Alcohol consumption in the US has dropped to a record low
For the first time in US history, the majority of Americans believe that even moderate alcohol consumption is detrimental to health. Just 54% of Americans say they still drink alcohol. This is the lowest percentage in nearly 20 years. However, it has taken a long time to reach these conclusions.
Courage in the deluge
After a chance meeting of mutual friends, I was introduced to Tim and Sonia in a restaurant in central Toowoomba, Queensland, eight days before their home was washed away.
Vanishing freedoms
“We are fast approaching the stage of the ultimate inversion: the stage where the government is free to do anything it pleases, while the citizens may act only by permission; which is the stage of the darkest periods of human history, the stage of rule by brute force.” — Ayn Rand
Good people, bad people
I have always loved family photographs, especially old ones. They allow you to wander freely through the stories of times and lives that are little known yet also familiar.
How to mend a relationship and improve it
There are many reasons why your daily interactions may become tense and even fractured, but if you decide to mend a relationship, you could also take a few extra steps to improve it.
“Facing Suffering: Courage and Hope in a challenging world” | Book review
Roberto Badenas is a Seventh-day Adventist who specialises in Bible studies and is a New Testament teacher, with a theological leadership career that reflects his concern for people.
Nine tips for taming tempers
I walked into my boss’s office. For several years I’d been trying to manage a full-time job on part-time hours, complete my master's degree, support my husband in his career and run a busy home occupied by three children. The previous month, a friend had died tragically and unexpectedly, and in the previous week several major work and family crises had been bouncing...
The need for control, between illusion and responsibility
As a child, I suffered because of the decisions the adults would make. At least, that's what I believed for a long time. It seemed unfair to me to not have veto power in the key moments that defined us as a family, and I was looking forward to the day when I would detach myself from the will of my elders.
Dante’s imaginary translation of the torments of Hell
At the age of nine, the young Dante Alighieri fell hopelessly in love with Beatrice Portinari, a young woman of about the same age, whose image would haunt him for the rest of his life and inspire one of the most famous female characters in universal literature.
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 surprising effects of music on the brain
People have always loved and cherished music, investing time into both composing and listening to it. Journalists from The New York Times sought to find the reason behind our deep attachment to this intangible thing that, for most of us, yields no material gain.
“One Thousand Gifts: A dare to live fully right where you are”
"One Thousand Gifts" describes the beautiful revolt of a soul that does not want to be crippled by what it has lost, but to pierce its own suffering like an arrow springing from the bow of grace, a leitmotif of the whole book.
Affluenza: What does your money say about you?
If life were merely about money, it would be like a game of Monopoly. At the end of the game, you’d count your cash, add up the value of your assets and find out whether you’d won or lost. Then you’d breathe your last.
Envy and its opposite
Beginning with Cain and Abel, history has known famous and less famous stories woven around the devastating experience of envy.
The change we are left with
What if change is given to us to use only as long as we continue to work for it?


























