Psychology

Along with the rising death toll due to coronavirus complications, a usually latent aspect of our fear becomes harder to ignore. Despite the fact that it is the only certainty we all share, realising that our own end is a reality we might need to confront sooner than we had thought leaves many of us fervently searching for consolation.

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.

Among the greatest disappointments of life is having our expectations unfulfilled; not by politicians, or publications that promote false news or weather forecasts, but by those close to us—people in whom we have invested our confidence.

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.

We are leaving. Even if we were not supposed to, we chose to and it is happening. We are moving again. It is the eighth time in eleven years of marriage.

"Marriage: a book of which the first chapter is written in poetry and the remaining chapters written in prose." (Beverley Nichols)

The American Economic Review recently published the results of the largest randomized study ever conducted to measure the impact on the quality of life that deactivation ones Facebook account might have.

Many years ago, while I was still in high school, our Romanian language and literature teacher assigned us the task of writing a framed story, complete with characters and a plot of our choosing.

After 27 years of marriage, billionaire couple Bill and Melinda Gates publicly announced their divorce in May, sending shockwaves across the globe.

We know their stories, or we think we know them. Theirs are stories of success that earn the admiration of the entire world. We see the moment of victory and wish we could be in the place of the victorious ones, without realising the effort and sacrifice that are behind that moment of glory. If we truly grasped this, we might become more...

“Many people feel out of touch with their feelings. Counselor offices and publishing houses have proliferated thanks to the need to help people to improve their communication skills, to restore their self-confidence and to help them relate to other people.” – Sir Ken Robinson, Out of Our Minds: Learning to be Creative

Tim Urban knows that you're reading this article instead of dealing with that project for which the clock is ticking relentlessly towards the deadline. But Tim Urban understands you. The blogger who founded the long-form platform Wait But Why gave a TED presentation on procrastination a few years ago, and most of us will recognise ourselves in it.

Paul was imprisoned by the Roman Emperor. He was on Death Row. Every morning, when he opened his eyes, he didn’t know if this day would be his last, and whether he would be thrown to the lions or burned.

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

There has been an increase in the number of so-called "experts" in an increasing number of so-called "fields". It seems that all of life has been divided into neatly-marketable industries. No wonder then that the arrival of a new expert in something familiar to mankind for ages, is met with caution. In the case of Julia Samuel's expertise in the field of grief...