The modern world is wonderful in many ways (dentistry is good, cars are…
In his consulting room at Berggasse 19, in central Vienna, Sigmund Freud came…
Many of us want to start our own businesses. Public space is filled with…
We all, naturally, want to be winners. And so, consequently, a great many…
One of the most troubling aspects of our world is that it contains such…
One of the most pressing choices facing modern economies is whether to adopt a…
When we’re struck down by emotional issues, like depression, anxiety, or love…
We’re used to dividing how people vote in elections according to the…
Xu Zhen’s Supermarket The Shanghai-based artist Xu Zhen is one of the most…
Throughout history, in most societies, bitter feuds have broken out between two…
In modern times, one of the criticisms you’ll sometimes hear people make…
It doesn’t seem to make sense to suggest that there might be such a thing as…
Most of what we call ‘politics’ really revolves around the question of what…
We've grown used to belittling things that don't happen to be…
Our societies are guided by a discipline that we can still usefully refer to as…
Many people today instinctively recoil from the concept of a brand. The word…
Every business tries to satisfy its customers. Its products or services may be…
When it comes to earnings, there’s an emotionally appealing desire: ideally,…
In the economy, consumer demand is hugely important. The term ‘consumer’…
Over several decades, the measurement of Gross Domestic Product has become the…
Business is a central human activity. In some form or another most of us are…
Glamour is the reflexive sheen afforded to people and things by the approval of…
Introduction The dark truth is that it’s become very hard to find anyone…
We operate with some stock images of the addict: a person with a heroin needle…
It sounds very strange to suggest that we might need to learn how to shop. We…
Business is focused on addressing a multitude of human needs; for everything…
We are always making consumption decisions: where to go on holiday; which…
The entrepreneur is one of the key figures of the modern economy, though what…
Our societies are exercised around the question of whether the advertising…
A substantial portion of the modern economy is devoted to the production and…
The average manual that accompanies a product - maybe a domestic appliance or a…
We're used to the idea of sex being used to sell stuff. It happens all the…
A little to the side, or on top of, what it produces and sells us, the average…
Society takes the business of making money very seriously indeed. Much of our…
We don’t think we hate cheap things - but we frequently behave as if we…
Despite the widespread availability of good quality cheap products (watches,…
Advertising has made a very bad name for itself. We don't trust it or want much…
Patek Philippe is one of the giants of the global watchmaking industry, with…
One of the big convictions of our times is that the fast food industry is to…
Generous, thoughtful, sensitive people are often drawn to the view that we…
Our society really admires it when rich people give away huge piles of surplus…
It’s late and, across the nation, people are sinking back into the soft…
It’s often hard not to feel envious of them - as they ascend the stage to…
A fundamental belief of the modern world, which explains a lot of our anxiety…
There’s a large and prominent tradition of philanthropy that wishes to serve…
Across time, various religions have come up with an idea that, today, can sound…
One of the most surprising aspects about one of the saddest of all human…
Why are we so worried about our careers? Why do we care so much about our…
We often think of being a success primarily in status and financial…
He looks like an ordinary guy. He could be the taxi driver who took you to the…
Despite good intentions, modern societies are profoundly unequal. Yet…
Typically, envious feelings swirl around unexamined. We carry them about…
The Italian luxury car maker Ferrari has unveiled its newest supercar. Named…
A presumption among many thoughtful people is that the great enemy of a good…
We know that we must, to lay claim to any respectability or competence, keep up…
We tend to get very gloomy about our own era: the state of society seems…
It can sound strange to hear the way religious leaders and politicians, at…
We live in societies in which it is hard to count as a good and intelligent…
We are likely to have grown up thinking that the mainstream media was our…
Over the past century, technologies have completely changed the…
The news is the best distraction ever invented. But, if we pay too much…
We believe in censorship. Sometimes. Of course, that’s a very unpopular view…
Cate Blanchett is on a roll, winning multiple prizes of late, and she’s been…
Kew Gardens: here, too, death may come at any time A New Zealand-born accounts…
We like it, though we might not always admit that we do, when a celebrity falls…
Yuan Zhouming makes a meagre living polishing people’s shoes twelve hours a…
Media organisations want us to care about the bad stuff that is happening out…
In their more serious moods, news organisations tell us they want to explain…
Last week the Dow Jones Industrial Average started on Monday at 16,162.70 and…
While most of its energy is devoted to briefing us about the gruesome ways in…
Andrew Ridgeley recently turned fifty. In the mid-1980s, he was one half of the…
We don’t always feel comfortable admitting it to our friends; it is…
There’s general agreement amongst the public that most politicians are…
When we see a picture of the siblings of celebrities, we instinctively think,…
Nastiness is currently deeply prestigious in the world of news. An interviewer…
It feels like there is always an infinite amount of news, so much is happening…
We’ve grown up expecting that the task of the news is to introduce us to…
The church of the fourteen helpers in Bavaria was built about two hundred and…
Californian chef David Viens and his wife Dawn were having problems in their…
The world is sick for a surprisingly modest-sounding reason: we don’t…
The world needs to be changed in many urgent ways: the great question is how…
Seduction is the attempt to get any set of tricky ideas into the mind of…
It might be normal to imagine that a good society would be one in which a…
Among most intelligent people, feeling proud of one’s country is a deeply…
To be accused of ‘utopian thinking’ is a particular insult in our times. We…
One day, if human civilisation ever wipes itself out, aliens or one of our…
At the centre of our societies is a hugely inventive force dedicated to nudging…
We are used to thinking very highly of democracy - and by extension, of Ancient…
We’re used to interpreting the problems of nations principally in political…
It is an enormous and very rare privilege to live in the days of good…
It's always exciting to think about what kinds of technology are going to be…
Caspar David Friedrich, Wanderer Above the Sea of Fog (1818) The world needs…
For the average citizen of a developed nation, the World Cup generated a deeply…
It can be strangely appealing to be very down about the future of humanity.…
