Thirty But Seventeen (2018)

Don't Think. Feel!

Charlie Chaplin, in his famous speech from The Great Dictator, wisely stated, “we think too much and feel too little.” Perhaps there is nothing so powerful a tool as the mind, nor is there anything that causes so many problems. This is why Bruce Lee told his students, “Don’t think. Feel.” The mind is like a merry-go-round. All it knows how to do is think and react to everything. We all need to follow our hearts and intuition more and think less. And the biggest catalyst to getting stuck on the endless stream of thought, is playing the “what if” game.

People don’t realize that when it is a soul’s time to pass, there is nothing in the universe that can stop it. There is nothing that can be done to prevent it. It is simply that person’s time. Grief, however, is a peculiar thing. It is a necessary process toward letting go and saying goodbye, and yet it can also induce a person to come up with irrational situations and scenarios; to take responsibility and blame where none have ever existed. Hence, the danger of the “what if” game.

I remember when my father passed away in an accident. Of course, I found a reason to blame myself for it, even though I had absolutely nothing to do with it at all. It took ten years of heartache and needless suffering before I realized the truth. In many ways, I could relate to Gong Woo Jin who believes himself responsible for a horrible bus accident that he believes has killed the girl he loved 13 years ago.

Gong Woo Jin lives as a recluse, closing himself off to virtually all human contact. He often ignores others and gives very clipped responses to questions. This is what happens when a person barricades themselves within the walls of guilt. The irony is that those “walls” are mere fabrications. They only exist within our own minds, and tragically, this is where Gong Woo Jin lives.

Woo Seo Ri is a vibrant young woman who wakes up from a coma after 13 years. She was only 17 when the bus accident occurred, so in many ways, she has the mindset and maturity if a 17-year-old girl. She finds herself transported into the future where everything is different. She feels like a foreigner suddenly dropped in the middle of a city without any idea about how to function. She is very much a fish out of water.

Fortunately, Woo Seo Ri comes across Yoo Chan, who also happens to be Gong Woo Jin’s nephew, and living in the same house where Seo Ri grew up. Yoo Chan is a 17-year-old high school kid who is thoughtful, considerate, and works very hard athletically. The irony is that none of them knows how they are all connected to the past, which includes the monotonal housekeeper, Jennifer, who always has wise and profound idioms and quotes to pass along. And yet, she behaves like a robot. We also find out later why behaves this way as well as her own connection to the past.

Seo Ri spends much of her time trying to find out why her aunt and uncle abandoned her at the hospital. Gong Woo Jin is simply trying to eke out some kind of existence with a design company. Hilariously, he takes measurements of all kinds of furniture so that he can create them to scale for small models, often upsetting or causing fights with people sitting on a park bench or, in one case, seeming to take liberties with another man’s girlfriend. And Yoo Chan finds himself smitten with Seo Ri and gives him a goal: if he wins the rowing race, he’ll share his feelings with her.

This is an especially touching series that demonstrates just how dire and destructive guilt can be. Woo Jin suffers severe panic attacks when Seo Ri says or does something that reminds him of what happened on that fateful day. He is so wracked with guilt that he can’t breathe or even keep his feet without struggle. There is such sweetness in the young Woo Jin and how much he adores the 17-year-old Seo Ri, even though he hasn’t a clue of who she is, and Seo Ri wearing her best friend’s name-badge only complicates things even more.

Of course, as with so many great K-dramas, what we are shown is only half the story, and when we find out the whole truth later on, we can see how unique a person’s perspective is, but also how one perspective isn’t always the whole perspective! The reveal portion toward the end of the series is infinitely touching and we can only appreciate the enormous hurdles and obstacles these two souls had to endure in order to be together.

I’ve been a huge fan of Shin Hye Sun for a while now, but in many ways, it’s Yang Se Jong’s performance that really seals things for this series. He really makes us feel the angst and pain with his eyes and the emotions on his face. I’ll wager that it wasn’t an easy thing to do, and he does this multiple times throughout the course of the series. He is so believable that half the time, I wanted to jump through the screen to try and console him. When he finally breaks down in absolute despair as he’s confessing his supposed “crime” to Seo Ri, it feels as though his very soul is screaming in agony.

I was glad that the series focused on Seo Ri, Woo Jin, and Yoo Chan without delving or contriving some ridiculous melodrama or love-triangle. The writers kept the focus on Seo Ri trying to navigate her new world, Woo Jin struggling with his guilt, and even Yoo Chan’s experiences of a first crush. All three characters are realistic, likable, and relatable.

It was stated that when a door to happiness closes, we should be looking for another door to happiness that opens. As long as a person pursues this course, happiness will be eternally elusive. As long as you believe you must be doing something in order to be happy, you’ll never find it. And when you do find it, it will be brief and then evaporate. Socrates from “Peaceful Warrior” stated, “Most of the world shares your pain. When you don’t get what you want, you suffer. And even when you get exactly what you want, you still suffer, because you can’t hold onto it forever.” The key is to BE happy. When you are able to be happy—which exists only in the moment—then any outer situation will have no power over you; it will never be able to quell that happiness that you already are. You have to BE happy, not DO happy.

And this is why Bruce Lee said, “Don’t think. Feel.” Happiness can, and never will, exist in the mind. It can only be felt and experienced within. And when you can make choices and decisions from a place of “being” you will be surprised to find that the whole world suddenly opens up around you.

13 years of suffering is what Seo Ri and Woo Jin had to undergo because of too much thinking and not enough feeling. Remember that pain is inevitable, but suffering is optional. And we must all try our very best not to get on the “what if” merry-go-round which leads to a needless, endless cycle of suffering—until we change our minds.

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