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Although we may not like everyone, we want everyone to like and accept us. We raise our eyebrows suspiciously if someone treats us with indifference or, worse, with hostility. We feel misunderstood and rejected. And the feeling of rejection is as intense as physical pain.

How much do we know about love? Enough to understand that love is not an obligation—we cannot love by force, nor be loved in this way.

In 1997, Dr Gary Chapman released the book "The 5 Love Languages of Children" as a follow-up to his bestseller, "The Five Love Languages."

One night while checking on his patients in a palliative care centre, the therapist risked asking a confusing question to a person whose universe had shrunk to the size of his sickbed: “What brought you joy today?” The answer was immediate: “Being alive.”

Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer. – Rainer Maria Rilke

Lace-edged rumours wafted through the student campus in Sagunto, Spain: Devin, one of the American boys who had come to Spain for a year of study, was dating Teresa, a second-year theology student who was hard to miss. Her striking beauty and cheerful nature attracted gazes like a magnet. No one suspected then, not even the protagonists of this relationship, that their love...

A cheerful heart is good medicine, but a crushed spirit dries up the bones, says a well-known biblical proverb. We don't have to be practicing Christians to recognise its truth.

“What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger,” said Nietzsche in one of his essays back in 1889. Easier said than done when you’re facing unemployment, illness, rejection, or a blank exam paper. We tend to see these as things we need to get rid of. This can’t possibly be the life we wanted.

You meet someone who is in-sync with you. You have the same hobbies and interests, you find the same things funny and you love sharing ideas with them. As your relationship grows beyond the early stages, it becomes clear that your connection shouldn’t be constricted to everyday activities, that you should broaden your horizons and try new things. You realise that your partnership has...

Since the beginning, human life on Earth has been an assiduous battle with the unknown and a series of unprecedented risk-taking. Exposure to danger seems to be the price to pay for progress. This is the first lesson learned in childhood, when the need to move from dependence to independence pushes us beyond the limits of safety and personal comfort. It familiarises us...

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

Sports betting may seem to be a harmless way to unwind, but the relationship between winning and losing is, mostly, not in the player’s favour. Moreover, the road from entertainment to addiction can prove to be a short one, while the recovery process is arduous and long.

“Communism is the only serious rival to Christianity.” — Martin Luther King Jr. Communist prisons were filled with Christians of every denomination, from lay believers...

Most of us have been urged since we were little to not give up, to carry on, and to “go our own way”. The idea that giving up is a negative choice, a synonym for failure, or a sign of cowardice or inability, is deeply embedded in our minds.

Regardless of how dramatic a life's collapse may be, God’s love has the power to heal it. This was the simple yet shocking message with which a Christian community confronted the wave of crime in the city’s most violent neighbourhood.