The School of Life

Most modern parents say that all they want for their kids in the world of work is that they be ‘happy’. But it’s often a good deal more complicated than that, and parents are frequently hard at work shaping what their kids think of as good and bad careers. Enjoying our Youtube videos? Get full access to all our audio content, videos, and thousands of thought-provoking articles, conversation cards...

Psychotherapy offers one of the most reliable ways to understand yourself and widen your options around work and love. It can also lessen feelings of isolation, guilt, and anxiety. In this film, The School of Life founder Alain de Botton discusses therapy with The School’s head therapist, Charlotte Fox-Weber. Charlotte explains what therapy is, what happens when you go there and why it might be an...

Making resolutions to be a better person is a hugely important activity - even if we can't always stick to every last one. Here is a list of suggested moves for how to be a slightly nicer person to live around in the new year. Enjoying our Youtube videos? Get full access to all our audio content, videos, and thousands of thought-provoking articles, conversation cards and more with The School of Li...

A distinguishing feature of much of the modern man-made world is that it is, first and foremost, very ugly: disappointing modern architecture abounds. We've almost ceased to notice how awful a lot of it is and forgotten how much better we can do. Here are five central reasons why so many buildings have gone wrong and an urgent blueprint for how to build the more beautiful world we deserve. Enjoyin...

Emotional health is defined by four markers: our degree of self-love, of openness, of communication and of trust. Watch our film to interrogate your level of emotional health. Enjoying our Youtube videos? Get full access to all our audio content, videos, and thousands of thought-provoking articles, conversation cards and more with The School of Life Subscription: https://t.ly/meaBM Be more mindful...

In an effort to please a new partner, it’s sometimes tempting to stretch the truth. But to avoid difficulties down the line, it would be better to be honest - even blunt - from the off. Enjoying our Youtube videos? Get full access to all our audio content, videos, and thousands of thought-provoking articles, conversation cards and more with The School of Life Subscription: https://t.ly/lZ6iM Be mo...

The best encounters with friends are those where we can talk honestly about what's going on in our lives, sharing triumphs, joys, fears and longings - without the usual shyness or reserve. We made the Confessions Game to get a group of friends into some of the very best sorts of conversations. Enjoying our Youtube videos? Get full access to all our audio content, videos, and thousands of thought-p...

We tend to fear being an idiot as a terrible, remote possibility. This keeps us anxious and unsettled. Far better to accept head on, and with good grace, that we are - all of us - idiots. And that may just be OK. Enjoying our Youtube videos? Get full access to all our audio content, videos, and thousands of thought-provoking articles, conversation cards and more with The School of Life Subscriptio...

Did you know we have a branch in São Paulo, Brazil? Discover our The School of Life branch in São Paulo (and other cities around the world). Enjoying our Youtube videos? Get full access to all our audio content, videos, and thousands of thought-provoking articles, conversation cards and more with The School of Life Subscription: https://t.ly/tdckb Be more mindful, present and inspired. Get the bes...

We are used to religions telling us consoling and soothing things; but what we often miss is that science has just as many wise and kindly perspectives on our lives - if only we know how to look. Enjoying our Youtube videos? Get full access to all our audio content, videos, and thousands of thought-provoking articles, conversation cards and more with The School of Life Subscription: https://t.ly/S...

Many of us are regularly thrown off course by what we might term ‘crisis of meaning’; periods when what we are up to seems not to connect up with anything purposeful or properly dignified. It’s at such moments that we need to lean on a bigger theory of what meaning is, where it comes from, and how our lives relate to it. Enjoying our Youtube videos? Get full access to all our audio content, videos...

Compulsive skin picking is a surprisingly common affliction. Understanding the psychology that underpins it is the first step towards learning how to heal. Enjoying our Youtube videos? Get full access to all our audio content, videos, and thousands of thought-provoking articles, conversation cards and more with The School of Life Subscription: https://t.ly/Fwd_l Be more mindful, present and inspir...

