Social

We often associate divorce with the unhappiness of adults who reprehensibly decide to go their separate ways. For under-age brides Noora and Nujood, however, divorce was their escape from a nightmare of domestic violence and abuse, into which they were thrown at a young age by their own families.

Every day, we are surrounded by the resilience of developing characters and it’s almost impossible not to be touched by their beauty and fragility.

The promise to live with our loved one “until death do us part" has gradually lost its meaning. Today, it is considered unrealistic to get married with the idea that the relationship will last forever.

“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.

JS: What is NAIDOC Week? Why is it significant?  DG: NAIDOC Week celebrates Indigenous culture—Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, their achievements and their contribution to the nation.

We love stories, and Hollywood knows how to dramatise them. However, we should not lose sight of the fact that Hollywood is first and foremost an industry driven by ratings and profits. Children are more vulnerable and more likely than adults to pick up identity models from the film world.

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.

"The way we talk to our children becomes their inner voice" (Peggy O'Mara).

Parenting is one of the most rewarding and fulfilling roles there are. It is also one of the most difficult, and highly sensitive parents know this best. Although they often feel overwhelmed by the role, experts say these people can successfully navigate the complicated world of parenting.

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

To have willpower does not mean saying you want to do something, it means to actually be doing it—André Maurois

An experimenter is like a hunter who, instead of waiting quietly for game, tries to make it rise, by beating up the locality where he assumes it is. – Francis Bacon, 17th-century English philosopher

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.

How can we encourage the elderly during this time? How can we help them understand that we don't want to lose them and that, although it's hard for them, we didn't abandon them. I have an elderly mother and, honestly, it would help me a lot. Can you write for me?

We know their stories, or we think we know them. Theirs are stories of success that earn the admiration of the entire world. We see the moment of victory and wish we could be in the place of the victorious ones, without realising the effort and sacrifice that are behind that moment of glory. If we truly grasped this, we might become more...