Korean psychologist Suh Eun-kook on the simple secrets to happiness

“Are you happy?” It’s a simple question, and on the surface, there’s nothing unusual about it. Yet many people hesitate to answer yes. Life may feel generally okay, but admitting happiness often seems to require having a little more.

Statistics suggest the same. According to the U.N.’s World Happiness Report 2025, released in March, Korea ranked 58th among 147 countries. It placed near the bottom among developed nations and ranked lower than Taiwan, Vietnam, Thailand, Kazakhstan, Japan and the Philippines in Asia. Koreans love comparing rankings and speak often of healing, yet still hesitate to call themselves happy. Why?

Suh Eun-kook, a psychology professor at Yonsei University and author of the book whose Korean title translates as “The Origin of Happiness,” offers one explanation. He argues that people should seek “Darwinian happiness rather than Aristotelian happiness,” a phrase that may sound abstract but has resonated deeply. The book has sold more than 200,000 copies, reflecting Koreans’ intense preoccupation with happiness.

Suh studied under Ed Diener, considered a founder of happiness psychology, while in the United States in the 1980s. Today, happiness is a widely discussed topic, but at that time — and for roughly the next decade — happiness psychology remained outside the mainstream.

That was because psychology began with human unhappiness. The field’s premise was simple: if unhappiness is reduced or removed, people will become happy. The discipline focused not on defining happiness but on identifying the causes of unhappiness and how to eliminate them.

Accumulated research, however, eventually revealed something crucial: Not being unhappy does not automatically make one happy. It is possible to feel happiness even amid hardship. This realization shifted psychology’s central question from “How do we avoid unhappiness?” to “How do we cultivate happiness?”

This was also the motivation behind Suh’s book. Drawing from decades of research, “The Origin of Happiness” identifies key insights into how people can increase their sense of well-being.

Among many points, Suh highlights ten core ideas:

1. Happiness is not rational; it is animalistic and instinctive.

2. Humans are fundamentally animals — only with higher intelligence.

3. Free yourself from obsession with “happiness techniques” such as emptying, gratitude and slowing down.

4. Values such as self-actualization have little to do with happiness.

5. Happiness is not strongly tied to objective life conditions.

6. Money, health and education function like vitamins; beyond a certain point, more is unnecessary.

7. Happiness comes from the frequency of joy, not its intensity.

8. Happiness comes from experiencing small pleasures often and in many forms.

9. People who enjoy social interaction feel happier.

10. Truly happy people keep themselves ready to feel joy and know how to access it when needed.

Mukbang and the primal roots of happiness

To be happier, Suh said, people must first accept their animal nature. Animals prioritize survival and reproduction, and the human brain evolved around these functions. The foundation of both begins with sharing food with people one likes and feels comfortable with — laughing, talking and relaxing over a meal. While some may scoff at the popularity of mukbang (online videos of people eating large amounts of food), he said it represents one of the most primal forms of happiness.

Suh said people should not search endlessly for concepts like soul, ego or the inner self. Instead, they should keep close the small things that reliably bring joy and raise the probability of happiness — “friends, Pyongyang cold noodles, coffee, Messi’s passes, Bach, a good book, driving, traveling” — and maintain a state of readiness to take pleasure in them.

But he said Koreans struggle with this. A strong collectivist and hierarchical culture has created a society where people grow weary of one another. On the surface, personal networks seem abundant — seniors and juniors, older brothers and younger siblings tied by blood, hometown, school or workplace — yet the quality of relationships remains thin and insufficient. What Korea lacks, he said, is not economic wealth but “social wealth.” For Koreans, who now live beyond subsistence, unhappiness stems from a shortage of that social wealth.

In a brief Q&A with the Hankook Ilbo, Suh revealed a little more about his book and its secrets to true happiness.

Throw away forced happiness and forced healing

“The Origin of Happiness” is a thin book, so I felt happy while reading it.

“Ha ha, that is true. After returning to Korea, people often suggested that I write a popular book because I had formally studied happiness psychology. I kept declining, but eventually wrote one quickly and comfortably, just as I would speak to close friends.”

Nearly 200,000 copies have been sold. You must feel quite happy with the royalties.

“I was surprised. Even though I wrote it in an easy style, just like talking with friends, it is not entirely soft — it contains theory. I thought perhaps five hundred copies might sell. I never imagined it would continue selling for this long, or that I would receive hundreds of lecture requests each year.”

The book begins by saying that happiness is not something grand.

“We Koreans tend to link happiness to great achievements like self-realization or social success. We admire what is moral, ethical and impressive. So when asked if we are happy, we think our lives lack those great accomplishments and answer no. But happiness is none of that. Simply put, happiness is whatever makes you feel joy. Why must that joy be great or extraordinary? There is no reason at all.”

You also said happiness is not a goal but a means.

“That idea appears often in self-help books: we must be happy, so we should practice and work hard to become happy. But happiness is an emotion, and emotions are not controlled by the brain’s reasoning. Sudden bursts of pleasure or displeasure cannot be commanded by logic. So no amount of effort or rehearsal will make someone happy. There is far too much forced happiness and forced healing.”

This article from the Hankook Ilbo, the sister publication of The Korea Times, is translated by a generative AI system and edited by The Korea Times.