My mechanism of resilience

When I was four years old, my younger brother was born. My parents focused on my brother and spent less time with me. It was only 40 years later that I discovered how this had affected me.

Staring death in the eye

"In films you often get dying words – someone gasping out things like 'Please tell Jim I love him', which sort of makes me laugh. I've never seen that happen," says psychologist Lesley Fallowfield, highlighting the discrepancy between how people usually die and our misperception of how life ends. Not only is the transition from life to death usually slow, involving a period...

The pop apocalypse in movie theatres

Please, not now! Don’t come right now! Please... I suddenly opened my eyes in the darkness of my bedroom and, all of a sudden, the heat wave building up during the nightmare met the coolness of the night reality. You haven’t come yet... Thank you, God!

The invasion of thoughts that endlessly postpone our happiness 

The inability of the mind to concentrate on what one is experiencing in a particular moment has the effect of overshadowing the joy of a day, even when the subject of the wandering thoughts is as pleasant as can be.

Every family has a story | Why you should know yours

“We all feel stronger if we are part of a tapestry. One thread alone is weak, but, woven into something larger, surrounded by other threads, it is more difficult to unravel,” says family therapist Stefan Walters, summarising the benefits of understanding the history of the family we come from.

Temperance: the lost virtue

Temperance was once upheld by philosophers, saints and stoics. In a world dominated by indulgence, its call to balance feels more relevant than ever.

Shame and its traps

I must admit, I was a shy child. Shame is a lesson well learned. However, I don’t know if it is always correctly learned.

Simple purpose

Recently, I went trekking in Nepal. Sometimes upon returning from a trip, I feel the pressure to return with exciting stories—the near-death experiences and anecdotes that leave people wide-eyed and laughing.

About motivation, comfort and procrastination…

I accepted the challenge of writing about motivation thinking it was an easy task, after so many motivational speeches read, listened to, or given.

The song of happiness

Happiness is a song that we love but rarely sing anymore. It is that familiar children's song that we sang all day every day when we were little. We loved its tune, and it loved us back. We used to live within that melody; it was our default mood. Life was essentially good and it was good to live our life in this...

Why do phones make us tired and ruin our mood?

The phenomenon of technoference (that is, the daily disturbance people experience due to the use of mobile phones) is becoming more and more prevalent, and researchers at the University of Technology in Queensland warn that as we become more dependent on these devices, we become more tired, more unproductive and unwell.

The career of a blind man

This life story challenges us to abandon clichés and stereotypes. Being blind does not mean being condemned to isolation and sadness. Disabilities can awaken hidden resources, particularly when we recognise the needs of a whole group of people. At the time of the interview, Senator Floyd Morris was President of the Senate of Jamaica.

The fascination of eternal freedom in a communist regime

The biggest surprise of 1989 was the speed with which the communist regimes in Europe collapsed. Their collapse occurred as quickly as their establishment. Two personalities played an undeniable role in undermining a communist regime that seemed to be eternal.

COVID-19: Hope overcomes the fear of the unknown

In the spring of 1936, the members of the Lykov family made a decision that would change their lives forever: they disappeared into the Siberian taiga, completely isolating themselves from the world for the next 40 years.

An obsession with perfection: how can you rewrite your mindset?

Do you focus on results, or rather on the challenge itself and the development process involved in completing a task? How you answer this question reveals a mindset that has significant implications for all areas of our lives.