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Our reality isn’t always a calm place. Feelings of safety and peace that are so necessary for our well-being often elude us. What is happening today on a global level only goes to show how fragile our world is, and how easily we can lose control over the things we thought we had mastered.

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.

Crouched in the trenches of the horror of old age, modern individuals no longer wish to recover anything from the natural ageing process that their ancestors practised with such serenity. On the contrary, the first signs of physical decline become the raw material for a wide range of efforts (from picturesque to sickly) to forge a youth that the mirror refuses to restore.

Pumpkin heads, skeletons and excessive sweet treats: let’s face it, whether you love or loathe Halloween, it’s a supremely weird holiday. I’ll admit to personally being annoyed at the increasing number of kids dressed in superhero and Disney outfits knocking at my door in recent years—but I’ll also likewise admit to giving in to their cute faces and outstretched buckets. It turns out...

Happy couples are not spared from marital conflict, but the crucial thing is that they have simple but effective tools to strengthen their relationship in a way that does not allow the conflict to destroy the emotional connection between them.

“You are always afraid people will judge you or know your weakness. It’s like being totally naked in front of a huge crowd,” says Bruno Feldeisen about the hidden struggle he had with anxiety.

Facebook is dead! Long live Metaverse! So proclaimed Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg to thousands of followers who tuned in to a livestream last Friday announcing the company’s rebrand.

He had made the mistake of asking the doctors for a mirror. Terrified, he saw a monster reflected in it. Lying on the hospital bed, after the doctor left, he pulled on the tube he thought was keeping him alive. He had no reason to live.

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

How much do we know about love? Enough to understand that love is not an obligation—we cannot love by force, nor be loved in this way.

If optimism helps us get rid of problems more easily, too much optimism does the exact opposite: it amplifies them. Pushed to the extreme, positive thinking prescribed as an antidote to suffering prevents us from accepting reality as it is and starting to look for solutions that can make our lives easier.

As Christian parents, the most important legacy we want to leave our children is faith in God.

Describing the breakup of her marriage after the birth of her children, journalist Nora Ephron writes that a child is a grenade for the couple’s relationship. After the explosion, when the dust settles, “your marriage is different from what it was. Not better, necessarily; not worse, necessarily; but different.” [1].

It is often said that circumstances are not decisive for success or emotional fulfilment, but this seems so far from our immediate reality that it has lost its credibility. Maybe that’s why we are amazed by people like Anna Jarmics, who managed to see and enjoy the bright side of life, despite the tragedies she experienced.

Humans have been telling stories ever since the dawn of civilisation. What stories do we tell about ourselves and how do they affect our identity?