Santa Clara Meditation Enlightenment – You Can Succeed At Your Work Life
Jin-Soo Park / Deputy Manager of Outsourcing Purchasing Team
Deputy Manager of SK C&C’s Outsourcing Purchasing Team Jin-soo Park (36). He is often described as being very energetic and relaxed; people call him “Energizer” because he is so full of energy. However, Jin-soo Park wasn’t always like this. There was a time when he struggled: feeling inferior to others and dealing with the death of his best friend. He felt nervous and tired all the time. “Energizer” Park, an employee for 5 years, talks about the wisdom and impact of meditation on his work life.
After losing three close friends, I felt lost inside
“You must have the most amazing life?” “Why are you so happy?”
These days, with the economic crisis, the atmosphere at work is very different from before. Still, I’m always smiling, and so people ask me these kinds of questions. And so, I respond by saying that when I’m working, I just work, and when I’m eating, I just eat and when I’m sleeping, I just sleep; I’m honestly just so grateful for what I have now that I truly live in the moment.
But I wasn’t always like this. Back in 2010, I was very nervous and angry when I started at my job. I fought a lot and always disagreed with coworkers and bosses and was nicknamed “Fighter.” I was also physically unwell: I suffered from insomnia. I was also struggling mentally with the loss of a partner, a close friend and a best friend all before I turned 30. I felt very lost inside.
Why were we born? Why did we live? I started this meditation to find the answers to these fundamental questions and to help deal with the guilt I felt over the loss of my friends. I had so much pain inside of me that I couldn’t sleep at night; I would walk for four or five hours and sleep during the day for an hour. I was like a zombie. I tried exercise, psychiatric counselling; I tried everything but, still, I couldn’t sleep.
I was also struggling to find work. I applied for more than 100 jobs with no success, and because of this stress, my insomnia got worse. Still, I held out hope that I would find something. I figured it would be easy. After all, I had valuable internship experience from a good university as well as graduate school experience. But it wasn’t the case. Because of this situation, a lot of anxiety and inferiority came up; it was really hell.
Then, things started to change. I went to an oriental clinic and found out about this meditation. Around the same time, I got a job offer.
I started practicing this meditation earnestly and I was really surprised to find out that I was living in my picture world which was the cause of all my pain. When I abandoned my false picture world, and even my false self, I experienced becoming one with the infinite universe.
This realization hit me, “ah, the original universe is me”, but I wasn’t living as this existence. I was living in my own picture world which was just like a dream. I could come out from this painful dream and live a real life without pain. Even the painful memories, I could let go of comfortably. As I let go of the attachments and the guilt towards my friends who had died, I started to sleep better. I had tried so hard to find a solution to my insomnia and now I had found it; I was so happy.
After reflecting on my arrogance, my attitude changed
The most difficult aspect of work was interacting with everyone. There were bosses that I hated: the boss who gave us his work and went out to play, and the boss who was always on top of us but never taught us anything. As I meditated and reflected on myself, I saw that my hatred was all inside my own picture world. For the first time, I could objectively look at myself from the other person’s point of view, and I realized that I was the one who was wrong.
I grew up with three younger sisters, and I was very selfish. That selfishness, self-assertiveness and stubbornness were traits that I brought to my work. As a new employee, what boss would like me? I cried a lot when I meditated. I could really see how wrong I was and was really remorseful about how I had treated people. My attitude toward other people started to change and I listened more to what they had to say.
Others noticed the changes too. One boss, who knew me from the beginning, said that I had completely changed. I had read so many self-help books in order to be good at my job, but the books never impacted me. I was so surprised to see myself changing fundamentally as I pulled out and threw away my mind.
“Enjoy your work, focus on this moment!” Happiness starts from being satisfied with the current situation. When I look back on my life, I was always envious of people who were in a better situation than me; I always felt inferior. Even though I was a good student at school, I envied my friends who came from a better family. It was the same when I went to university, graduate school, and when I started working. Other companies looked better, other teams looked better; as long as I was comparing myself with others, I could never be happy. As I pulled out that mind of comparison, I became happy!
I see people who want to make a lot of money quickly by betting on stocks or buying lottery tickets. For me, if I think about the future, I can’t concentrate on the present and that’s where the anxiety comes from. Honestly, even if I go to a larger company, I will still have anxiety about the future, especially financial anxiety. But this anxiety about the future or money is only in my mind. And when I realize that there is only this moment, I just live to the fullest every day.
‘Enjoy your work and focus on this moment!’
Succeeding at work? It’s not difficult.
