Social

"Since you are precious and honoured in my sight, and because I love you, I will give people in exchange for you, nations in exchange for your life." (Isaiah 43:4)

In 1867, when Edson White was 18 years old and working at the Adventist type-room in Battle Creek, Michigan, he had a transformative conversation with Mr Bell.

We are so familiar with complaining that we don't even recognise its presence in our interactions. It has become part of us—and, according to rumours on the internet, so have its consequences. The whining we are told we do every minute of every conversation has the power to destroy our neurons.

Big chain stores know them and use them to make a profit. What is more, they are willing to pay a lot of money for studies on how to improve them. We're talking about the secrets of optimal product placement.

Social interactions and the tools that facilitate them are changing the world in ways that even now, after all this time, we cannot anticipate.

Kayley lies on the floor, throwing a tantrum because she only has pink flashing-heel shoes and she wants a blue pair to match her new jeans. John sits on the floor, happily playing with a few blocks of wood. His dad found them lying in the street, brought them home and sanded them smooth. Yesterday he stacked them up to build a castle....

Trust is so difficult to build, and yet so easy to lose. A lie, a broken promise, or infidelity may lead to the weakening and breaking of trust between partners. Sometimes rebuilding that trust may seem impossible. But the good news is that it is possible to restore trust in a relationship.

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.

"The battle to feed all of humanity is over. In the 1970s and 1980s hundreds of millions of people will starve to death... It cannot be overemphasised, however, that no changes in behavior or technology can save us unless we can achieve control over the size of the human population." Despite seeming to come from a dystopian novel, these ideas belong to biologist...

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 the works of Comenius one feels that a prophet is speaking; he was indeed a colossal figure, but only in recent years have his ideas received the respect they merit”.

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.

Statistically, by now Josh should have been either in jail, living on the street, or dead. The long years in which he was abused and expelled from the families who took him in made him no longer trust anyone. But the love of adults who showed him that they cared was stronger than anything that pushed him toward self-destruction.

I'll leave my heart as payment among the coins, and pass... – Nichita Stănescu

Procrastination is self-harm, psychologist Piers Steel says. A kind of self-harm that we can become addicted to if we do not detect the reasons behind it and especially the effective strategies to counter it.