Greeting the New Year, people make resolutions for change in the upcoming year. Some people may end up with a resolution good for only three days. Then, they may make another one. This process repeats over and over during life time, and it can make big changes in life. These changes often looks.....................................................................

               As for the future, your task is not to foresee, but to enable it.

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.

‘The Road Not Taken’

Robert Frost

Greeting the New Year, people make resolutions for change in the upcoming year. Some people may end up with a resolution good for only three days. Then, they may make another one. This process repeats over and over during our lifetime, and it can make big changes in life. These changes often look as if we stand where two roads diverge in a wood, and that the choice makes all the difference. Chonnam Tribune interviewed two people who took the one less traveled by and made all the difference.

One of the people interviewed is Kang Bo-Kyung, who entered medical school at Chonnam National University in 1989. At that time, she won a scholarship from this university and was also offered admission to the medical school at Seoul National University. She chose CNU medical school because her family lived in Gwangju and she could study on a scholarship. Just after she graduated, she got an internship at the Samsung hospital in Seoul, which is one of the best hospitals in Korea. Before long, she got married and had a baby. It seemed that she had accomplished everything in her life: a successful school life, a good career as a doctor and a blissfully happy family. However, she looked deeply within, and found at the bottom of her heart that she really wanted to do something else. She wanted to be a lawyer. That was why she started to study for the bar exam in April 2002 and passed the exam in 2004. As her career shows she has experienced outstanding achievement and success. This interview places its focus not on those brilliant accomplishments as a doctor and a lawyer, but rather on what made her decide to continue to challenge and how she made it.

When Kang was a high school student, she recognized her own personal interest in law, and also that the law is a powerful tool for understanding our society. Grafting her knowledge of the law onto that of medical science enabled her to contribute herself in both fields. However, there were a lot of problems to be taken into consideration when she decided to quit her job as a doctor and prepare for the bar exam. In addition to professional considerations, she also had to take into account her roles as both mother and wife at home. People around her were surprised by her decision. They said this career change was unexpected, and that she should enjoy her life as a doctor.  She thought it over seriously and after careful consideration, she finally concluded that it was time to do for society.

The other interviewee is Lee Bo-kyun, who has two student numbers; one from the department of law at Korea University in 1991, and the other from the medical school at CNU in 2004. In his early twenties, he was a dreamer who thought over how we Koreans could overcome social inequalities and contradictions in society and make the world better. This led him to law school because he thought the world we live in is ruled by laws and regulations. While he attended law school, he was necessarily engaged in a student movement against the government. However, he figured out that he was not powerful enough to change the world and felt daunted by the harsh realities of politics. Then he decided to be a farmer and went to his hometown. But he did not fare well in his country life, which was cut off from the outside world and gave him no solutions to his questions about social contradictions. The awakening made him leave the countryside and begin studying to get a job related to the law. To solve his financial difficulties, he had to work as an instructor at a private institute for two years.

Strange to say, the moment of his great resolution to change his life came when he watched the TV show “Relay of Praise” (Ching Chan Hap Si Da). The show inspired him with the idea of changing the world. He recognized that his ideal could be accomplished in a particular way--to change people, not in the way of politics, but in the way of encouraging and praising each other. He also came to a decision to go to Bangladesh, the country that ranks as the highest in the world on the happiness index. “I thought the journey to Bangladesh might give me an answer to my longstanding question of how to eliminate the contradictions in Korea by learning what makes Bangladeshi people feel happy even though they are poor,” said Lee. He believed that productivity was not the most influential factor for happiness. Before he carried out his plan to go to the new world, he thought that he had better do something to enable himself to participate in the Bangladeshi community and wanted sincere and hearty communication with them. That was why he entered CNU medical school to be a doctor. That is to say, his medical voluntary service in Bangladesh would be the price for learning, he thought.

Some may become bored by these success stories and devalue them as stories which just showoff the abilities of individuals with good positions. But the interviews were aimed to share lessons from the lives of those interviewed, and to provide good examples for you. If you follow the course of their decision-making process, and see how they went through to consider things outside of themselves rather than what they are as individuals, you might be able to seize a great moment to take a look into their lives. The two interviewees have something in common; they both kept their eyes open to observe what they really wanted to be. Once they made a decision, they tried to take a step forward without any hesitation. Finally, there is a proverb which goes “A frog in the well knows nothing of the great ocean.” Kang said, “Do not live in peace in the boundary of CNU but keep your eyes wide open to the world.” In Lee’s point of view, he suggests that you “try to change your environment, but not to adapt yourself to the system.”

It is believed that the two interviewees lead good examples for CNU students. Now it is time for us to follow them and create our own future toward our own goal. Let’s take the road less traveled by.  

 [#264 Cover Story-Happy New Change]