Advertising beautifully alerts us to the desirability lots of things we probably don't need that much of in our lives. For its part, art also alerts us to the beauty and charm of bits of the world: but it tends to be the bits that we really do need for a fulfilled life. Enjoying our Youtube videos? Get full access to all our audio content, videos, and thousands of thought-provoking articles, conve...

#24hours #adayinmylife #theschooloflife Continuing our series of working lives from around the world, a baker from Mali lets us into his place of work. Enjoying our Youtube videos? Get full access to all our audio content, videos, and thousands of thought-provoking articles, conversation cards and more with The School of Life Subscription: https://t.ly/BgOUT Be more mindful, present and inspired....

Self-hatred is a particularly vicious disease which destroys our ability to defend ourselves and to confront enemies. Here are some tips on how to make better friends with ourselves. Enjoying our Youtube videos? Get full access to all our audio content, videos, and thousands of thought-provoking articles, conversation cards and more with The School of Life Subscription: https://t.ly/mfnBb Be more...

To be considered ‘well-read’, one is expected to get through an endless number of books. Instead, like the Ancients, we should focus on the quality not the quantity of one’s reading. Enjoying our Youtube videos? Get full access to all our audio content, videos, and thousands of thought-provoking articles, conversation cards and more with The School of Life Subscription: https://t.ly/Zy4CW Be more...

In moments of despair, we may be suffering not from a failure of spirit, but a failure of imagination. The way out lies in exercising our creative capacities. Enjoying our Youtube videos? Get full access to all our audio content, videos, and thousands of thought-provoking articles, conversation cards and more with The School of Life Subscription: https://t.ly/cfnni Be more mindful, present and ins...

The modern world firmly equates how much we earn with how good, noble, wise and worthy of honour we are. This is a brutal misunderstanding of how salaries are determined. We need to operate with a far more nuanced view of what the money we earn says about us. Enjoying our Youtube videos? Get full access to all our audio content, videos, and thousands of thought-provoking articles, conversation car...

We're so used to conforming to the expectations of others that it can be hard to know what 'we' really want. Freedom requires a willingness, at times, to be 'bad'. Enjoying our Youtube videos? Get full access to all our audio content, videos, and thousands of thought-provoking articles, conversation cards and more with The School of Life Subscription: https://t.ly/1ZGBw Be more mindful, present an...

We all have people in our lives that we’d never start a friendship with today if we met them for the first time – but that nevertheless matter immensely to us. An essay on the importance of old friends. Enjoying our Youtube videos? Get full access to all our audio content, videos, and thousands of thought-provoking articles, conversation cards and more with The School of Life Subscription: https:/...

#language #diminutives #theschooloflife A diminutive is something you stick on the end of a word to make the thing it describes sound smaller. ie. Dog goes to Doggy. Every language has them, but some have more than others. Why are we drawn to diminutives? And why is English particularly resistant to them, compared to Spanish, for example? Enjoying our Youtube videos? Get full access to all our aud...

It's easy to feel that anxiety attacks are freakish, illogical outbursts with no place in a sane life. But given the state of the world, and all the many properly worrying things in it, might they not, in fact, be difficult but logical markers of the utmost sanity? Enjoying our Youtube videos? Get full access to all our audio content, videos, and thousands of thought-provoking articles, conversati...

We spend a lot of time worrying that we won't have enough time to lead a good life. But we would be far better off focusing on the quality of our lives rather than on their length. Enjoying our Youtube videos? Get full access to all our audio content, videos, and thousands of thought-provoking articles, conversation cards and more with The School of Life Subscription: https://t.ly/lyKL4 Be more mi...

Trauma is the result of our inability to process a distressing experience. It’s much more common than we might imagine...and requires a patient examination of our past to overcome. FURTHER READING You can read more on this and other subjects here: https://bit.ly/2JlfOye “ A trauma is not merely a terrible event, though it is very much that too. It is a terrible event that has not been adequately p...

Life constantly forces us to make very big and often very painful decisions. When we are next facing such a choice, here is a small exercise that could help us to know our own minds more clearly. Enjoying our Youtube videos? Get full access to all our audio content, videos, and thousands of thought-provoking articles, conversation cards and more with The School of Life Subscription: https://t.ly/8...