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Don’t let your identity limit you
People often use the word identity as if it’s who they are, but really it means how you identify yourself or what groups you identify with. It’s who you are, as seen from the outside. An identity is a social construct, like a character you play. Often, it’s empowering to embrace an identity – to […]
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Relationships are key to happiness
The Harvard Adult Development Study began in 1938 and still runs to this day. It started by looking at the lifestyle, habits and health of 724 men, both working class and Harvard students, with the aim of following the subjects over a long period, to see what factors early in life might predict good health […]
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We Can’t Change Someone Else
I was once asked to help a family who constantly bickered with each other. The two adults and three children sniped at one another from breakfast till bedtime and they were all sick of it. Each person said they just wanted to live in peace. The problem was that each one wanted the other four […]
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Trust is earned, not owed
Banks warn us: don’t share your PINs or passwords. Don’t click on unknown links. Be wary of offers that sound too good to be true. It’s sensible to assume that strangers are not to be trusted until they prove otherwise. Yet when it comes to people close to us, we can be pressured to offer […]
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Love, Loyalty and Ethics
‘A true friend will help you hide a body,’ is an oft-repeated sentiment on social media. It’s meant as a joke, but it reinforces a misconception about what friendship and loyalty mean. What can we do when someone we love – a family member, partner, or a close friend – expects us to back them […]
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Strengthen Your Inner Witness
Do you feel guilty going through customs, even when you have nothing to hide? Are you extremely nervous at job interviews, or meeting new people? Chances are you have a mean inner critic. An inner critic is an imaginary character who holds the worst possible opinions of you and tells you exactly what they think, […]
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The Chicken or the Egg? The Person or Their Opinion?
Which came first, the chicken or the egg? Of course, there’s no definite answer, and if there was, it would make little difference. Yet last year, an argument about this very question led to an Indonesian man killing his friend. News reports never mentioned which side he took, but consider this – did killing his […]
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What Counts at Work…
Have you ever thought about how your job affects your attitudes? When I worked with children in care, I came to believe that all children were passive and that every generation was doomed to be less capable than the last. Similarly, I knew a store detective whose default attitude to strangers was to be suspicious […]
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Is Anger Necessary for Change?
Some people say we should strive never to be angry. Others say that anger is what drives us to make things better. Who is right? First, it helps to understand that anger involves both feelings and thoughts. The feeling alerts us that something is not going the way we think it should. A good question […]
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Paying it forward
April 28th is Global Pay It Forward Day, which got me thinking about the first time I was urged to pay forward a favour instead of paying it back. A keen but poor student, I wanted to enrol in an extra-curricular weekend course. With a catered lunch, the training cost more than I could afford. […]