Breakfast

아침에 아침을 먹고
저녁에 저녁을 먹듯이 

저녁에 아침을 못먹고
아침에 저녁을 못먹는것은

아침의 잘못도 아니고
저녁의 잘못도 아니요

오직 아침을 저녁에 

아님 저녁을 아침에

먹으려하는 사람의
부질없는 욕망일 뿐이다


Breakfast in the morning
And supper in the evening

Not breakfast in the evening

Or supper in the morning

Is not the fault of morning
Nor the evening

But the fruitless desire
Of those who

Wish for breakfast in the evening
And supper in the morning


I suppose some explanation may help to understand the gist of this chirp. Basically what it's trying to say is that there are many things people want as they go through life but have the misconception that they can have what they want at the time of their choosing while preserving the static image of what they want regardless of when that occurs. Which is not true. A good example is 'marriage'. Often you hear "I'm going to get married when I'm in the 30s" or whatever number they choose sometime later in life. There is nothing wrong with how people plan their lives. However, what people often don't realize is that by virtue of attaining something at a later time, say 5 or 10 years, it becomes something different. You cannot experience the breakfast - meal in the morning with sun shine, bird chirping, morning news, after good night's sleep - in the evening. Unless you sleep during the day and work at night but even then the experience would be different as you would have the meal in the dark. Some people feel they can delay certain events in their life and still preserve the same experience, but that is not true. Instead of trying to have breakfast in the evening they should skip breakfast and plan to have a good dinner. And understand that breakfast in the morning is something they will never experience, and not something they will experience later. Something later is different. Neither good or bad. Just personal choice.