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is the science of making clever machines. It’s…
It is almost universally agreed that education is hugely important. But we are…
Almost every developed nation boasts of having a rather unusual institution at…
Modern societies are deeply invested in the idea of big, glamorous weddings. We…
We’re used to the idea that a year should be punctuated by a sequence of…
We generally hold culture – by which we understand art, museums, cinema,…
Cinema is the most prestigious cultural activity in the modern world. It is for…
It doesn’t from a distance seem as if philosophy and business would have…
Calling an idea ‘utopian’ is normally a way of saying it’s pie-in-the-sky…
For hundreds of years now, humans have tended to believe that the best sort of…
The system we know as Capitalism is both wondrously productive and hugely…
Serious people are used to thinking badly of ‘celebrity culture’. This is…
The UK government, like so many around the world, is desperate to crack down on…
Things seem to be going really well with the institution of the art museum. All…
If you asked an average customer-oriented bank what they were in the business…
We are, apparently, in a golden age of the communications industry. This is a…
The competition among resort hotels is fierce and, in order to secure our…
It descends, normally, between around 5pm and 7.30pm and can be at its height…
For many of us, our strongest and at the same time vaguest desire is…
…
One key thing that can go wrong in our thinking about a career is that we get…
Our brains are fatefully badly equipped to interpret and understand themselves.…
The difficulty of defining a professional goal may be both serious and…
In 1700, in Western Europe, there were some 400 different kinds of jobs you…
Quite often the prospect of moving to a job you can love looks very difficult…
A very common way to identify what job we might like to do is to set our sights…
Missions are things we tend to associate with astronauts. If…
Understanding how to serve customers well is a major factor in the success of…
1. The Shame of Selling A lot of the reasons why our efforts to sell things go…
The idea that work might be fulfilling rather than just painfully necessary is…
The modern world is in love with entrepreneurship. Starting your own business…
Arts graduates across the developed world complain bitterly about the…
It is common to hear that unemployment has been caused by our genius at mass…
In the UK, and some other parts of the developed world, unemployment continues…
One of the few ambitions shared by politicians across the political spectrum is…
We know that empathy is a deeply important quality, which enables us to see the…
Eloquence is the attempt to get a set of tricky ideas into the mind of another…
Starting one’s own business is one of the most creative, meaningful and…
Networking has a bad name. It’s associated with self-enrichment, egoism and…
‘Creativity’ is one of the most prestigious ideas of modern times and as a…
We end up asking ourselves, often in some distress, what we should do with our…
We are, each one of us, severely limited creatures. We can only ever get good…
The wider world will always be a mess. But around work, we can sometimes have a…
One of the most important - but necessarily rather secret - indicators that we…
One of the most extraordinary and yet quietly routine features of our age is…
We’re a culture that’s highly attuned to what’s beautiful and moving…
It’s easy to get irritated by people who are very concerned about details.…
We're used to thinking about the good sides of work purely in terms of money…
One of the ideas that circulates below the surface of modern life is that work…
People more or less give their lives to their office jobs. They'll make huge…
When companies think about innovating new products and services (or just…
‘Creativity’ has become one of the most highly praised and prestigious…
Science fiction has, quite unfairly, developed rather a bad name for itself.…
Offices exist to help people collaborate. But lots goes wrong in the attempt.…
Collaborating with other people is hard. Few of us are born knowing how to do…
Although collaboration – the extraordinary business of having to work with…
A big reason we give up on projects is the perfectionist belief that…
Imagine someone who is deeply efficient. Their life is full of the best sorts…
We find tasks irksome and frustrating – and so perform them less efficiently…
Human beings are pathetically prone to distraction. It’s almost comically…
It’s natural to think that it must be a huge advantage for artists living in…
Of course we go to work for money and the people you meet can be great. But a…
In certain companies and offices around the world, there is a crisis of…
Karen Lloyd died recently at 51 from cancer. She liked drinking coffee so much…
Getting people to work hard and do their best – to be highly motivated – is…
One of the big causes of stress is that we often face problems that can’t be…
You might think this bit would be easy, but one of the hardest things about our…
Given how pejorative the term is, we’re understandably keen to locate snobs…
Introduction The history of every life is made up both of the life we lead,…
For most of human history, what we did for a living was decided for us by our…
We don’t anymore nowadays much believe in Luck - or what was, in earlier…
One of the overriding reasons why modern work is so boring is that we keep…
One of the most frightening aspects of working life is that we will, unless we…
At the heart of how modern individuals work, there is a dream of security:…
A complaint regularly aired around many careers is that, in order to succeed at…
When we speak of an interesting job, we tend to refer to work that allows for a…
There is no more common response, when we take our ideas out into the world,…
We are meant to be monogamous about our work, and yet in any given week,…
We start off in life being very interested in pleasure and fun. In our earliest…
We typically aim for a particular career because we have been deeply impressed…
We don’t often dwell on this – and may never discuss it with others – but…
We might imagine that in an uncomplicated way, our parents (and siblings,…
One of the most daunting obstacles to choosing a fulfilling career for…
We want to do well at school for an obvious reason: because - as we’re often…
To survive in the pressured conditions of modernity, we have to get very good…
Most of us grow up at the centre of a very responsive world. Parents…
Certain industries have a reputation for being nasty, not in terms of the kinds…
Broadly, we like to think we are becoming a less macho society. But this style…
Many new and potentially very worthwhile ideas for products and services are…
We’re not necessarily involved in this kind of judgement ourselves - but we…
In theory, we respect teachers. But being a teacher isn’t glamorous. It’s a…
When we meet new people, we’re tempted to ask: 'what do you do?' We’re…
We tend to be pretty clear why it might be nice to be in a leadership role.…
For much of history, the question was taken very seriously – and quite often…
It’s 4.30pm, Thursday. The plane is still on the tarmac at Milan-Linate…
