Back from the brink: A doctor’s struggle with depression
Here’s a disturbing fact: Medical doctors have the highest suicide rate of any profession. It may be uncomfortable to read that in the USA nearly 400 doctors take their life every year. So how does a physician find assistance in a system that seems to be clearly failing its own? I sat down recently with Dr Charles, a fitness enthusiast, soccer fanatic and dad, to...
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...
Twelve months in a year, vitamin B12
The quantity of Vitamin B12 required for a healthy diet is measured in micrograms, but the impact on human health is far greater than these tiny amounts would suggest.
How (not) to clip the wings of reformation
In the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, Europe was hit hard by several disasters, the proportions of which are difficult to imagine today.
Conflict: It’s Everywhere
Conflict is everywhere: in our books, movies, TV shows. But every conflict is a mere shadow of the controversy that the entire world is embroiled in.
How can I discover God’s will for my life?
Whoever enters into a friendly dialogue with the will of God will never be the same person as before this dialogue. However, whatever one believes about God's will depends on their view of God's character and, therefore, on God's purpose for them.
COVID-19: Helping children (and others) with viral anxiety
Even in difficult times there are many things we can do at home to help children as well as teenagers to feel less worried.
COVID-19: Why and how do masks, gloves and other protective equipment help?
I leave the house with gloves and a mask on. When I return, I clean my shoe soles and I wash my gloves with disinfectant. Then I take off my clothes, place them somewhere outside, take off my gloves and mask and wash my hands. Is this normal? Or am I a germophobe?
Return to meaning
"To feel that you have meaning is to feel immortal," psychology professor and author Clay Routledge wrote in 2014. Is this the only kind of immortality we will ever have?
How to overcome shyness and anxiety in social situations
Some people may feel particularly inhibited in social situations. Meetings cause them stomach-aches, conversations overwhelm them with shyness, and anxiety does not allow them to utter a single word.
Tears, war, and tulips: a day among the Ukrainian refugees at the Siret Customs Point
The wind is blowing and it is snowing at the Siret Customs Point. Refugee groups stream by, women with children clinging to them, and the words of a little girl from another war, concluded almost eight decades ago, keep running through my mind: “And this was imprinted in my mind, that when my father is not home, it is war.”
Will the metaverse really change the future?
There’s a 1995 clip from The David Letterman Show where Letterman is interviewing Bill Gates. Gates excitedly explains how the internet will change the future. Letterman is sceptical. He mentions a baseball game that had recently been broadcast live on the internet. “Does radio ring any bells?” he quips sarcastically, to laughter from his audience.
The secrets of a successful failure
Not many management books can be read with the pleasure of reading a novel, because few are so well written. Donald Keough's book is one of those few.
COVID-19: Could giving up ever be the key to success?
Pray! If not to God, then to a god. Admit that we are defeated, because this is the first step towards victory.
The risks of overrelying on genetic testing
Genetic testing is a new frontier in preventive medicine. But beyond this border, there lies a minefield of trial and error.


























