to someone else?

If twenty-year-old me met me today, she would cry with joy. And that’s enough for me.

This anxiety about losing something seems to happen whenever anything comes into your possession.

Calling yourself ordinary might be a way of protecting yourself. It’s your way of saying you’re not inferior.

I hope you learn to look at a person as a whole before judging them. And to look upon yourself as a whole individual as well.

To me, sadness is the path of least resistance, the most familiar and close-at-hand emotion I have. A habit that has encrusted itself onto my everyday.

If I’m sad today I’ll be happy tomorrow, and if I’m happy today I’ll be sad tomorrow – that’s fine. As long as I keep loving myself.

Take control and responsibility for your actions instead of caring so much about what other people think.

To tell the truth, no one was looking down on me except myself.

I’m sad, but I’m alive, and living through it. That is my solace and my joy.

I always considered pain or discomfort as me being a nuisance. I would censor my own pain. Despite my discomfort, I cared more about how I appeared to others.

Happiness and unhappiness alternate throughout life, as in a dance. So as long as I keep going and don’t give up, surely I will keep having moments of tears and laughter.