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Romantic love is easily hurt and somewhat pretentious, especially when faced with direct honesty. Friendship is more solid.

This article is the third and last in the "Parenting School" series. The first two parts were published in the May and June 2020 issues of Semnele Timpului, the Romanian version of the ST Network.

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.

We try to protect them as much as we can from the evil and the ugliness in this world, maybe because we know that indifference does not fit in their heart as easily as it has made a nest in ours. And maybe that's why children are the ones who give us amazing lessons of sacrifice and altruism.

There is no time like the end of the year that stirs our interest in self-improvement. Many of us are thinking of the new beginnings, lofty goals and big dreams we want to chase after, optimistic that the next year will be different to the last. Yet there is one thing we would do well to take in our stride before we enter...

Even if half of us refer to creativity as a rare trait that only the other half has, in reality, creativity is much like a muscle: the more we use it, the more creative we become.

What if we weren't allowed to use more than 140 words a day? If we entered this game, among the useless words we would give up there would probably be words that convey encouragement too. The sad irony is that we use too few words of encouragement anyway, although the emotional and relational benefits are too important to neglect.

Our number of friends tends to decrease as we get older, but this trend, which has many negative effects, can be actively combated even when old age has already set in.

Children have big feelings. Even worse, children have big feelings over what seem to be rather inconsequential things.

When we are isolated with our family, problems that are sometimes easy to ignore become more acute, and the need to receive and offer forgiveness to those around us becomes increasingly evident.

“Can’t good people teach bad people to be good?” Madeleine asked her mother, with the innocence of a seven-year-old.

I just got back from the funeral of a fifty-four-year-old mother who left behind a grieving teenager. His father told how the boy wanted to ask his mother for forgiveness, on her deathbed, for all the stubbornness typical of a seventeen-year-old. He was already forgiven.

It’s an invisible force, lurking and weighing heavily within, gradually convincing you that life isn’t worth much, that it’s better to let go. From the depths of depression, the journey back is incredibly tough, but not impossible. Kevin Breel is one of those people who can attest to this.

American President Joe Biden was obviously upset with Meta when, in mid 2021, he accused it of “killing people” for its seeming tolerance of so much Covid-19 misinformation. He backed down a little by clarifying that he wasn’t blaming Facebook itself, but the “bad information” they allowed on the site. Other have argued we live in a post-truth world. 

In its first two decades, the 21st century has already received several titles: the century of speed, the era of information, or the digital era. In a constantly connected world, does authentic disconnection still exist?