'The pressure to be exceptional is making us miserable'

In Korea, an ordinary life is often treated as one that falls short, says Han Gru, a professor at Fairfield University in Connecticut and the creator of the life-advice YouTube channel newyorkcrab, which has about 90,000 subscribers.

In his new memoir, "I've Decided to Live Like an Enlightened Wild Animal" (literal translation), Han reflects on the value of an unremarkable life, suggesting that there is nothing wrong with not being exceptional — and that the pressure to become so can make people miserable.

"In our society, an ordinary life is rarely seen as ordinary. It is seen as a life that falls short," Han writes. "The dazzling lives of the top 10 percent have become the standard, and anything that does not measure up can seem somehow lacking."

Han knows something about that pressure firsthand. After graduating from a prestigious university in Korea, he went to Harvard University to pursue a doctorate, following what might be considered an elite path. But during his doctoral studies, he experienced burnout and spent eight years unable to bring himself to do much of anything. Han said he finally broke free after accepting that there was no single "best path" in life.

He began speaking candidly about those experiences on his YouTube channel, and subscribers began reaching out and asking him for advice. The channel grew through earnest conversations grounded in his own experiences.

As he listened to their stories of anxiety and insecurity, Han says he began to see a broader picture of what ails Korean society. He describes it as "a map of the pain in Korean society."

To the question of why life is so difficult for Koreans, Han says the problem is less about their circumstances than about the standards they are expected to meet.

"The bar for what counts as ordinary has been raised impossibly high," he writes. "If 90 percent of the people in a society are considered to be falling short, is the problem with the people or with the way we see them?"

Han calls this "hatred of the ordinary."

Why should being ordinary be a bad thing? Han urges readers not to overlook the modest, sometimes shabby forms of happiness that are easy to dismiss. A glamorous experience — going somewhere fancy and eating something delicious — can bring happiness. But so can things that seem almost insignificant at the time.

Look past the fantasies surrounding money, fame and status, Han writes, and "we are all ordinary people." There is nothing wrong, he says, with living a good life as "an ordinary person."