Life Ends When We Stop Challenging Ourselves

Several years ago, Professor Kim Hyung-suk, now 106, delivered congratulatory remarks at a calligraphy exhibition by Lee Gon, then 90, who had once been his student at Choong-Ang High School.

“Having lived for a hundred years, I have come to realize two things.

No matter how old you grow, don’t simply sit idle—keep studying. And never lose confidence in yourself.

The moment you decide that your life is over, it truly is.”

There is something deeply moving about a centenarian teacher telling his 90-year-old student not to stop learning.


I am also reminded of the late Won Hoon Chung, a legendary figure in the Korean American banking community. When he was 90, I happened to see him jogging through Hancock Park with headphones on.

I pulled over and asked what music he was listening to.

It wasn’t music at all. He was listening to German conversation lessons.

Already fluent in Japanese, English, and Spanish, he had decided, at the age of 90, to learn yet another language—German.


Then there is Chairman Steven Koh, a living witness to the history of Korean American banking. At his retirement ceremony as chairman emeritus of Bank of Hope last year, he took the stage with a guitar and sang for the audience.

He had begun learning the guitar at the age of 80, something he had always wanted to do. Just seven months later, he stood before an audience of some 300 people, guitar in hand, and performed.

His passion and sincerity left a profound impression on everyone in the room.


We often use age as a reason to let go of things.

We tell ourselves, It’s too late now.

I’ve done enough.

This is as far as I was meant to go.

But when we stop learning and stop challenging ourselves, something in life itself comes to a halt.

The end of life, then, is not determined by age.

It begins the moment we stop challenging ourselves.

     - From Dawn Light Notes by Ki Jun Kwon


Reflection of the Day

★ The saying “Age is just a number” becomes true

only for those who continue to learn and dare to take on new challenges. ★

[Go back to Korean version] 한국어

[www.DawnLightLetter.com] 새벽 빛 편지

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

When I Am Too Happy, I Close My Eyes

You would not know this— when I am too happy, I close my eyes. It is because I long, with all my heart, for this happiness not to slip away. When I love too deeply, I fall silent. For once I speak those words aloud, I can never call them again with quite the same feeling.            — From I Love, Yet Do Not Love by Jin-guk Cho — At times, a profound sense of happiness comes over us. We find ourselves thinking, So this is what happiness feels like, and at the same time, we wonder, Am I truly allowed to feel this happy? In such moments, we instinctively close our eyes— as if to hold that happiness close within our hearts. For true happiness is not something to be spoken, but something to be quietly embraced. When one comes to truly love another, the words “I love you” are not easily spoken. Instead, one simply gazes in silence. It is because we wish to cherish that love deep within our hearts. True love is not found in words, but in the trembling that passes...
Read more

Regrets at the Edge of Life

Australian bestselling author Bronnie Ware, in her book 'The Top Five Regrets of the Dying' , reflects on the five most common regrets expressed by those nearing the end of their lives: 1. "I wish I'd had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me."  2. "I wish I hadn't worked so hard."  3. "I wish I'd had the courage to express my feelings."  4. "I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends."  5. "I wish that I had let myself be happier."  One day, we all find ourselves looking back on the path we have traveled. What lingers as regret may not be the grand ambitions we failed to achieve, but rather the quiet intentions we never chose to act upon. There is a saying that life follows the sequence of ABCD: A man is born, passes through countless choices, and ultimately arrives at death— Birth, Choice, and Death . Though it may sound like a playful notion, it carries a certain truth. E...
Read more

One Day I Will Sit Alone in a Dim Tavern

"My daughter has just begun her first menstruation. I can no longer hold her in my arms. Life has become unbearable. A life that longs to collapse on the spot, like a garment slipping from a hanger. What, after all, could be more commonplace than sorrow? And so, one day, I will sit alone in a dim tavern." — From Hwang Ji-woo's One Day I Will Sit in a Dim Tavern "It is a self-portrait of the '475 Generation'—those in their forties, born in the 1950s and educated in the 1970s—who barely survived the turmoil of Korea's IMF crisis in the late 1990s. Long past ten o'clock at night, in a Korean-town computer academy, middle-aged men with graying hair sit before their monitors, striking the keyboards with awkward determination. Caught between the Internet generation in their thirties and the established generation in their fifties, they were the last generation raised on the abacus and the first generation forced to learn computers. The sight of t...
Read more