“…making a lie in the business world was very common and was one of the options for resolving a problem.”

Part 1 of 2

“I’m from South Korea and my father was an aviation mechanic, so the financial status of my family was not too bad. Not rich, but not too bad. My father kind of had a quick temper, so I was afraid of him growing up.

Most times when you feel afraid, your thinking stops, you cannot make a good judgment. It can be emotionally abusive. It still bothers me even growing up when similar situations come around. I have to confront the situation, but my brain stops. I’m still trying to overcome that, but it’s not easy.

My mother has lots of compassion. She's a good Christian and she’s always trying to help other people. She’s very gentle and has a kind spirit, so I think I learned to try to be kind from her.

I went to the University of Florida, and my major was Family Youth and Community Sciences. I’m happy when I’m helping other people. After graduation, I became a social worker assistant for three years in California. I wanted to be a counselor, but it turned out that counseling was not for me.

One of the reasons was that after reading some of the counseling books, I was not fascinated by anything. They’d say things like ‘When you feel depression get some sunlight or call someone’. Also, I’m not perfect, so I don’t know what the perfect person looks like. Maybe Jesus. But if I don’t know what the perfect person looks like, then I can not lead someone into becoming that person. Basically, there was no goal for me.

So I quit that job and decided to become a farmer because I love nature. I love the farming life. To me, the farming life meant working together, eating together, and just enjoying each other together. Then you go home, relax, come back, and do it again. But American farming doesn’t look like that. There’s a huge field and only one person working on the tractor. 

That was not the farming life I was looking for. So I set out to start an Olive farm. I knew that in order to start a farm I would need seed money which I didn’t have. I thought in order to get that, I would have to work in the business world. 

In the business world, I could get more money. So I became an export agent in Georgia at a logistics company. I got a little more money than I made in the social work field, but in the business world, wow. Many immoral issues happened. 

I was honestly shocked because making a lie in the business world was very common and was one of the options for resolving a problem.

For instance, my position was sending shipments to South Korea. I made the truck arrangements, and also airplane arrangements. I had to do all of the paperwork. But let’s say we made a mistake. Maybe we didn’t make an arrangement for the truck or something…the point is we made the mistake. We would just email the importer saying that ‘because the trucker made a mistake we cannot send the shipment.’ 

Otherwise think about this, let’s say there is a car company in South Korea, they need a part from America. If they don’t get the part from America, they cannot run the company, then all of the employees are wasting time, losing money. So there was a lot of pressure from my boss. I am a human being and I was a beginner. But lying was very common for resolving situations, so I had a lot of stress from that.

After 8 months, I quit. I had an interview with other companies in the business world and one of the questions was ‘why did you leave your last job?’ and I told them honestly, and of course they did not like that. 

I also love traveling, so I went to Las Vegas to become a tour guide. I’ve traveled to most of the national parks.Two reasons I quit being a tour guide was that I had a conflict with my boss, and then saying the same information again and again became tiring. I was not fascinated by it. 

So I then decided to become an aviation mechanic. The school here in Blytheville offers the second cheapest tuition and living expenses. That’s how I got here. I graduated from school to become an aviation mechanic. I did the internship, but soon found that the field also makes lies very common, they don’t follow all the rules so I got lots of stress because of that. 

There would be a 100 hour annual inspection, and for us to do that we have a checklist to follow. It is a very detailed list and if we were to follow it, then it would take a very long time. But the customer doesn’t want to pay a lot of money, and the company does not want to lose the customer.  Anyway, it just gave me lots of stress and I felt like this was not for me. 

Then I thought about a different path for my life. Maybe I want to become a dentist. I still don’t know what I want to do honestly. I was always looking for what I want to do in my life, like a social work assistant, a farmer, tour guide, aviation mechanic. I always looked for what I really wanted to become but still I don’t know. 

When you get older it’s not easy to try to achieve something difficult, so while you are young, try to achieve something difficult. If you don’t know what you want to do, that will help you achieve what you really want to do. When I’m helping others, I’m happy. I now want to become a dentist. Becoming a dentist is my last goal in my life.”

-David L.