Social

I used to think I was a patient person. Then I became a dad.

We are leaving. Even if we were not supposed to, we chose to and it is happening. We are moving again. It is the eighth time in eleven years of marriage.

My one-year-old son eyes the chickpea-filled bowl suspiciously. He tentatively pokes a stubby finger into the bowl and starts stirring the legumes around. I’m pretty sure it isn’t my imagination when, seconds later, his hazel eyes light up and his little pink lips curve ever-so-slightly upwards.

They would rather work alone or in small teams, they do not wish to draw attention, they love quiet, less stimulating environments, and they need time to make decisions. With this general profile, introverts seem to have a slim chance of prospering in a society that usually rewards extroverts—unless they learn to harness their strengths.

One of the best-known stories told by ambitious entrepreneurs today is that if you work hard, you will have a lot.

One night, thousands of miles apart, two young women of the same age made a decision—a seemingly trivial one, but one that would seal the fate of one of them.

Well, yes, we are, according to Rutger Bregman, author of Human Kind. Early in his book he introduces us to Tom Postmes, professor of social psychology at the University of Groningen who, every year, asks students the same question. “Imagine an aeroplane makes an emergency landing and breaks into three parts. As the cabin fills with smoke, everybody inside realises: We’ve got to...

At the age of 27, for the first time in my life, I worried that time was passing too fast. For the next few years, the speed with which most of my friends were getting married was the next source of concern.

When we think about the many tasks of a new day, each morning can be a challenge to mobilise our resources—a combined test of speed and endurance, or a race against the clock with not only known obstacles but also surprising challenges that sometimes overwhelm us.

Hope can be palpable and elusive at the same time, both reasonable and independent of logic. Yet this independence from logic is not synonymous with indifference to reason, but a victory over it. Hope has its own logic, one that changes lives for the better.

Changing habits is like tightrope walking: an exercise in which the balance is always fragile, but it is the small changes that pave the way to truly remarkable results.

I've always liked pets, but from a distance. Raised by a mother convinced that animals cannot possibly live under the same roof as people, I adopted a similar opinion, which I kept for many years, even if a great number of people tried to prove me wrong.

According to the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence, every nine seconds, a woman is assaulted or beaten in the United States. Which means that by the time you reach the end of this paragraph, yet another woman will have tragically become a victim of violence.

“...what matters is not the meaning of life in general, but rather the specific meaning of a person’s life at a given moment...” (Viktor E. Frankl)

I believe that the illusion of free time seen as a different world, separated from everyday active life, must be replaced by the image of proactive free time– just like a day of work that satisfies us.