Psychology

Tim Urban knows that you're reading this article instead of dealing with that project for which the clock is ticking relentlessly towards the deadline. But Tim Urban understands you. The blogger who founded the long-form platform Wait But Why gave a TED presentation on procrastination a few years ago, and most of us will recognise ourselves in it.

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.

“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).

On the morning of the 15 November 2016, I awoke in a hospital bed, with no memory of how I got there. My favourite pyjamas had been torn from my body, and I lay in a hospital gown, a piercing pain in my head, impaling my brain. I was barely able to think and incapable of speech. I was scared, though this was...

We are so familiar with complaining that we don't even recognise its presence in our interactions. It has become part of us—and, according to rumours on the internet, so have its consequences. The whining we are told we do every minute of every conversation has the power to destroy our neurons.

“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.

Dependence tends to have negative connotations—we may be addicted to sugar, the internet or gambling. Other times we are dependent on people or relationships, in which case the line between positive and negative is no longer easy to draw.

When a closed window shade becomes an SOS sent by those used to living on their own but afraid of dying alone, something has fundamentally changed in a society that not long ago valued human relationships.

“The problem with communication is the illusion that it has been accomplished.” (George Bernard Shaw)

"Millions of ordinary, psychologically normal people will face an abrupt collision with the future. Citizens of the world's richest and most technologically advanced nations, many of them will find it increasingly painful to keep up with the incessant demand for change that characterises our time." (Alvin Toffler, Future Shock, 1970)

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.

After a chance meeting of mutual friends, I was introduced to Tim and Sonia in a restaurant in central Toowoomba, Queensland, eight days before their home was washed away.

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?

It has been more than ten years since my first job interview ended with the classic: You did a great job, but we have chosen someone else. Since this memorable moment, other closed doors have followed: employers rejecting my application, people not sharing my interests, groups giving me the feeling of not being accepted.

A famous saying asserts that the devil is in the details—in the small things we often deem unimportant. But life revolves around the little things. They take up most of our time, betray our vices and virtues, reveal our limits and courage, and divulge our preferences and dislikes. It is in the trivial moments that we are the most authentic: when we eagerly...