Psychology

"A friend in need is a friend indeed. Be that as it may, near is my shirt, but nearer is my skin." Is this an outdated saying, or is it still relevant? To whom, when, and how are we prepared to offer help?

“Why are you still single?” Even though I have been asked this question countless times, I still never know how to answer it. 

I don’t think I did anything significant the afternoon I saw the movie “Awakenings”. The feeling that I had reached the heart of the human condition strongly impressed me with the idea that we are born captive in a limited nature, and that gave me a heavy feeling of loss.

Sleep is perhaps the most important, complicated, and misunderstood physiological mechanism that keeps us alive.

The mental load is a concept that has gained attention in the last little while. What if mental load had a baby?

"Marriage: a book of which the first chapter is written in poetry and the remaining chapters written in prose." (Beverley Nichols)

Sports betting may seem to be a harmless way to unwind, but the relationship between winning and losing is, mostly, not in the player’s favour. Moreover, the road from entertainment to addiction can prove to be a short one, while the recovery process is arduous and long.

“What is mankind that you make so much of them, that you give them so much attention, that you examine them every morning and test them every moment?” (Job 7:17-18)

Sometimes I think I was born with a magnifying glass in my hand, one through which I critically scrutinize everything I do and say and which relentlessly magnifies every imperfection.

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.

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

Many years ago, while I was still in high school, our Romanian language and literature teacher assigned us the task of writing a framed story, complete with characters and a plot of our choosing.

The whirlwind of activities and deadlines that adult life throws at us often makes us resistant to closeness. We abandon old friends and neglect building new relationships until inevitably, the day comes when we start feeling pressed against the self-erected walls of loneliness.

Love is the most beautiful and perhaps the most incomprehensible thing in the world. We find it in movies, in books, in the strength of a "yes" declared before the civil authorities, and in the embrace that binds spouses at the end of a hard day's work.

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.