There are millions of courses out there designed to mold you into a smooth negotiator, a skillful technician and even a brilliant leader.

People willingly fork over large amounts of money to improve their skills in order to stand out in today’s world. Fine-tuning your skills can lead to a better salary, more career recognition and make you something of an expert. 

For journalists like myself, there is a plethora of courses at universities and at specialized institutes to help you attain the right tools to become better at reporting.

However, I find that there is not that much help when it comes to training to become a better person. That is, to help you make progress in maintaining better mental health. At the risk of sounding culturally biased, I do find that such help is even less available when it comes to Asian cultures such as the one I belong to -- Korea. This includes Japan, a country that strains to assimilate with the West, and that accepted Western culture faster than any other in Asia.

To say you need mental help can be equated with weakness. While it’s perfectly fine to admit you lack certain occupational skills, it is still taboo to reach out because you feel you are mentally unstable or not sufficiently balanced. Not to say that no help is available, but just that reaching out itself comes with a lot of strings attached.

The lack of emphasis on mental health often comes with unhealthy by-products that can include an overworked society. People are not happy with themselves, with their lives, and hence, they throw themselves into their work.

According to statistics from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, in 2015 Korea had the second longest working hours in the OECD.

These figures don’t just mean we are hard-working; it means something else is lacking in life.

In Tokyo, where I live, it’s common to see personal artifacts such as umbrellas, a lone mitten, a scarf, and sometimes even purses lying exactly where the unfortunate person lost it. But when nobody is watching, the situation becomes very different. This is the reason why heinous crimes occur.

Scholars have long noted that feelings are often suppressed here, and that people are not comfortable exposing their inner selves and thus resort to extremes as the emotions become bottled up.

The situation doesn’t seem to be so different in Korea, where the president is on the brink of becoming impeached. If this happens, Park Geun-hye would be the first president to be impeached under the Korean Constitution

All of her actions, if proven true as charged, were wrong. She let a civilian make policy decisions and meddle in state affairs. There is no excuse.

However, it does make one wonder, had she received treatment for the shock of her father’s assassination, had she reached out for help and tried to improve her mental health, would the situation be different? Is there any kind of training for smart, intelligent people who are suffering with mental health problems?

Speaking of presidents, we can also talk about former US president Bill Clinton, who was almost impeached when his secret affair became public.

It was a long time ago, and I am hardly Donald Trump, but it’s clear that Clinton was also not at his healthiest, mentally, when the incident occurred. Some people say his mother’s promiscuity scarred him for life. If this is true, he might have saved America a lot of humiliation if he had reached out before he became so powerful.

And humiliation is what Korea is feeling right now. But I hope this does not end with just that. To me, the presidential scandal is not only a state matter. I am willing to bet that there are thousands of Koreans who have been through some traumatic event in their lives, or several such events, and never gave it a second thought. The idea that it could come back to haunt them never crossed their mind.

As painful as the recent presidential scandal is, I hope this can help raise awareness that so many people go through life without thinking about, or not knowing how they can make themselves mentally stronger. Willpower is a skill that can be learned and it can help us become better people that benefit society.

Our younger generation is constantly led to believe that getting good grades, owning a successful company, nabbing a trophy husband or wife, raking in pots of money -- regardless of how it was made -- passing state exams to become government officials are the best things in life. If they continue to be taught that basically making the neighbors jealous is priority No. 1, there will be many more presidents like Park Geun-hye, prosecutors like Jin Kyung-joon, bureaucrats like Woo Byung-woo and CEOs like Jung Woon-ho.

It would be wonderful if Korea continued to prosper economically, but it doesn’t have to come at the expense of happiness and wellbeing.

We talk about how we want our kids to grow up knowing how to take care of their emotional health. The best way to achieve this is for the older generation to set an example.

In my view, the older generation has already failed to do this, and one of the reasons is because they refused to grow inwardly. They failed to cultivate the right set of values, to become stronger, more solid and sound inside.

But it’s still not too late for society to mature. It’s time to look back and focus on what really matters.

By Kim Ji-hyun (jemmie@heraldcor.com)