For most of human history, people did not believe that the world changed very…
We don’t often think about it – and may never discuss it with others at all…
One of the reasons we sometimes don't think things through properly is that…
Engines Audi 3.2 V6 FSI This is one of the most efficient petrol engines ever…
I. Office Victorians In the 19th century, British explorers were famous for…
In the modern economy, some of the fundamental obstacles to the growth of…
For most of human history and in almost all places it would have seemed absurd…
It is six o’clock on a late-February morning, in a village fifty kilometres…
Almost certainly, you’ve been having a bad time at work. In a perfect world,…
For intense periods of our lives, we suffer the agony of unrequited love. Our…
On a first date with someone we like, we really want - of course - for the…
- Care One way to get a sense of why love should matter so much, why it might…
Flirting has a bad name. Too often, it seems a supreme form of duplicity, a sly…
To fall in love with someone feels like such a personal and spontaneous…
How do we choose the people we fall in love with? The Romantic answer is that…
It’s an odd feature of love that some of our most romantic moments include…
Anyone who lives alone and manifests no longing to be in a relationship is - in…
The strange thing about love is that even though we experience it in a deeply…
Curiously we speak of love as one thing rather than discerning the two very…
It sounds paradoxical to talk of the problems of being beautiful, when we’re…
Romanticism is one of the most important historical events of all time. Unlike…
The most exciting thing about a new relationship isn't so much that it's them.…
There’s a person at another firm you quite often have to speak on the phone -…
Match.com is one of the world’s leading dating sites. Officially it is all in…
Conversation and communication are generally held to lie at the heart of a…
It sounds strange to ask what a novel might be for. We tend not to wonder too…
You are introduced to someone at a conference. They look nice and you have a…
We are – each one of us – probably more one than the other. The categories…
Anyone we might marry could, of course, be a little bit wrong for us. We…
Attempting to exert excessive control over another person within a relationship…
There are, always, a range of awkward but legitimate things we want and need to…
If there is one generalisation to hazard about maturity, it is that it involves…
It feels, right now, unbearable. Of course. Someone you trusted and believed…
'Atonement’ is a slightly unfamiliar, old-fashioned and alien word. It means,…
It sounds deeply unromantic to devote sustained attention to the flaws of…
The idea that one is in many ways an extremely difficult person to be in a…
At present relationship counselling is widely seen as a thing you do because…
There will be times when you will feel very bleak about your marriage. You will…
Arguments in relationships are typically so regrettable and often so bitter,…
Lovers who’ve been together awhile tend almost universally to get maddened by…
We spend a lot of time trying to change other people. There is, after all, so…
One of the haunting thoughts that can make us especially snappy and bitter in…
The story of the path to coldness in love is well known. We start off full of…
In so many areas, we’re used nowadays to questioning the status quo - and…
One of the most exciting aspects of the early days of a relationship can be the…
One of the most delightful and thrilling aspects of the early days of a love…
Most machines of any degree of complexity are offered to us with an instruction…
It will happen to all of us at some point. Negotiating the agony with a measure…
It’s a skill that’s just as important, but far less studied, than knowing…
Before there was Feminism in the wealthy developed nations, there reigned a…
The decision whether one should stay or leave is one of the most consequential…
It may not seem like it, but teasing done with affection and skill is a…
Many of us are outstanding lawyers, not so much in professional contexts, as in…
It was horrendous while it was going on. You said some awful things - though…
© Marc Hatot/Flickr It is, when one thinks about it, remarkably hard to…
© Marc Hatot/Flickr It is, when one thinks about it, remarkably hard to…
Nowadays we're pretty tough on people who have a certain type of fear: people…
Generally, we see other people's relationships from the outside. We see couples…
It's not easy, trying to have a relationship if you're both so defended and…
The simplest way to defuse your partner's fury is not to tell them to calm…
Telling someone you don't want to be with them is always difficult. But there…
One of the couple has been out all day: they’ve been to three meetings,…
They have a habit of ruining embarrassingly long stretches of our lives. They…
There are – when you start adding incidents up – rather a lot of things…
You’re flicking through a fashion magazine and playfully suggest that your…
You and your partner are waiting, and waiting, at the airport carousel for your…
There are many nice things we want, but are somehow a little scared of getting,…
One of the things that makes us fall in love with people is realising they can…
One of the ideals of modern relationships is that both parties will be ‘good…
In order to survive in the world, we have little option but to spend our lives…
Unfortunately, tradition has encouraged the idea that the night of the wedding…
When the sexual revolution began in the 1960s, there was a standard…
Infidelity is commonly interpreted as close to the greatest tragedy that could…
One of the great burdens which our Romantic culture has imposed upon long-term…
We are never as shy and gauche as we are when attempting to seduce someone we…
A man is with his female partner, foreplay is going well, it’s time for more,…
Perhaps some nights you lie awake next to your partner. Probably, they’re not…
Long-term relationships almost inevitably confront us with one highly…
We are repeatedly given messages that we live in sexually enlightened times,…
There's an assumption at large that sexiness is at heart about nakedness and…
Mutual desire is normally signalled by a pretty weird act; two organs otherwise…
For a lot of people, the idea of having sex outside is a big turn on. Why…
From adolescence onwards, one of the great struggles we face is how to…
No two subjects could seem further apart. The one: the summit of the human…
Cross-dressing (and here we refer particularly to men dressing up as women)…
At moments of low self-esteem, it can be hard to avoid the fear that we may -…
Being in a relationship where it doesn’t feel like there is enough sex sounds…
Too often, affairs are seen as the outcome of random horniness - or just plain…
It's easy to get stuck in a position of not having much sex. Often we stop…
It can be frighteningly hard to remember every person one ever slept with...…
People have been making pornography for a very long time. It’s been on the…
It could seem like a strange topic to be discussing. It doesn't come up much in…
Why is it so interesting and exciting? Few philosophers have explored the topic…
