Psychology

Born in 1999, Alex is on the cusp of the millennial generation. We're 12 years apart, but we have a lot in common. One is an unhappy time at school. Back in my day, it was called being an "emo": a kid who was too sensitive, too sad, too lonely, too shy, too everything.

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.

“You will keep in perfect peace those whose minds are steadfast, because they trust in you,” wrote the prophet Isaiah—and some jumped to the conclusion that those who do not experience peace do so because they lack a sound mind or faith.

At some point, we've all come across the phrase "back in my day," a deeply subjective expression which encapsulates a universal phenomenon: the generation gap.

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.

There are many reasons why your daily interactions may become tense and even fractured, but if you decide to mend a relationship, you could also take a few extra steps to improve it.

We live in a time in history when we seem to be connected in every way possible. It seems as if there are few, if any, who have no one to socialize with.

"Loneliness irritates me like a broken nail," says a line in a Romanian poem. The truth is, loneliness stings, pulls apart, and resembles the coffee dregs left at the bottom of the pot in which joy and love once brewed. Although the fear of loneliness is natural, we can choose to see solitude as something more than a "flowering wilderness" and embrace it...

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

Elspeth Muir’s brother, Alexander, died from drowning. It was 2009, and he had just turned 21. He died from drowning, but his death “was not foreshadowed by his love of water except that it explains why he was near a river, alone, with a blood-alcohol content of almost 0.25. My brother died because he was drunk, and because the drink made him stupid.”

It has been said before that the wars of the 21st century are hybrid wars, in the sense that, in addition to the environments in which the hostilities have taken place until now–land, water and air–a fourth environment has appeared: the virtual one.

Enter the The Woodwork and Craft Club in southeast Queensland and you’ll see piles upon piles of wood and wooden goods—finished, unfinished and not even started. Everything from chests, dollhouses, stools, chessboards, lamps, birdhouses and much more.

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

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.

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