Psychology

Happiness must come naturally – and this is true for success: you must let it happen simply by not obsessing over it.

Daily stress is a good excuse to avoid other people's needs, but this choice is a double loss. The kindness we display to make other people's days better is a very strong antidote to the high level of stress we experience daily.

In a society that does not place great value on sensitivity, raising orchid children—children who are hypersensitive to environmental conditions—can be an overwhelming experience for parents. At least, until they realize the vital role they can play in unleashing the extraordinary potential that such children have.

How do parents influence their children's marriages?

If optimism helps us get rid of problems more easily, too much optimism does the exact opposite: it amplifies them. Pushed to the extreme, positive thinking prescribed as an antidote to suffering prevents us from accepting reality as it is and starting to look for solutions that can make our lives easier.

Some say that of all the opinions we can have in life, the most important is the opinion about ourselves.

"Love means never having to say you're sorry." When I first heard this line from the "Love Story" blockbuster, I thought I was the only one who didn't understand what it meant. However, after watching a recent interview with the lead actress, I was reassured. She too thought it was a stupid thing to say. Still, the phrase was a hit at the...

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?

Almost all bookstores today have a section dedicated to books on change, except that the generic name given to this category is "personal development", or "self-help".

When life takes a bad turn, we are often tempted to console ourselves with nostalgia. We begin to look at the past in a different light. We realise that we had been too demanding of ourselves, of others, of the world. That even though we had everything we needed we still wanted more. That we were always looking for something else, without paying...

In sync with our modern culture, many people obsess about self-esteem, not really knowing what it means. Giving up self-loathing seems to them an impossible task. And indeed, how does one reach self-respect? Instead of a straightforward answer, here are some insightful questions to prove that you are worthy and that you can trust yourself.

I open the window and breathe in the air, trying to guess the weather. Floating around, mixed, are scents and miasms alike; it's hard to decipher these intricate clues.

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.

An experimenter is like a hunter who, instead of waiting quietly for game, tries to make it rise, by beating up the locality where he assumes it is. – Francis Bacon, 17th-century English philosopher

Some couples use pornography for sexual stimulation or educational purposes, to "spice up" their sex life. But while their intentions may be good, instead of helping, pornography can ruin a marriage.