You are queuing to go through to Departures; one of the guards at security has…
Everyone knows that at the beginning it happens all the time…and then, as…
The things that get us (and others) sexually excited can often sound rather…
Being a parent can be one of the sources of our greatest joys. It is also -…
Most of our lives are spent in situations of numbing sterility. There is…
For almost all of human history, it has been unthinkable that someone could lay…
Of course, we expect it to be the other way around: we teaching them. But they…
Being unhappy is never wholly to be recommended, but if there is any period of…
Historically, it is very odd for business people - or indeed anyone with an…
One of the wonders of the human mind is its ability constantly to improve its…
Anyone of childbearing age will be surrounded by examples of catastrophic…
There are, for many of us, few people as attractive as the avoidant; the sort…
It isn’t difficult to imagine a privileged childhood: we associate the term…
Your fears are right: you won’t. It seems harsh to say it just now but the…
A humblingly large number of problems in relationships can be summed up with a…
Wedding photographs are not simply a pleasing record of a special day. They…
You don’t just need your close friends - because they will usually be…
There are many reasons why we might be planning to build a life with someone.…
Theoretically we are free to select the kind of person we love. We might have…
It sounds deeply unromantic to devote sustained attention to the flaws of…
A bedroom at around 9pm. It’s quiet, save for the rustle of the leaves in the…
Love is our highest value, what we all crave and what we believe makes us…
Our society typically devotes huge attention to the start of a marriage - and…
The Incumbent Problem refers to the vast, but often overlooked and unfair…
Occasionally, our relationships need to get re-started. We love one another but…
We reserve some of our deepest scorn for couples who stay together out of…
We live - obviously - in a very unequal world. But not all kinds of inequality…
Political Correctness is, in many ways, an extraordinary and admirable…
To say that someone has ‘daddy issues’ is a somewhat rude and humiliating…
There are people we are friends with for one major but often maligned or…
- Emotional Nepotism One of the things that makes families so important and so…
It feels very shameful - horrifying - to admit but there are times when we may…
There are some very strong and socially-endorsed reasons why partners breaking…
Almost every day, with slightly dispiriting inevitability, someone in our…
We tend to be generous towards people who can’t get over someone. It sounds…
One of the most important principles for choosing a lover sensibly is not to…
The business of growing up is something we normally think comes to a close when…
Irrespective of whether you consider Jesus a popular itinerant preacher or the…
One of the great and slightly strange dangers of falling in love with someone…
We know by instinct that humour is pretty important in relationships. But the…
Ostensibly we all want love - but oddly, one of the hardest things to do is not…
One of the big assumptions of our times is that if love is real, it must by…
Small children sometimes behave in stunningly unfair and shocking ways: they…
When we hear that a couple live 11 time zones apart and can afford to come…
One of the most fundamental paths to calm is the power to hold on, even in very…
It seems strange to make a case for hugging. After all, hugging has become…
For Romantics, compromise in a relationship sounds so boring. Ideally, they…
It's often excruciating introducing a new partner to our parents. But…
So many encounters are marred by miscommunication and shyness. Rather than…
For years, you felt burdened with thoughts, feelings and opinions that didn’t…
Sometimes you can catch important things about human nature in apparent…
Modern societies are deeply invested in the idea of big, glamorous weddings. We…
Perhaps you never had such a figure in your life, but let’s imagine for a…
It used to be when you’d hit certain financial and social milestones: when…
President Obama was out the other week inspecting the navy at the largest US…
It’s tempting to think of marriage as old fashioned. Why not just live with…
Under such a title, one expects something properly heroic: inter-planetary…
It is one of the seven virtues of Christianity. It used to have a central place…
It seems like a tiny fact, just one more little blip of information that…
You don’t give it a second thought most of the time, of course. But in…
For many of us, the dominant emotions we experience day to day are those of…
It’s the middle of the night, let’s imagine, and we’ve been on the earth…
In the background, many of us are terrified of so much - disgrace, illness,…
We’re not talking here of a mere opponent. This person isn’t just…
Landscape with the Fall of Icarus is a large painting from the 1560s that hangs…
We may not think of it in quite such naive terms, but we are liable to start…
It is perhaps the most famous photograph ever taken. It came into being almost…
Nature is valuable not only for itself; it is also to be revered as the single…
Animals don’t set out to teach us anything at all - but we all have a lot to…
The Sublime refers to an experience of vastness (of space, age, time) beyond…
In the modern world, many countries have lotteries and every week many millions…
Some extremely worrying things are, as always, happening in the…
A quiet life sounds like an option that only the defeated would ever be…
Nowadays, almost all of us wish we could be calmer. It’s one of the…
It’s far into the night, but sleep won’t come. You turn over. Perhaps a…
Not being able to sleep is deeply frightening. We panic about our ability to…
A globular cluster, photographed by NASA's Hubble telescope Today, like so…
Cows have an often neglected philosophical dimension, combining a natural…
There are some places that seem almost designed to shatter our peace of mind,…
It is easy to get carried away imagining a happy life. One mentally sketches…
We tend to reproach ourselves for staring out of the window. You are supposed…
No one, probably, has ever much doubted that these things are nice. Clouds,…
If as a species we understood ourselves a little better, and so properly…
Knowing our own minds is difficult at the best of times. It is extraordinarily…
At any point in time, we’re continuously being encouraged to pick up some…
Often, as we emerge from sleep in the middle of the night, there’s a dream…
One of the most basic features of being a boy, so well-entrenched that we…
It sounds absurd when stated baldly, but we do not always - at some deep level…
It sounds like a very mean and undemocratic thought, trading off the peculiar…
One of the best ways to understand what psychotherapy involves is to read…
Thinking about ourselves - our feelings, our past, our desires and our hopes -…
One way to start assessing how badly we have been knocked by our early years -…
We can sometimes be so modest about our power to know what might be good for…
We are, all of us, beautifully crazy or, to put it in gentler terms,…
