Psychology

In a world of many predetermined things, friends are the family we choose for ourselves. Often, their presence is what keeps us going. In Vital Friends, Tom Rath says that many of those who end up on the streets, divorced, or addicted to overeating, struggle with inner demons precisely because they are alone. They feel excluded, abandoned, unloved.

A cold flash, like the strange, icy feeling after a burn, runs through his body with every breath. He feels his heart racing. It feels like it is counting down to the moment when it will explode—or, mercifully, to the moment when he will turn his pillow to the cooler side, and finally fall asleep.

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.

A word is dead when it is said, some say. I say it just begins to live that day. – Emily Dickinson

The end of a year is both a period of revising and the most favorable time for drafting wishes for the upcoming year. However, the problem arises when we realise that last year’s resolutions have remained unfulfilled in the absence of a concrete plan.

They have read that love lasts for two or three years, and although they’ve gathered every possible argument why it wasn't the case for them, they couldn't get the possibility out of their minds altogether.

When I'm tired I can't love! Many times I have lived this reality and even assessed it as the exact end of love.

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.

Would you rather “achieve great things or be happy?” That question was asked in a YouGov survey (United States): 81 per cent said they would rather be happy; 13 per cent wanted to achieve great things; 6 per cent were uncertain.

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?

It is said that time makes us wiser. How wise have we become after a global pandemic with millions of deaths, a war on our borders, economic problems, and many personal tragedies in which we are caught as if in the grip of a great storm?

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.

Can the thinking of a single philosopher be so influential as to change the fundamental values ​​of a society and lead to tremors of transcontinental proportions, like the economic crisis that began in 2007? Could Ayn Rand's philosophy be the almost-imperceptible reason for transforming the United States, as Levine puts it, into a "selfish nation"?

Courage is a special virtue: unlike other virtues that can be formed and polished over time, courage only makes itself known spontaneously and fully in situations where one is required to act, proving its existence.

The portrait of a good listener contains skills that are formed over time, through an honest interaction with others, motivated by the desire to understand and help them.