A successful person in Korea once said in a YouTube video that he values three things for his success: the people you spend time with, the space you spend time in, and the quality of that time.

In Korean, Japanese, and Chinese, the words for “people” (人間), “space” (空間), and “time” (時間) all share the character 間, which means “gap” or “in-between.” Each word also contains another character—人 (person), 空 (empty), and 時 (time)—that gives it meaning.

As I wrote this down in my notebook, I started to see something deeper.

• People (人間, Human Gap): There is always an unspoken assumption between people. We say things like, “(I thought) you would do that,” or “(I assumed) you thought this way.” But we rarely say those assumptions out loud with confidence that they are correct. Good communication is really about noticing those hidden assumptions and narrowing the gap between them.

• Space (空間, Empty Gap): The word 空 (empty) means there is nothing there. But space exists—so how can it be empty? Imagine if there was no empty space at all. Nothing could exist. Maybe we don’t take up space because we exist—maybe we exist because there is empty space that allows us to be.

• Time (時間, Time Gap): The time between moments. David Eagleman, the author of The Brain, once said, “Everything we perceive is already in the past.” This is because there is always a tiny delay—however small—between seeing something and our brain actually processing it. If we could fully understand that gap between now and when we “realize” now, maybe we could find a way to live a little ahead of time—almost in the future.

And beyond that—there is also the gap between breaths (try taking a deep breath right now and notice the tiny pause in between). The gap between a customer and a product, a company and its investors, me and my coworkers, my goals and my actions to achieve those. The space in a painting where the artist chose not to place an object. Even the gap between sentences in a book.

If you’re looking for new inspiration, maybe instead of focusing on what exists, try exploring the space between what exists.