No one intends for this to happen, of course, but somewhere in our childhood,…
It is a quirk of our minds that not every emotion we carry is fully…
We hear a lot about genius. We are taught to admire the minds of those…
They do their homework on time; their writing is neat; they keep their bedroom…
Introduction A good life is the fruit of a succession of good decisions,…
Accusing someone of narcissism has become one of the great and tempting insults…
We might suppose that the best place to think would be a large room with a big…
Nowadays, there is a lot of prestige around sticking to your guns. If we change…
i: Introduction To wonder too openly, or intensely, about the meaning of…
There are some of us who regularly feel a powerful need to go away and think…
The ‘needy’ person is a stock figure of caricature: they call too much,…
One of the things that separates confident from diffident people is their sense…
The history of philosophy has been dominated by competing arguments around the…
Modern societies are very interested in tracking how children grow up.…
Learning that someone hates us deeply, even though we have done nothing…
An enormous amount of trouble in the world - especially at work and in…
According to the philosophers of Ancient Greece, the summit of achievement was…
It’s normal to expect that we will always – almost by nature – actively…
…
In Ancient Greece, the philosopher Socrates famously declared that the…
Though we spend an inordinate amount of time with ourselves, strangely, it’s…
Though charming people are a delight when we encounter them, most of us rarely…
We apparently live in an age of honesty and disclosure but in truth most of…
When we fail and mess up in our lives (perhaps a project at work goes wrong or…
Evolution is one of the biggest ideas in the modern world. It was most…
It really matters what we think of as ‘being normal,' because we are…
To wonder too insistently what 'the meaning of life' might be marks you out as…
Perfectionism is the unreasonable and self-defeating ambition of getting…
For centuries, artists produced ‘memento mori’, works of art that would…
The possibilities for delaying our work have grown quite simply monstrous,…
For all of them, it started much as it will for you: a strangely persistent…
All subjects have their specialised vocabularies; a set of words that initially…
In general, we are very much alive to the benefits of exercise. And not only…
There is no more ridiculed genre than the self-help book. Intellectually-minded…
It should be obvious, of course. We’re grown ups now. We’re physically…
Without denying that there can be trouble in all social relationships -…
Some of the reason why we aren’t, collectively, so good at friendship, is…
One of the most subtly hurtful and quietly damning of all remarks, perhaps…
We are so used to thinking of Jesus as a divinity whom we accept or reject on…
One of the great problems of human beings is that we’re far too good at…
The idea of being a sociable person is nowadays heavily associated with finding…
One of the strangest ideas bequeathed to us by religion is the notion that it…
Diplomacy is an art that evolved initially to deal with problems in the…
For anyone with a tendency to blush, the idea that there might be something…
It does not lie within any of our remits to be entirely sane. There are so many…
One of the kindest, most helpful and most interesting things we can ever do…
At its most basic, charity means: giving someone something they need but…
One of the characteristic flaws of our minds is to exaggerate how fragile we…
Flattery has a bad name. It’s associated with saying something upbeat but…
At moments of sorrow and exhaustion, it is only too easy to look back over the…
Many of us probably have a nagging feeling that we don’t listen enough to…
A discussion of how to be a good teacher sounds a little narrow - and probably…
Our clumsiness can feel like one of the most shameful things about us. We…
THE COOL MAN: For approximately 80 years, the notion of what a man should be…
Christianity has, traditionally, spoken a lot about sinners. In the fourth…
It’s been a dramatic night: you were in a hotel at a crossroads; the tide was…
We live in conspiratorial times. Deeply sinister motives appear to be at work…
At moments of sorrow and exhaustion, it is only too easy to look back over the…
We’re highly attuned to the notion that being selfish is one of the worst…
…
In theory, we all love kindness of course, but in practice, a kind person…
Every day, each one of us entertains, in the caverns of our minds, a host of…
Throughout our lives, we spend a lot of time and even more money engineering…
Learning that someone hates us deeply, even though we have done nothing…
Setting out to try to become a nicer person sounds like a deeply colourless and…
The desire to fit in is deeply engrained in our nature. We’re social…
It can be easy to imagine we possess reasonable social skills, because we know…
One of the risks of social life is that we will in the course of an evening or…
Polite people have it instilled in them from an early age that they should not…
One of the distinctive features of social life is that most of the people we…
One of our great fears - which haunts us when we go into the world and…
Truly good people are always ready and even, at times, highly enthusiastic…
While politeness is of course always preferable to rudeness, there are ways of…
There is a particularly poignant way to be a social disaster: through…
Friendship should be one of the high points of existence, and yet it’s also…
It can be so hard to forgive because - so often - we simply are in the right…
There are few more shameful confessions to make than that we are lonely. The…
High ambitions are noble and important, but there can also come a point when…
The Ten Commandments (which appear in Exodus 20 and Deuteronomy 5) maintain an…
Being a good listener is one of the most important and enchanting life-skills…
The failings of friends, colleagues and partners can be deeply galling. We got…
In the West, we expect philosophy to come from books. In the East, more wisely,…
Some of what we want deep down, in our primitive unconscious, threatens to be…
Wu wei means - in Chinese - non-doing or ‘doing nothing’. It sounds like a…
Though we may keep a little quiet about this, especially when we're young, we…
It’s easy to have a pretty negative view of drugs: the news is always going…
What often distinguishes fulfilled from unfulfilled lives is an ingredient…
Pessimism has a bad reputation, but it is one of the kindest and most generous…
Cynicism has, in certain quarters, a distinct kind of glamour. It sounds tough…
We’re sometimes not too sure how we get into good friendships. It seems to…
Our brains are brilliant instruments, able to reason, synthesise, remember and…
Our societies are very interested in winners but don’t really know what to do…
The term 'higher consciousness' is often used by spiritually-minded people to…
Saying you should try to be kind sounds like a really silly and obvious thing…
Why does being ‘a good person’ have such a bad name? In the modern world,…
We live in a world saturated with disagreement. People are at odds about pretty…
