The School of Life

Dancing is one of the most releasing and necessary of all activities - but we too frequently hold back from the worry that we 'can't dance.' This film usefully reminds us that there's no such thing as not being able to dance, that the whole point is to move about wildly without shame - and that in doing so, we connect with others and with important forgotten bits of ourselves. Uploaded 22-04-20Enj...

Sometimes, in a cosy moment, one lover might ask another: What do you love me for? It's a moment of huge and philosophical importance: what is a good answer to this complicated question? There are a range of things one should never say - and one or two that will stand the best chance of cementing love. Uploaded 29-04-20Enjoying our Youtube videos? Get full access to all our audio content, videos,...

We're always being told that we should make peace with how we look; but why? We never chose our bodies and nor should we necessarily be forced to identify with them. They're like a random taxi we were shoved into at birth. We've been forced to play the facial lottery and most of us are deeply unhappy with the results - and should in our own ways be allowed to be. Uploaded 06-05-20FURTHER READINGYo...

We are unnecessarily scared of being on our own because we fail to keep in mind the distinction between solitude (a fine condition) and loneliness (a pain). We need to recover a sense of the good sides of being by ourselves - in order to be able to make the right choices around friendship and love. Uploaded 13-05-20FURTHER READINGYou can read more on this and other subjects here: https://bit.ly/2A...

We often believe that the very worst and most immature thing to do might be to cry about our sorrows. In fact, the ability to go off for a while and have a very intense cry about how awful everything is is in fact a crucial bit of wisdom - and a very adult move as well. Being a crybaby isn't just something children should be afraid of being called, it's something every adult should be proud to rem...

In moments of agitation, personal and nation-wide, what would often best calm us down are not pills or meditation - but the right works of art. Here are seven of the world's most calming works of art, works that know how to restore perspective, reassure us of the future and gently return us to a more bearable state. Enjoying our Youtube videos? Get full access to all our audio content, videos, and...

Oscar Niemeyer was a great 20th-century Brazilian architect who taught the world how to build in a way that was at once modern and local. He gave Brazil a hugely seductive identity that was in touch with the past but also hopeful about the future. Enjoying our Youtube videos? Get full access to all our audio content, videos, and thousands of thought-provoking articles, conversation cards and more...

Emotional Intelligence, Daily. Start now: https://www.theschooloflife.com/subscription/ Why do we often gravitate towards emotionally unavailable partners? This film challenges our romantic narratives, arguing that true love isn't about overcoming obstacles or chasing hesitant affections. Discover the liberating wisdom of seeking out only the genuinely enthusiastic in dating, saving ourselves from...

We’re used to thinking of going traveling as the easy and fun bit of life, but in fact, it’s a process fraught with hidden complications and seldom mentioned anxieties. We consider why travel is often not quite what we expect it to be – and how we might learn to become, in the psychological sense, better travelers. If you like our films, take a look at our shop (we ship worldwide): https://goo.gl/...

We are often encouraged to believe that the goal of our lives should be happiness. But unfortunately the word happiness is misleading, in that it suggests that it might be possible to have a good life and not go through a lot of pain. We might be better off defining our purpose in terms of another word – this one drawn from Ancient Greek: EUDAIMONIA. FURTHER READING “Eudaimonia is an Ancient Greek...

How beautiful one feels has nothing to do with how one looks on the outside — and everything to do with one’s inner sense of worth. 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/i21Hv Be more mindful, present and inspired. Get the best of The...

Being polite isn't enough to win one friends. We also need to learn the art of being warm: this begins with having the right sort of relationship to our own weaknesses and foibles. 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/pNbFV Be more mi...

There are dangers associated both with thinking too much - and thinking too little. The trick is to use our minds to access our most sincere, authentic and original thoughts. For gifts and more from The School of Life, visit our online shop: https://goo.gl/CpAojF Join our mailing list: http://bit.ly/2e0TQNJ Or visit us in person at our London HQ: https://goo.gl/UyKuUJ hRoYJp FURTHER READING “Think...

Going cold on our partners is often a sign not that we have stopped caring, but that we are - somewhere deep down - furious or hurt. 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/ho0r2 Be more mindful, present and inspired. Get the best of The...

Many of our relationship problems stem from the emptiness of our vocabulary around our affectionate emotion. We have only the minimal word 'love'. Luckily, the Ancient Greeks had a more nuanced and complicated vocabulary that we can usefully borrow from. Enjoying our Youtube videos? Get full access to all our audio content, videos, and thousands of thought-provoking articles, conversation cards an...

Nagging is one of the most understandable but counterproductive patterns of behaviour – that kicks in when we have failed to teach someone what we want and are feeling tired and bruised emotionally. But if we really want others to change, there is no alternative but to gather our strengths and try to convey information in a way that can be understood by someone else. Enjoying our Youtube videos? G...

The German philosopher Hegel helps us to understand that progress in societies is never linear, and that these societies may have to go through a variety of reversals before advancing, a process he termed ‘the dialectic.’ 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 Su...

One of the stranger but more powerful discoveries of psychotherapy is that the average baby firmly believes it has two mothers and that this belief profoundly affects our future relationships. 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/FeAf...

Above and beyond having a job, what we really need to power our professional future is a sense of mission. A film that discusses what a mission is, and how we might find our own. 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/VtAKQ Be more mind...

We long to get all our work done in order to have free time. But we should be very careful with leisure. Having nothing left to do work-wise can be a very dangerous challenge for our psyches: it can bring on despair and self-loathing. It may be that always having projects on the go can insulate us from mental unwellness. Enjoying our Youtube videos? Get full access to all our audio content, videos...

We're always being told that the sign of a good and intelligent person is someone who keeps up with the news. But this addiction to the latest events may be a kind of illness that cuts us off from the real insights and information we need to lead good lives. Enjoying our Youtube videos? Get full access to all our audio content, videos, and thousands of thought-provoking articles, conversation card...

The story of how Oscar Wilde went from celebrity playwright to prisoner, in such a short space of time, has much to teach us about disgrace and infamy. 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/Y54ZB Be more mindful, present and inspired....

Much of the reason why we give up far too soon, fall into despair and abandon our projects is not because things are hard per se but because they are harder - far harder - than we had ever expected them to be. It isn’t necessarily difficulty that sinks us; it’s bad notions about what a noble task should legitimately demand. Enjoying our Youtube videos? Get full access to all our audio content, vid...

The Mind-Body problem is one of the greatest conundrums of philosophy and of our everyday lives too. 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/wMlDd Be more mindful, present and inspired. Get the best of The School of Life delivered straig...

No relationship is ever stable; each goes through a regular cycle of ‘rupture’ and ‘repair’. A healthy relationship is not one in which ruptures never occur, but one where both parties are willing and able to repair them. 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 Su...