Psychology

When we are isolated with our family, problems that are sometimes easy to ignore become more acute, and the need to receive and offer forgiveness to those around us becomes increasingly evident.

He had played the lottery for years, using the same numbers every time. But on the one day that he forgot to buy a ticket, the draw revealed the winning numbers to be exactly his "lucky" numbers.

At some point, we've all come across the phrase "back in my day," a deeply subjective expression which encapsulates a universal phenomenon: the generation gap.

Many couples only realise after divorce the price they have paid for failing to find common ground, and a few even manage to rediscover the forgotten path to their partner's heart and to rebuild their relationship.

Right at the start of the political thriller, The Post, a scene portrays military analyst Daniel Ellsberg with an empty gaze and a soul burdened by the horrors of the Vietnam war he was forced to document for the United States Department of Defense.

Introverts are said to be shy, quiet, withdrawn people who like to spend time alone, or who don't like people. Most of this information is incorrect.

It happens to all of us. We misplace the keys, forget a phone number or where we put our reading glasses. With age, such things happen more often, whether we like it or not. The good news is, our brain continues to produce new cells regardless of our age. Therefore, it is possible to have a good memory despite the aging process.

A seemingly endless stream of needy causes compete for our attention and money every day. Our emails, mailboxes and phones are bombarded by charities asking for generous donations to help.

Besides carefree days, Christmas carols and traditional sweet breads, any respectable December also includes an evaluation of the achievements of the previous year and making plans for the future.

"It was dark inside the wolf." Like a chef who reinterprets a traditional dish for an expensive urban restaurant, writer Margaret Atwood proposed to the students of her masterclass a reinterpretation of the story "Little Red Riding Hood", in line with the most current tastes and attention skills: a Little Red Riding Hood that lives in the present moment.

Disagreements between husbands and wives happen no matter how much they love each other, and this isn’t necessarily bad. Conflict is normal in daily life, even for happily married couples. It happens when two very different people grow closer to each other and notice that they have different priorities, beliefs, habits and values.

As a teenager, I remember pasting a quote from Blaise Pascal on the wall of my room. It was a thought I resonated with, not without some arrogance: "All of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone."

We cannot sustain our motivation if we don't connect daily to its source and what generates it, or if we don't constantly strive to remind ourselves why we are moving in a certain direction and how to get there, willingly and unforced, exercising free will, despite the inevitable limitations.

Created in the image of God, it has become increasingly easy for human beings to forget His image and to reconstruct Him according to their imagination. Our image of God and the way we relate to Him influences every aspect of our lives and affects our psychological well-being.

The stakes are high when it comes to identifying the one to whom we should pray, and we can discover who by answering an apparently simple question: Can we expect prayers to be heard no matter who we address them to?