Any occasion to improve ourselves should be seized upon. We need…
It's easy to be pessimistic about many things: the state of the…
Modern society often tells us that we should learn to feel good about…
Feeling grateful about the good aspects of our lives is something we all know…
Most weeks, someone mistreats us in a greater or lesser way: they overlook a…
It is one of the seven virtues of Christianity. It used to have a central place…
It’s one of the grandest and oddest words out there, so lofty, it doesn’t…
When one is in a bad place in one’s head, the modern world offers three main…
Surveying bits of our past - perhaps while in the bath, on a walk, or a flight…
Perhaps today, you managed a key work meeting, and gave a small presentation…
Imagine two very different kinds of families, each around their own dinner…
It’s not an illustrious category to belong to of course, but there are plenty…
It’s sometimes remarkably hard to tell other people how we really feel; it…
The standard habit of the mind is to take careful note what’s not right in…
We unexpectedly catch sight of ourselves in a mirror and, in an instant, are…
Despite a lot of encouragement, despite political freedoms and psychological…
Eudaimonia is an Ancient Greek word, particularly emphasised by the…
Nagging is the dispiriting, unpleasant, counter-productive but wholly…
It is extremely rare properly to delight in flowers when one is under…
We are - at a collective level - deeply committed to the idea of overcoming and…
‘The Inner Idiot’ is a bracing term used to describe a substantial, hugely…
We are often taught that the best way to prove attractive is to smile. The…
To a surprising, and almost humiliating extent, some of the gravest problems we…
It’s clear that a great many of us eat too much. And in response, a huge…
We are sometimes swept away by a mood of sadness that seems to have no cause.…
We are geniuses at focusing on what is missing from our lives. Our…
You’re in a part of town you used to live in as a teenager. You walk past the…
Angry people sound like gloomy types. We certainly don’t usually think of…
We’re not talking about the extreme, most paralysing, regions of despair -…
You’re on a plane on the tarmac and it’s time to shut the doors. Suddenly,…
Very many of us suffer from a peculiar-sounding problem: an inability to…
It happens pretty much all the time: a small jabbing comment, a joke at our…
There are friends who are deeply well-meaning who nevertheless have a habit of…
There are lots of moods, needs and feelings that our own language has not yet…
Panic attacks often belong to a family of self-destroying behaviour, created by…
We’re continually being bombarded with suggestions about what we might do (go…
…
Alongside the notes of the musical keyboard and the letters of the alphabet,…
It was a sunny Sunday afternoon; you were nine years old. Your parents…
Irritability is the tendency to get upset for reasons that seem – to other…
Melancholy is not rage or bitterness, it is a noble species of sadness that…
It is, of course, a form of madness. You pick up the largest jam jar and fling…
It’s normal to think that what makes people cry are sad things; that’s…
Imagine a sunny day, one in which many people, on walking out of the house for…
Today, like most days, you are anxious. It is there in the background, always…
If we’re alive and more or less functioning, if we’re capable of taking joy…
Criticism is never easy. To learn that others judge us to be foolish, perverse,…
One of the most surprising but powerful explanations for why we may, as adults,…
For most of history, the idea that the goal of our lives was to be happy would…
I: Self-Ignorance The Vagueness of the Mind The most striking feature of…
Introduction Our personalities can usefully be divided up into a range of…
A major obstacle to self-knowledge, and in turn, to a flourishing life, is the…
The Inner Voice Somewhere in our minds, removed from the day to day, there…
The outcome of any concerted attempt of self-knowledge could be presumed to be…
For most of human history, the idea of being ‘polite’ has been central to…
Introduction 1. We have unfortunate tendencies to look at agitation as…
It is one of the seven virtues of Christianity. It used to have a central place…
1. What is the Purpose of Friendship? Though we appreciate charm when we find…
Modern ideas of love are strongly associated with admiration. To fall in love…
I. From Reason to Instinct We should feel sympathy for ourselves. The…
One of the key desires of love is the wish to comfort another person. But an…
I: Sulking & the Fantasy of Wordless Communication One of the most…
Listening to a lover is a vital skill in relationships. But there is an…
We know by instinct that humour is pretty important in relationships. But the…
There are sweet moments – early on in relationships – when one person…
One of the most fundamental aspects of being human is a sense of division…
I: INTRODUCTION We expect love to be the source of our greatest joys. But it…
Part I: The Project of Self-Realisation 1. We devote major portions of our…
1. Introduction It can be humbling to realise just how many great achievements…
I. Introduction There is no more common emotion to feel around work than that…
1. Introduction Our societies frequently proclaim their enormous esteem for…
It sounds peculiar, and a little patronising, to suggest that one of the major…
It’s hard for us to be anything other than deeply self-centred. Our own…
Seen in one way, being alive is a remarkable, wondrous thing. In Act II of…
We are used to thinking of many of the psychological problems of adulthood as…
Being someone who pleases people sounds, on the face of it, like a very good…
We live in an age with a high regard for extraordinary lives - that is, lives…
It can, at points, seem horrifically clear that simply no one really cares.…
Comment sections online should be the beautiful public squares of our…
Because our culture places such a high value on sociability, it can be deeply…
One of the most basic facts about the human condition is that we know ourselves…
A central problem of our minds is that we know so much in theory about how we…
It could seem bizarre quite how long we spend on those strands of stringy…
There are many things we want to ask of other people. We want to ask for a job,…
The topic of confidence is too often neglected by serious people: we spend so…
One of the greatest sources of despair is the belief that things should have…
To boost our confidence ahead of challenging moments, well-meaning people often…
Because shyness can grip us in such powerful ways, it’s tempting to think of…
The so-called Mind-Body problem is one of the greatest and most quietly painful…
In many challenges - personal and professional - we are held back by the…
Liking ourselves - having high self-esteem, as we tend to put it - is crucial…
Frustration with one’s appearance is an embarrassing – but, in truth,…
The School of Life is a global organisation committed to emotional education.…
It’s easy to have a pretty negative view of drugs: the news is always going…
When pop music started in a big way in the 1960s, it seemed at times like an…
