Psychology

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.

"You? Fat? No way!" "With all due respect, officer, that wasn't a red light!" Every day, billions of lies leave the mouths of billions of people. Lying is a moral pollution that we declare harmful, but seem to believe is indispensable in life.

Twenty-first century people are bombarded with fiction about romance.

Some people may feel particularly inhibited in social situations. Meetings cause them stomach-aches, conversations overwhelm them with shyness, and anxiety does not allow them to utter a single word.

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.

“To them I will give within my temple and its walls a memorial and a name better than sons and daughters; I will give them an everlasting name that will endure forever” (Isaiah 56:5).

“Mister Watson, come here, I want to see you.” With this message, Alexander Graham Bell and his assistant, Thomas Watson, launched the telephone. The door had opened to distant, personal and instant contact.

The wisdom of friendship consists in finding those who do not require a price, or ask you to change.

Henri Nouwen once wrote about some trapeze artists who became his friends, emphasising the perfect synchronicity between them and the total trust that the one who jumps has when he lets go of the trapeze and remains in the air for a second, waiting to be caught by his teammate. But what if, at the last moment, when it is too late to...

How can we protect ourselves against expecting too much of our friendships? Can we do something to prepare for the disappointment? And what does one do to deal with it?

Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer. – Rainer Maria Rilke

“For the joy set before him he endured the cross” (Heb. 12: 2 NIV).

“Am I still human if I’m afraid?” The question asked by a well-known fictional character can be the starting point for reflecting on how we learn to live with our fears.

Love: the ultimate subject. We love people for who they are. However, there’s a kind of love too lofty to truly encompass all the nuances, a love that manifests itself toward people regardless of who they are or what they have become. Such a love beautifully encapsulates the story of Ian and Larissa.

The whirlwind of activities and deadlines that adult life throws at us often makes us resistant to closeness. We abandon old friends and neglect building new relationships until inevitably, the day comes when we start feeling pressed against the self-erected walls of loneliness.