The School of Life

What is the best way to make a country rich? Should you adopt a policy of free trade? Or is protectionism and economic nationalism the better way? We explore the history and theory of one of the central questions of economics and politics. 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...

One of the most vital ingredients to keep a relationship going is a capacity for humour. 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/bPLvc Be more mindful, present and inspired. Get the best of The School of Life delivered straight to your i...

Those of us who aspire to work in a creative field often end up despairing that such roles seem so few and far between. Yet the search is less hopeless than it looks: we simply need to think more deeply about what ‘creativity’ really means. Enjoying our Youtube videos? Get full access to all our audio content, videos, and thousands of thought-provoking articles, conversation cards and more with Th...

Jacques Derrida was a key philosopher of modern times who made pioneering explorations into the subtexts of our key concepts. 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/HTXbD Be more mindful, present and inspired. Get the best of The School...

One of the oddest things we need in order to love is a vital ingredient known as self-love. 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/p5bLL Be more mindful, present and inspired. Get the best of The School of Life delivered straight to you...

The person we may find it hardest to be kind and sympathetic to is, surprisingly, ourselves. Yet being a friend to ourselves provides the only viable basis for living an emotionally fulfilled life. 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...

The secret to overcoming shyness is to remember that others are, beneath the differences, always substantially the same as we are. 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/20E8u Be more mindful, present and inspired. Get the best of The S...

Our feelings are often waiting for the right words to help us to experience them properly. 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/O5c-e Be more mindful, present and inspired. Get the best of The School of Life delivered straight to your...

We are – almost all of us – deeply attracted to the idea of being normal. But what if our idea of ‘normal’ isn’t normal? A plea for a broader definition of an important term. 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/ibZBh Be more mindful,...

Some of what makes our working lives especially difficult are those unavoidable features of most offices: colleagues… 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/Fj0x4 Be more mindful, present and inspired. Get the best of The School of Life...

Emotional Intelligence, Daily. Start now: https://www.theschooloflife.com/subscription/ Can world events drive you mad? Via Virginia Woolf's tragic tale, see how political stress deeply impacts mental health, especially for the vulnerable. Understand the toll and build resilience. #PoliticalAnxiety #MentalHealth #Resilience #VirginiaWoolf #Psychology Unlock all the content of The School of Life wi...

There are those who make it - and those who won’t. And yet it can be troublingly hard - from the outside at least - to understand why. What we can know for sure is that it won’t be about luck. FURTHER READING You can read more on this and other subjects here: https://b4f4.short.gy/vcVLPQ “There are those who make it - and those who won’t. And yet it can be troublingly hard - from the outside at le...

We worry so much about lots of things that turn out never to happen... How can we stop? FURTHER READING You can read more on this and other subjects here: https://b4f4.short.gy/RYv9Nq “We spend a lot of our lives worrying but one of the basic things we almost never remember to do is to go back and check how our worries fared against reality. For example, one week, we might be worried about running...

Our new book, A Therapeutic Journey, is a collection of the very best ideas from this channel. This talk was hosted by How To Academy London’s home of big thinking. Find out more about their live programme of talks, conversations and debates with leading authors, artists, scientists and scholars at http:www.howtoacademy.com, and follow their biweekly podcast on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get...

It’s remarkably hard to imagine what it might be like inside our minds. But doing so helps us to see that the real task of thinking should involve throwing a spotlight on our elusive vague thoughts. 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.l...

We so often complain that others around us aren’t changing in this way or that. But one of the best ways of encouraging them to change is to change ourselves, something we’re often surprisingly reluctant to do. 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:...

Some of the trouble of long-term relationships comes from the vows we say at the beginning. We should learn to reformulate what we say when we enter marriages. 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/9kHa2 Be more mindful, present and in...

For those prone to stress and losing their tempers, the Yoruba people of West Africa can offer a distinctive remedy: an unflappable attitude known as 'itutu'. 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/pWqHt Be more mindful, present and ins...

‘Perfectionists’ are generally held in high-esteem: praised for their self-discipline and refusal to compromise. Yet in truth, the trait is a manifestation of self-hatred - and must be overcome if we are ever to feel truly fulfilled. 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 Schoo...

We have a very unhelpful tendency – when in relationships – to idealise what it was like being single. We should learn how to bear proper witness to our single days. FURTHER READING “One of the haunting thoughts that can make us especially snappy and bitter in relationships is the idea that if only we were single, we would be a lot happier. In love, we are so conscious of the troubles of our prese...

Attachment theory refers to a set of ideas formulated by psychologists in the 1960s that gives us an exceptionally useful guide to how we behave in relationships. Knowing whether we are secure, anxious or avoidant in our attachment patterns gives us a vocabulary with which to get on top of some very tricky dynamics and helps us grow into more predictable and more joyful companions in love. Enjoyin...

We’re used to being very down on so-called ‘needy’ people. But perhaps – in many situations – the problem doesn’t lie so much with the apparently ‘needy’ party, but with the person describing their lover as such. 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...

Being clumsy is one of the most humiliating of scenarios. We need to learn to make friends with our ‘inner idiot’. 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/raxT7 Be more mindful, present and inspired. Get the best of The School of Life de...

Our relationships are often not quite as warm and perfect as they should be. That’s perhaps because we’re comparing them with a relationship in the past to which they shouldn’t – in fairness – ever be compared. 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:...

Loving others is not always easy; particularly since so many people behave in distinctly unloveable ways. The secret to a more loving attitude lies in remembering the essentially childlike aspects of their characters. 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 Subscr...