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The beginning of a romantic relationship is often sweet and exciting, full of novelty, enthusiasm, and the thrill of discovery. These early stages create a sense of well-being that leaves little room for doubt. At this point, each partner tends to downplay their weaknesses and highlight their strengths.

Many times, we don't even know their name or story until they make the news. We might judge them for being too weak to break free from an abusive environment, but we know too little about the terrifying impact domestic violence has on women's health and well-being.

How can we protect ourselves against expecting too much of our friendships? Can we do something to prepare for the disappointment? And what does one do to deal with it?

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.

The whirlwind of activities and deadlines that adult life throws at us often makes us resistant to closeness. We abandon old friends and neglect building new relationships until inevitably, the day comes when we start feeling pressed against the self-erected walls of loneliness.

To err is human. “The only sure way to avoid making mistakes is to have no ideas”, Albert Einstein said.

A word is dead when it is said, some say. I say it just begins to live that day. – Emily Dickinson

In America, conservative Protestants seem to divorce at least as often as people of other religious orientations. The idea has become an opportunity for finger-pointing and accusations of hypocrisy, but this is only proof that the statistics are misinterpreted.

“What is mankind that you make so much of them, that you give them so much attention, that you examine them every morning and test them every moment?” (Job 7:17-18)

Paris, November 13, 2015. A European capital is struck cruelly by fundamentalists who justify their crimes in the name of something sacred—an event that shocked the entire world. It was neither the first nor, unfortunately, the last tragedy whose impact on the public has become a subject of analysis.

I was a young student looking for a good paying job to support my family and my studies. On that day, I found myself in the head nurse’s office at the nearby nursing home for the elderly.

In 2016, I noticed advertising for a new quiz show called Hard Quiz coming to ABC TV in Australia.

What do a foul-mouthed, drug-abusing Canadian, a stately Frenchman from Bourg-en-Bresse and an American businesswoman whose prison nickname was “M Diddy”, all have in common?

Along with the rising death toll due to coronavirus complications, a usually latent aspect of our fear becomes harder to ignore. Despite the fact that it is the only certainty we all share, realising that our own end is a reality we might need to confront sooner than we had thought leaves many of us fervently searching for consolation.

Meetings with people and books have shaped the space for a sometimes unequal, sometimes unsatisfactory growth between the human I am and the one I would like to be.