The School of Life is a global organisation with a simple mission…
Cultural mining describes the process by which the most valuable parts of…
Lego is a surprisingly useful medium for getting big ideas across: 1. Lego…
From a distance, it seems weird, irrelevant, boring and yet also – just a…
If you had the misfortune to do too much of it at school, you’ll probably…
Sociology is the academic study of social behaviour, particularly around work,…
Political theorists are not interested in politics in the way it's defined by…
Psychotherapy is possibly the greatest invention of the 20th century. Here are…
Philosophy begins in the Ancient World where it is immediately thought of as a…
Eastern Philosophy was largely unknown in the West until the late eighteenth…
The great artists have a therapeutic effect on us; re-opening our eyes to the…
Aphorisms are short sentences capturing a large truth in a pithy way. Here are…
Fewer and fewer people believe nowadays. It's possible that in a…
Once, we were all dressed by someone else. Parents picked out a T-shirt; the…
We have a general sense that the humanities are filled with…
One of the most calming things that societies have ever devised is the lullaby.…
Music is of central importance to most of us, but tellingly, we’re extremely…
Around 130 million books have been published in the history of humanity; a…
Although many of us like comedy a lot, it feels odd to ask basic questions…
People are understandably confused about what philosophy is. From a distance,…
People flock to museums like never before, so they must have their…
If you had the misfortune to do too much, or the wrong kind of it at school,…
Psychotherapy is a tool and like all tools, it has been designed to help us…
One of the more frustrating, yet fundamental, things about being human…
People look at one strangely if one makes a trip to the zoo without a child.…
The fishmonger’s window display is alluring, yet one doesn’t normally go…
As the plane makes its gradual descent you see much of the island from your…
It’s strange to see there are so many of them; though in some detached part…
Naturally, the details of personal experience vary enormously, but there’s a…
5:45 am on a summer’s morning. You’ve woken early. It’s still outside.…
You’ve had an argument with the children. Later you’ll have to go to work…
It’s 10:15 pm. Usually, you’d be watching television, pottering in the…
On weekdays you’d be out of the house by now; but today you’re still in…
It’s not one you can now really wear except at home - and maybe even only…
You’re helping walk a friend’s family to kindergarten or to the local park…
Maybe you don’t at first like this at all: it’s been awhile since you last…
You’re turning the pages and a very strange - and very nice - thing dawns on…
She is on a beach in a one piece bathing suit, grinning wildly, looking deeply…
You can’t even see each other’s noses, though they are just a few inches…
Often we’re in search of agreement. It’s very nice when someone…
It’s a particular sign of friendship that people know they can tease you -…
It wasn’t, hopefully, too serious, just enough to keep you in bed, and…
Every so often, you encounter a fig. It might turn up as a decorative aside to…
Having a decent conversation is something most of us imagine we can do without…
Miranda Kerr is pretty, successful and very rich. She’s been named the…
For long stretches of our lives, our bodies steadfastly refuse to obey our…
In no other age can so many people have harboured such intense ambitions to…
Eastern Philosophy has always had a very similar goal to Western philosophy:…
Philosophy is a discipline committed to helping us to live wiser and less…
We might expect that humans would display a powerful reflex taste for simple…
Romantic Romanticism is a movement of art and ideas that began in Europe in…
In answer to the question of what art might be for, the established…
Perhaps the most boring question one can ever direct at a religion is to ask…
One of the most obvious but striking things about a modern education is that…
When there are grave disagreements about what’s good and bad in…
A designed object is one whose makers worked long and hard to get it just…
There is widespread agreement that art is very important. But it…
We have a general sense that books can teach us things, make us value…
It comes naturally to most of us to think of music as therapeutic. Almost all…
Whenever something looks interesting or beautiful, there’s a natural impulse…
It’s one of the nicest aspects of Zen Buddhist art that, for hundreds of…
At a recent Sotheby’s auction in London, Wall by the German painter Gerhard…
Fake, copy, pastiche, forgery, reproduction. Many of the most bitter insults of…
You’ve been around an art exhibition of a favourite artist. Perhaps it was…
There is an age, and a frame of mind, when we are strong enough to treat luxury…
At the moment, food is highly prestigious. A vast amount of attention is paid…
How do we eat when no one is there to see us? It’s tempting to think that…
We are always being told that nature is good for us - and that we should spend…
For those of us who feel at the mentally fragile end of things, and are…
A walk is, in a sense, the smallest sort of journey we can ever undertake. It…
Paris is one of the world’s most famous and visited cities. How should one…
Lying in bed late at night or waiting at the platform for the commuter train…
We’re hugely dependent on language to help us express what we really think…
Nowadays we’re used to thinking of travel as the ‘fun’ bit of life, but…
You are – quite literally – in the middle of nowhere – and, unexpectedly,…
On the first day, it was difficult. You went into the corner shop just off the…
August is perfect for sitting outside at the Café de Zaak in the Korte…
You’ve been in the air for 12 hours. Now this anonymous box. It was your…
It would be unusual today to find a travel agent recommending a sojourn in…
There are many guide books suggesting what you might do when you get to…
Groups of young men armed with planks of wood roam the alleyways extorting…
Abroad is, as we know, the exciting bit. You’ve been so far recently. You…
Next time you’re at Heathrow, worn down by the queues, corridors and bright…
Australia’s Western Desert covers some 600,000 square kilometres of the…
There can be few websites more delightful than Airlinemeals.net. It’s a site…
You haven’t come to Rhodes to explore the medieval old town or the ancient…
When we imagine where in the world we’d be happiest, we’re often prompted…
The superiority of Scandinavian design has been well-charted. The chairs,…
In an odd but quietly very important way, works of architecture ‘speak’ to…
One of the most meaningful activities we are ever engaged in is the creation of…
When it comes to design and decoration, it feels extremely tricky and dangerous…
Cities are a big deal. We pretty much all have to live in them.…
People living in pleasant rural towns across the south of England, places like…
Even very secular people tend to admit that when it comes to architecture,…
Most people nowadays believe that you can’t really say in any definitive way…
This is a section of The Book of Life that gathers together our canon: our…
