The perspective of having your feelings or pride hurt is unnerving. It is also the main obstacle to kindness. More people would be kinder more often, had they at least a promise, if not a guarantee, that they would be safe once their heart is open. To some, emotional walls or coldness may seem […]
Spring Cleaning
When you lose something, it’s very hard to remember that for every little thing lost there is a new one on its way. Losing is not easy. It hurts and sometimes leaves scars. In psychology it is even said that the fear of losing something motivates people much more than the benefits of earning a […]
See
What if we tried to see what really is on the other side of our discriminatory glasses? What if we tempered our aversions and irritations, and accepted that what we see is only in part objective, that the images we percieve are filtered through numerous preconceptions, and only a few of these preconceptions were formed […]
Rule Yourself
Have you ever thought about the social rules we’ve been passed on? We usually integrate them in our thinking, in our life, without questioning. They are supposed to make us get along better, or, at least, that is the explanation at hand. However, when you start thinking about these rules, analyzing them, they appear in […]
When Loudness Is Pointless
I was in Turkey, paying for some groceries, my Turkish was way too rudimentary, and the cashier didn’t seem to speak other languages. When I did not understand something she said, she repeated the exact same thing, only louder. I still had no idea what she was saying. There was absolutely no problem – I […]
You Are Rich
There is a kind of wealth that is more important than any material possession, and it is hidden inside you. It can easily turn into money, but, most amazingly, it can also get you anything money can’t buy. A rich life is not a financial transaction, but a sea of possibilities. And, although money would […]
The Practical Use of Happiness
Many of us have been brought up with the idea that life is constant suffering, that happiness is not possible, and, if it seems to happen, it’s somehow wrong. Sometimes life just seems to confirm that view over and over again with all the misery around us. But that’s just a paradigm that reduces happiness […]
Somewhere to Go
As long as there’s ground, you have lots of places to walk to. As long as there’s water, you have lots of places to sail to. As long as there’s air, you have lots of places to fly to. Whenever you feel a particular place is out of reach for you, whenever you feel there’s […]
Just Love
Literature, music, online forums, and (offline 🙂 ) coffeehouses are full of definitions and interpretations of love. People want to know what love is, what makes them love some people and not others, how long love lasts, what causes it, how the barrier between friendship and love is crossed, and so on. Some people and […]
Meaningless
We have the natural tendency to search for the meaning of things – the meaning of life, our own meaning, the meaning of other people’s behavior, etc. -, and, most of the times, these meanings seem to slip through the cracks of our understanding. If you’re on a quest to find your meaning, you don’t […]