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What can you do in the face of a terrible diagnosis, which condemns you to life in a wheelchair? What can you choose besides despair or resignation? Kayla chose to run.

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.

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 used to think I was a patient person. Then I became a dad.

I notice people, and passionately collect their stories. My favourite stories include those small cracks that allow one to peek inside another soul, those moments when their voice is almost imperceptibly altered, the eyes light up for a reason I do not know, and their gestures are unexpected.

If, biologically, a person becomes a parent when their child is born—or, civilly, when they adopt a child—from a practical and even moral point of view, a person only becomes a parent when they master a series of crucial skills.

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.

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.

They have read that love lasts for two or three years, and although they’ve gathered every possible argument why it wasn't the case for them, they couldn't get the possibility out of their minds altogether.

"Love means never having to say you're sorry." When I first heard this line from the "Love Story" blockbuster, I thought I was the only one who didn't understand what it meant. However, after watching a recent interview with the lead actress, I was reassured. She too thought it was a stupid thing to say. Still, the phrase was a hit at the...

“We shrivel when we are not able to interact. We depend on the other in order for us to be fully who we are” (Desmond Tutu).

Whether we see ourselves or not as living collections of our habits, we know from experience that, once formed, our habits are not as malleable as we would like them to be.

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.

What is left of me after I shut down my computer, turn off my phone, or wipe away my makeup? What about after I quit my job, after I move, after I lose my health, after I get older? What if no one knew me—would I still be someone?

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.