Social

Born in 1999, Alex is on the cusp of the millennial generation. We're 12 years apart, but we have a lot in common. One is an unhappy time at school. Back in my day, it was called being an "emo": a kid who was too sensitive, too sad, too lonely, too shy, too everything.

While the form and content of books may evolve, their essence and function will remain unchanged—“the book will remain what it is”. This is the view expressed by renowned literary figures Jean-Claude Carrière and Umberto Eco in their 2009 dialogue series titled This is Not the End of the Book.

What if change is given to us to use only as long as we continue to work for it?

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

Elspeth Muir’s brother, Alexander, died from drowning. It was 2009, and he had just turned 21. He died from drowning, but his death “was not foreshadowed by his love of water except that it explains why he was near a river, alone, with a blood-alcohol content of almost 0.25. My brother died because he was drunk, and because the drink made him stupid.”

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

The portrait of a good listener contains skills that are formed over time, through an honest interaction with others, motivated by the desire to understand and help them.

Besides carefree days, Christmas carols and traditional sweet breads, any respectable December also includes an evaluation of the achievements of the previous year and making plans for the future.

You wouldn’t think so, but whether or not children do chores is one predictor of their future happiness and success. 

Until that point in our marriage, my wife and I had shared a car. She worked in the city, close to public transport and wherever we went, we went together. And she preferred me to drive. When we had our daughter, the situation didn’t change much. Covid-19 made it hard to go anywhere and we found our four-door sedan big enough to tackle...

One night while checking on his patients in a palliative care centre, the therapist risked asking a confusing question to a person whose universe had shrunk to the size of his sickbed: “What brought you joy today?” The answer was immediate: “Being alive.”

When I was four years old, my younger brother was born. My parents focused on my brother and spent less time with me. It was only 40 years later that I discovered how this had affected me.

Talking to your children about death can be an act of love. You can't take away their pain with a simple conversation, but you can give them something just as important: truth wrapped in gentleness, the reassurance and relief that they are not alone in their grief, and even the hope that sees beyond the loss.

Poverty and laughter don’t necessarily go hand-in-hand. People who are worried about where their next meal will come from or where their children will sleep that night find it hard to wear smiles.

These days, we are free to believe anything and to be anything, at least in theory. However, if we gave history a closer look, we would realise that it is not beneficial for us to believe or be just anything. We agree with the biblical exhortation, often distorted by popular lore: "...test them all; hold on to what is good" (1 Thessalonians 5:21).