The School of Life

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Given how difficult the world can often be, should we cry – or might we still laugh? 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/ywlXL Be more mindful, present and inspired. Get the best of The School of Life delivered straight to your inbox...

Two of the strangest but most powerful concepts in psychology are sadism and masochism. Why do we seem to delight in inflicting suffering or, even more strangely, to take satisfaction in enduring it? 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....

Friendliness is a great virtue. Over-friendliness can be an unexpected problem. 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/tNyod Be more mindful, present and inspired. Get the best of The School of Life delivered straight to your inbox: htt...

Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (C-PTSD) refers to a state in which we are severely impacted in the present by emotional neglect in our childhoods. The symptoms include high anxiety, low self-esteem, a constant sense of dread - and (often) difficulty being able to sleep. By learning more about our condition, we can (probably through the help of psychotherapy) hope to free ourselves and be m...

The first time humans saw the whole earth from space was thanks to a photograph taken by astronaut Bill Anders on the 24th December 1968, during the Apollo 8 mission. The photo, known as 'Earthrise' for the first time showed us what our planet looks like from space. Its vulnerability and beauty gave rise to a new global consciousness. We should take care to pin it to the fridge and apply its lesso...

#24hours #adayinmylife #theschooloflife Continuing our series on working lives around the world, a film about the life of one of Istanbul's most resourceful taxi drivers. 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/FmsLA Be more mindful, pre...

Sunday evenings have a particular atmosphere, where nostalgia mixes with dread. A lot of the emotion is at heart about a background sense that we haven’t found the meaning of our lives – and that time is running out for us. 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...

Though we all long to have our feelings and needs acknowledged, it seems that nothing is more common than for these to be neglected by people around us. We take so little time to listen to one another and to show that we have absorbed what people have told us. As a result, everyone gets increasingly angry and - deep inside - sad. The answer is to make the art of listening a global priority. Enjoyi...

The question of whether we are fundamentally free or determined in our thoughts and actions has been in the middle of philosophical debate for many centuries. This is our take on the subject. 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/dehm5...

We all go through moods when we feel exceptionally ugly. We tend to blame our faces and our clothes, but the cause of the feeling is almost always internal. We feel ugly because things have gone wrong at a psychological level, not a physical one. Enjoying our Youtube videos? Get full access to all our audio content, videos, and thousands of thought-provoking articles, conversation cards and more w...

Whether or not we count as a good person depends on an unexpected but crucial ingredient. Find out more about whether you qualify by watching the film. 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/iXhV7 Be more mindful, present and inspired....

We're taught to think that 'bias' is automatically a bad thing, but everything depends on what sort of bias it is. There might be bias towards wisdom, self-understanding, tolerance and kindness - in other words, bias worth valuing. 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...

We are liars of genius when it comes to hiding uncomfortable facts from ourselves. But there’s real wisdom in understanding how we manage to deceive ourselves – and real utility in learning to be a little bit more honest 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 Sc...

It can seem as though we all need to learn to be less angry - and that no one has any problem raising their voice and getting their opinions across. The truth is more nuanced. A sizeable number of us suffer from shyness about expressing our real needs and our true aspirations - and thereby do ourselves and others a disservice. A short film which guides us to the need to speak up when we need to. E...

Thank you for all your support. Entries will close at 0000 GMT, Midnight, on Sunday 24th December 2017. 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/MYMVM Be more mindful, present and inspired. Get the best of The School of Life delivered str...

Voltaire's phrase - you must cultivate your own garden - is one of the most famous statements in the world. But what did Voltaire mean by this - and what can we learn from it to help us live our lives today? Here is a recipe for how to survive our troubled times. Enjoying our Youtube videos? Get full access to all our audio content, videos, and thousands of thought-provoking articles, conversation...

It's miserable to be unhappy in your teenage years - but it is also profoundly important. It's hard to imagine adulthood going well if there haven't been quite a few tears at 15. 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/n5HXU Be more mind...

We feel lonely and odd because we mistakenly assume that the kind of thoughts and fears we have will have no echo in other people. They do; it’s just we haven’t found a way to speak to one another honestly about who we are. FURTHER READING “There are few more shameful confessions to make than that we are lonely. The basic assumption is that no respectable person could ever feel isolated – unless t...

Le Corbusier is perhaps the 20th century's most influential architect, responsible for persuading us of the merits of modern design on a grand scale. His work was at points hugely beautiful and accomplished, and at others, terrifying and extremely unhelpful. Our film explores Le Corbusier's mixed legacy, and what we might learn from it for the future. Enjoying our Youtube videos? Get full access t...

Our tendencies, when we’ve been slighted by our partner, is to wound them back immediately. We would have far calmer relationships and kinder ones too, if we could just reveal our hurt – rather than inflict it back. 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 Subscrip...

A happy relationship is often associated with constant wild and passionate sex. But in fact, one of the greatest joys, and a good indicator of mutual satisfaction, is the capacity to read in bed together. We may be doing better than we think. Enjoying our Youtube videos? Get full access to all our audio content, videos, and thousands of thought-provoking articles, conversation cards and more with...

A good way to divide advanced societies is to ask: which are the good ones if you’re doing well, and which are the good ones if you’re doing badly? Interestingly, the results are very different. An associated fact is that most of us do not, financially at least, end up winners. That should give us pause for thought. FURTHER READING “We all, naturally, want to be winners. And so, consequently, a gr...

Our era of sexual liberation encourages us to have sex; but at the same time, hugely stigmatises those who don’t have it, from choice or circumstances. It’s time to liberate the idea of lingering or ongoing virginity from the shame it’s currently surrounded by. Enjoying our Youtube videos? Get full access to all our audio content, videos, and thousands of thought-provoking articles, conversation c...

We long to reach a state where we can at last be happy and calm forever. But so long as we are alive, stability will always elude us for reasons we would do well to understand and accept with grace. We haven't failed if we can't reach a 'happily ever after'; we're simply very human. Enjoying our Youtube videos? Get full access to all our audio content, videos, and thousands of thought-provoking ar...