Athens, 2400 years ago. It’s a compact place: around 250,000 people live…
Aristotle was born around 384 BC in the ancient Greek kingdom of Macedonia,…
‘Stoicism’ was a philosophy that flourished for some 400 years in Ancient…
The Ancient Greek philosopher Epicurus was born in 341 BC, on the island of…
Augustine was a Christian philosopher who lived in the early 5th century AD on…
For some 400 years across the European Middle Ages, one philosophy book was…
It seems, at first, weird that we might learn from him. Thomas Aquinas was a…
We generally think that philosophers should be proud of their big brains, and…
There’s a belief that philosophy, when properly done, should sound dense,…
It is still, tragically, sometimes assumed that the best way to cheer someone…
Baruch Spinoza was a seventeenth-century Dutch philosopher who tried to…
François-Marie Arouet was born in Paris in 1694. His father, a…
The 18th-century writer David Hume is one of the world's great philosophical…
Immanuel Kant is a philosopher who tried to work out how human beings could be…
Arthur Schopenhauer was a German 19th century philosopher, who deserves to be…
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel was born in Stuttgart in 1770. He had a very…
There have been places and periods of history when only a congenital optimist…
Ralph Waldo Emerson is the father of American Literature. In a series of…
The challenge begins with how to pronounce his name. The first bit should sound…
One of the strangest yet most intriguing aspects of Friedrich Nietzsche’s…
In dark, honest moments, we are liable to recognise - with considerable agony -…
The field is not without other distinguished contestants, but in the…
A lot of unhappiness comes about in this world because we can't let other…
Jean-Paul Sartre was born in 1905. His father, a navy captain, died when he was…
Albert Camus was an extremely handsome mid-20th century French-Algerian…
Michel Foucault (1926-1984) was a French 20th-century philosopher and…
Jacques Derrida was one of the most famous, controversial, but also wise…
Towards the end of the twentieth century, a celebrated Romanian-French…
Machiavelli was a 16th-century Florentine political thinker with powerful…
Our assessment of politicians is torn between hope and disappointment. On the…
Thomas Hobbes was a 17th century English philosopher who is on hand to guide us…
Modern life is, in many ways, founded around the idea of progress: the notion…
Adam Smith is our guide to perhaps the most pressing dilemma of our time: how…
Most people agree that we need to improve our economic system somehow. It…
John Ruskin (1819-1900) was one of the most ambitious and impassioned English…
Most of the time, successful modern life involves lots of technology,…
In March 1845, the United States acquired a new president - James K. Polk - a…
Matthew Arnold was the most important educational reformer of the 19th century.…
The 19th-century designer, poet and entrepreneur William Morris is one of the…
Friedrich August von Hayek (1899-1992) was a political economist who had a…
Many of us feel that our societies are a little – or even plain totally –…
The story of the Buddha’s life, like all of Buddhism, is a story about…
Little is truly known about the Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu (sometimes also…
We know very little for certain about the life of the Chinese philosopher…
In the West, philosophers write long non-fiction books, often using…
In the West, we have a vague sense that poetry is good for our ‘souls’,…
Mono no aware is a key term in Japanese culture. ‘Mono’ means ‘thing’…
There's a small building in the centre of Nanjing, sandwiched between an…
In the West, we expect philosophy to come from books. In the East, more wisely,…
Wu wei means - in Chinese - non-doing or ‘doing nothing’. It sounds like a…
Though we may keep a little quiet about this, especially when we're young, we…
A quiet life sounds like an option that only the defeated would ever be…
The fiercely individualistic spirit of our age tends to take a dim view of two…
Democracy was achieved by such a long, arduous and heroic struggle that it can…
Though we tend to think of atheists as not only unbelieving but also hostile to…
Max Weber is one of the four philosophers best able to explain to us the…
Emile Durkheim is the philosopher who can best help us to understand why…
When we use ‘modern’ to describe something, it’s usually a positive. We…
Theodor Wiesengrund Adorno was born in Frankfurt in 1903 into a wealthy and…
There’s nothing very natural about caring for nature. The standard impulse…
Psychotherapy is one of the most valuable inventions of the last hundred years,…
He described himself as an obsessional neurotic. For although the father of…
'Defensive' behaviour is at the root of a lot of the trouble we have with…
Melanie Klein (1882-1960) was a highly creative and original Viennese Jewish…
How do you build a better world? There are so many well-known, urgent places…
Among our deepest and seemingly most natural aspirations is the longing to form…
Jacques Lacan was the greatest French psychoanalyst of the 20th century. He was…
In Europe and the US, the average person spends 84% of their life indoors: that…
We live in a world saturated with false glamour. In truth, the problem does not…
One of the unexpectedly important things that art can do for us is teach us how…
The cultural elite gets nervous about cheerful or sweet art. They worry that…
Edward Hopper is a painter of gloomy-looking paintings which don’t make us…
One of the most depressing aspects of travel is finding that the world often…
For thousands of years, the most common building materials have been stone,…
The world of fashion can seem very silly. It can come across as intensifying…
There is something compelling and exciting about cities that makes many of us…
Abstract art continues to provoke annoyance and confusion in equal measure. You…
Andy Warhol was the most glamorous figure of 20th-century American art. He is…
Dieter Rams is one of the world’s greatest designers of everyday objects. His…
Traditionally, artists made small, lovely things. They laboured to render a few…
If the idea of being a ‘modern’ person and leading a ‘modern’ life…
People have always had trouble pronouncing his name. The 19th-century British…
Charles Dickens was the most famous writer in the English language during the…
Gustave Flaubert was a great French 19th-century (1821-1880) novelist who…
A good trick, with his name, is to say ‘toy’ in the middle:…
Marcel Proust was an early 20th-century French writer responsible for what is…
Jane Austen is loved mainly as a charming guide to fashionable life in the…
Leo Tolstoy was a believer in the novel not as a source of entertainment, but…
Virginia Woolf was a writer concerned above all with capturing in words the…
James Joyce is one of the most revered writers in the English language and a…
It is, when one thinks about it, remarkably hard to shatter a relationship into a divorce. However, it can definitely be done with sufficient energy, determination and will-power. Here are some key hints for how best to end up at a lawyer’s office.
