Psychology

Over the last few decades, the picture of family life has undergone dramatic changes. The pervasiveness and normalization of divorce are just two of these changes.

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

The most important human relationship you'll ever have is with your spouse. Protect it at all costs.

I was only 13 when I first experienced it. My three best girlfriends handed me a letter. It said they no longer wanted to be my friends. The only reason given was, “The guys pay you too much attention.” After delivering the letter, they simply shunned me.

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.

“Walking with a friend in the dark is better than walking alone in the light” (Hellen Keller).

A smooth sea never gave a skilled sailor, said Franklin D. Roosevelt, suggesting that without hardship, challenges and even failures, we cannot become our best selves.

There were once two friends. One day, one of them went to the other, with a heavy heart, less than desirable thoughts in his head, and a bevy of bad behaviours. He really wanted to change them. He wanted to get better.

"There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens" (Ecclesiastes 3:1).

As a child, I suffered because of the decisions the adults would make. At least, that's what I believed for a long time. It seemed unfair to me to not have veto power in the key moments that defined us as a family, and I was looking forward to the day when I would detach myself from the will of my elders.

On any given day, a typical person checks the clock several dozen times.

At the age of 27, for the first time in my life, I worried that time was passing too fast. For the next few years, the speed with which most of my friends were getting married was the next source of concern.

How do parents influence their children's marriages?

Love stories have a way of creeping into the foreground and convincing us that their effervescent debut is just the overture to a marriage that will always rekindle, in a different intensity, the same fireworks of beginnings.

Compromise is always present in relationships. It may pull us down, but it can also be a good reconciliation exercise when there are differences that cannot be resolved in any other way.