Psychology

Before I started looking for the meaning of life, I thought I had already found it. Or, that it had been given to me. In the world I came from, the road was clearly laid out. My life's major events were all mapped out, and precious little was negotiable.

When I ponder the statement, “Life holds potential meaning under any condition, even the most miserable,” the story of an anonymous woman comes to my mind. She made a deep impression on me and taught me about two existential states: having, and being.

The generation born with the tablet and the smartphone in its arms, but which ends up being exploited by big data cultivators and controlled by radicalization and polarization, can become the generation that implements anti-democratic movements.

Responsible, achievement-oriented and highly principled – this is what a brief portrait of a perfectionist child looks like, explaining why, up to a certain point, this is the kind of child most parents dream of.

At 51, C.M. is a shadow of his former self. A shadow who has escaped lung cancer but it's mouth cancer that keeps him away from the cigarettes to which he was inextricably linked for 44 years. He swallows with difficulty, even saliva, and is always thirsty.

To have willpower does not mean saying you want to do something, it means to actually be doing it—André Maurois

There are many reasons why your daily interactions may become tense and even fractured, but if you decide to mend a relationship, you could also take a few extra steps to improve it.

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.

Five seconds. And everything smells of heaven, wet grass and happiness.

I was a young student looking for a good paying job to support my family and my studies. On that day, I found myself in the head nurse’s office at the nearby nursing home for the elderly.

More than half a century has passed since the beginning of the sexual revolution, which was characterized by a period of suspension of conventional boundaries, in order to experience a deeper sexual freedom. Fifty years of experimentation, however, do not seem to have been enough to dispel the persisting suffering and confusion present in romantic relationships.

"Brothers and sisters, we do not want you to be uninformed about those who sleep in death, so that you do not grieve like the rest of mankind, who have no hope" (1 Thessalonians 4:13).

Eskimos don't have the word "quarrel" in their vocabulary. They live in a particularly harsh climate, so no one wants to risk getting pneumonia (or dying) just to prove that they are right.

Romantic love is easily hurt and somewhat pretentious, especially when faced with direct honesty. Friendship is more solid.

Elspeth Muir’s brother, Alexander, died from drowning. It was 2009, and he had just turned 21. He died from drowning, but his death “was not foreshadowed by his love of water except that it explains why he was near a river, alone, with a blood-alcohol content of almost 0.25. My brother died because he was drunk, and because the drink made him stupid.”