TITLE. Why We Stay Too Long
SUBTITLE. Innae, miryeon, and the knife over the heart
We’re in Munich, Germany in 2018 and my boss has just retired as President of the International Olympic Shooting Federation. After his retirement dinner, he said to me, as we walked to the car: “You can go find another position or you can stay with me and work on Mexican Olympic Committee matters. We won’t be traveling so much anymore and work will be quieter.”
In Korean, innae means “patience” or “endurance,” but the word is written with the Chinese characters for a “blade over a heart.”
Innae symbolizes the intense discipline required to keep one’s heart steady even when it feels like a blade is pressing against it. The conscious and purposeful decision to endure.
The problem is deciding when the time comes to leave a stagnant job or a toxic relationship. We’ve invested so much time, feelings and effort. Are we supposed to just throw everything away?
My immediate reaction is to answer that I would he honored to continue working for my boss. The feelings of belonging to a team and the mutual loyalty involved rise to the surface of my heart.
Leaving feels more dangerous than stagnation. In fact, stagnation doesn’t even cross my mind at that moment. I’m in survival mode. I don’t even want to imagine being jobless or leaving my “second family.”
The Cost of Staying Too Long
Korean has a different word for “staying too long” or being unable to let go: Miryeon. The Chinese characters are Mi 未 meaning “not yet” and Ryeon 練, meaning “to polish” or “to refine”.
It describes a state where your mind is not yet “finished” with a person, place, or situation because of a “lingering attachment”.
Innae keeps you enduring.
Miryeon keeps you emotionally attached to the past.
Sometimes we don’t stay because something is still good.
We stay because leaving forces us to confront who we are without it.
The deeper problem begins when endurance turns into identity.
