A Word from Kim Gu

When you're young, there's no one more important than you,
when you grow older, there's no one as great as you,
and when you grow old, there's no one lesser than you.

Work tailored to money is a job,
work that goes beyond money is a calling.

Work as a job and you get a salary,
work as a calling and you receive a gift.

If you grow used to praise, criticism shakes your heart,
if you grow used to good treatment, poor treatment hurts your heart.

The problem is my own heart, grown accustomed and tamed.

A house may be small and still be lived in together,
but if a person's heart is small, you can't live together.

If you don't challenge what you can't do by your own strength,
you can't reach the places you can't go by your own strength.

In truth, you leave this place only by surpassing yourself,
and reach that place only by overcoming yourself.

At the place where you think you've gone as far as you can go, no one knows how much farther you can go,
and at the place where you think you've endured as much as you can endure, no one knows how much more you can endure.

The way to make a hell is simple.

Just hate the person close to you.

The way to make a heaven is simple too.

Just love the person close to you.

Everything begins from what's close by.

Whether or not I get hurt is something I decide.

And whether or not I let the hurt grow is also something I decide.

That person's actions are beyond my control, but the reaction is always my own.

Only through labor pains is new life born,
only after the late-spring cold does spring come,
only after darkness passes does dawn come.

The more roughly you speak, the rougher you become,
the more lewdly you speak, the lewder you become,
the more fiercely you speak, the fiercer you become.

In the end, everything begins from me.

Only by governing myself do I achieve my will.

Everything depends on myself

- Baekbeom Kim Gu -