1…2…3…run to the wall! Freeze! Playful parenting

There was a time when the word parenting would cause me to either roll my eyes or shrug. It was a time when seven hours of sleep a night, instead of at least eight, had the destabilizing potential of a hurricane, a time when the clear voices of children in the park would compel me to grab a book and read under my...

Are you indoctrinating your children?

My one-year-old son eyes the chickpea-filled bowl suspiciously. He tentatively pokes a stubby finger into the bowl and starts stirring the legumes around. I’m pretty sure it isn’t my imagination when, seconds later, his hazel eyes light up and his little pink lips curve ever-so-slightly upwards.

Mother Teresa, a little nun with high ideals

She refused the comfort and tranquillity so desired and sought after today because she saw the needs of the simple people and she unwittingly sparked a revolution of love. She went down in history, not with any title of nobility, but simply as Mother Teresa.

Facing rejection: a hard-fought battle

It has been more than ten years since my first job interview ended with the classic: You did a great job, but we have chosen someone else. Since this memorable moment, other closed doors have followed: employers rejecting my application, people not sharing my interests, groups giving me the feeling of not being accepted.
self-deception

Why much of what we know about ourselves is false

Two groups of participants in an experiment received a set of eight questions similar to those found in IQ tests.[1] One of the groups was provided with the correct answers, which they could use to calculate their final score. Thus, for them, the conditions for cheating were favourable, and the test results showed that the members of this group obtained, on average, a...

Affluenza: What does your money say about you?

If life were merely about money, it would be like a game of Monopoly. At the end of the game, you’d count your cash, add up the value of your assets and find out whether you’d won or lost. Then you’d breathe your last.

I love you for your flaws too

Love is the most beautiful and perhaps the most incomprehensible thing in the world. We find it in movies, in books, in the strength of a "yes" declared before the civil authorities, and in the embrace that binds spouses at the end of a hard day's work.

Saving creativity

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

Some still believe in education

Is it worth fighting for a better world? Is it worth believing that, in a world relentlessly subject to the laws of entropy, hope, good thinking, beauty will still have the chance to develop and enrich our life horizon through education? Can tomorrow's world be better than today's, when everything we hear seems to be so catastrophic, and everything we do seems to...

Why compliments make our day better

When we think about the many tasks of a new day, each morning can be a challenge to mobilise our resources—a combined test of speed and endurance, or a race against the clock with not only known obstacles but also surprising challenges that sometimes overwhelm us.

Why it’s important to have New Year’s resolutions

New Year’s resolutions are beneficial, according to experts at the Sacramento State University, who found that this method is 10 times more effective for successfully meeting goals over a longer period of time than the method chosen by those who decide to change certain aspects of their lives at another time of the year.

The homeless influencer. An open ended story

Joaquín Carmona had 16,000 followers on Twitter, and his posts about Spanish athletics were appreciated even by sport professionals. None of his followers had ever met him in person, and when silence fell on his account for three months, people began to look for him, write to him and ask who Carmona really was.

Am I materialist enough to resist materialism?

Eye-catching banners on high-traffic websites, marketing campaigns, genuine or illusory discounts, deals that vanish in seconds. Shopping lists, fierce price hunts, early morning alarms. Jumping the gun, millions in sales, ecstatic or dissatisfied customers, delayed deliveries, and blown budgets. In a word: Black Friday.

Until love do us part

We see it in movies, read it in modern children’s stories, and hear it in romantic songs: love is the most beautiful, most desirable, and most precious asset of humanity. Many argue that if there is anything that can save the world from itself, it is love. But how is it that love itself has led to profound systemic issues, by dissolving the...

Pets: Our help for a better life

I've always liked pets, but from a distance. Raised by a mother convinced that animals cannot possibly live under the same roof as people, I adopted a similar opinion, which I kept for many years, even if a great number of people tried to prove me wrong.