Psychology

Can you be happily married to anyone? The idea of ​​happiness as a thing of one's own creation persists in our times, although its cultural sedimentation belongs to the modern age.

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.

If shame were personified, its main characteristic would be its ability to creep into the darkest depths, avoiding any trace of light and any discussion of itself.

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.

From the first positive pregnancy test, parents often build up expectations for their baby. And as the little one grows, so do the expectations—emotional, cognitive, moral and academic. While it's only natural that this should be the case, as children need to be set standards, parents' expectations can often turn out to be a double-edged sword.

Statistically, by now Josh should have been either in jail, living on the street, or dead. The long years in which he was abused and expelled from the families who took him in made him no longer trust anyone. But the love of adults who showed him that they cared was stronger than anything that pushed him toward self-destruction.

What do you do when things go wrong and everything around you seems to crumble? Do you keep your eyes forward and try to find a solution? Or do you fall into endless complaining?

We live in an era defined by speed, where everything, from information to personal gratification, seems to be just the push of a button away.

Aside from fuelling jokes about how women impose unrealistic standards on men, or how men are just grown-up children who want their wives to be their mothers, the expectations couples place on their relationship define how they relate to each other, and influence marital satisfaction.

A cheerful heart is good medicine, but a crushed spirit dries up the bones, says a well-known biblical proverb. We don't have to be practicing Christians to recognise its truth.

“What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger,” said Nietzsche in one of his essays back in 1889. Easier said than done when you’re facing unemployment, illness, rejection, or a blank exam paper. We tend to see these as things we need to get rid of. This can’t possibly be the life we wanted.

I don’t remember much about the moment. I remember its warmth, and the way it glowed with purpose and spirit. But the stage is blurry. The song which pulsed out from it is uncertain. I know it came from a good friend of mine, one whose spot-lit glory provoked in me no jealousy, no feeling of being left out.

Lace-edged rumours wafted through the student campus in Sagunto, Spain: Devin, one of the American boys who had come to Spain for a year of study, was dating Teresa, a second-year theology student who was hard to miss. Her striking beauty and cheerful nature attracted gazes like a magnet. No one suspected then, not even the protagonists of this relationship, that their love...

I'll leave my heart as payment among the coins, and pass... – Nichita Stănescu

It’s an invisible force, lurking and weighing heavily within, gradually convincing you that life isn’t worth much, that it’s better to let go. From the depths of depression, the journey back is incredibly tough, but not impossible. Kevin Breel is one of those people who can attest to this.