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Let’s begin by extrapolating Paul’s assertion: “...but test them all; hold on to what is good” (1 Thessalonians 5:21).

For some people, suffering is temporary. For others, life itself can be a long series of painful blows. However, experience shows that recovery is possible even when people seem to be at the end of their tether.

Mainstream culture has tried to airbrush guilt out of everyday life. It’s the ultimate social faux pas, it seems, to make someone feel guilty—How dare you judge me! Or maybe it’s the penultimate faux pas, because what’s even worse than making someone feel guilty inside is to shame them in front of others.

Before the age of two, most children think the world revolves around them. From their point of view, what they think and how they feel must be what others think and feel, too. They don’t have the concept that other people have different needs and perspectives. It’s why if they can’t see you when they’re playing hide-and-seek, they believe you surely can’t see...

“Why are you still single?” Even though I have been asked this question countless times, I still never know how to answer it. 

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

The days that we don’t see the suffering of others are few. We have learned to let our feelings of helplessness wipe our conscience and we move on, forgetting that we are not required to heal the suffering of all mankind, but to do the best we can, every day, with what we have available to us. In the case of Norma Romero...

I clearly remember the days following the Revolution of 1989 in Romania. Whoever you met would speak about freedom: “Now we can say what we think out loud. We no longer have to whisper. We are free!”

After more than a decade of civil war, during which more than 300,000 civilians have died, Syria is hit by a new crisis. People are digging graves again, for the adults and children who managed to survive the war.

Although grief is a universal experience, we respond differently to its onslaught, so it's no wonder that words meant to comfort often add more suffering to an already heavy burden.

“You can have any colour you want, as long as it’s black,” Henry Ford famously said, and the modern mass production revolution began. Today, however, you can customise almost anything. You can blend your foundation to match your exact skin colour. You can design your own shoes; you can personalise your car, your suit and even your M&Ms.

“Words are, of course, the most powerful drug used by mankind.” (Rudyard Kipling)

"If I cut off your arm, will your husband take you again?" "My husband loves me very much." So he started cutting. "There was no alternative."

In the case of the well-known tension between the church and the younger generation, only one conclusion is possible. It’s not hard to figure out what we’re missing, it’s just hard to accept—on both sides.

Detecting an introvert is not as easy as we may think, because sometimes introverts are not shy or silent at all, they take responsibility, work extraordinarily in teams, and can even be skilled public speakers. Yet several traits can unveil the introverted character of an individual.