By Mary-Jane Liddicoat

Have you ever heard someone say, ``What if study were fun and success easy?" If you said ``no,'' then you would be in the majority. But what if it ``were" possible? If you are curious then read on. I will share three simple tools to help you create this as a possibility.

Having worked in Seoul for 10 years and seen a stream of unhappy people trudging to work, school and university everyday, I began asking questions. Why are Korean families, workers, students, even young children stressed and depressed about just about everything?

Clearly the idea that study could be fun and success easy is not a common concept in Korea. I suspect most Koreans would get angry at me for even suggesting it. Where is the ``value" in fun and ease, they would say. Most people equate value with hardship, suffering and sacrifice.

How often have our parents, teachers and leaders told us that life is hard and we must sacrifice ourselves for the good of our children, our company, and our nation? I guess we would hear this everyday at least once. So it's no surprise we have this idea planted firmly in our heads.

What if the value of living a no-stress life of ease and joy was that you lived a longer, healthier, more productive and creative life? And what if this in turn increased the economic prosperity of your family, company, and nation? Would that be valuable?

Interesting different point of view?

It has been scientifically proven that stress and negative thoughts can make us sick. Knowing this, are you surprised that rates of chronic disease and ill health in Korea keep rising and Korea boasts one of the highest suicide rates in the OECD? Even those who have achieved ``success" ― film stars and singers ― are choosing suicide as an escape at rates seemingly higher than the national average.

So what if by the mere fact that we are constantly telling ourselves that our lives are only valuable if they are hard, that is exactly what we make them?

What would happen if we chose to think differently? Could we become healthier, more productive and creative? Could we become like Nobel Prize winners who view their 1000 ``failed" experiments with excitement and enthusiasm knowing that something is yet unknown, something which inspires them with joy to pursue? (As you know, Nobel Prizes are only awarded for discovering the unknown.)

So the first simple tool I will share is to ``consciously" look at your life differently and demand a different possibility.

Instead of waking up every morning, slipping unconsciously into the no-fun, hard, trauma and drama reality that everyone else chooses, what if every morning you said ``all of life comes to me with ease and joy and abundance?"

By saying this one thing, you are consciously saying: I choose differently ― I choose ease and fun and prosperity ― bring it on! Who knows what this simple shift in outlook might bring? How much more productive and creative might you be? Could you be free of tiredness and disease?

(There is one caveat: you have to really choose it. If you're one of many who love their hardship and suffering as a way of seeking attention, then this will not work until you give that up.)

Hey, this is free, it doesn't hurt you, and won't hurt anyone else, and so you would not try it for what reason? Who knows what will show up? What else could be truly possible for you?

This is the first of a three-part article. The writer was head of the education section of the Australian Embassy in Seoul until June 2009. She can be reached at mj.liddicoat@gmail.com.