Courage is not the absence of fear. Many brave people have said that. So what is the relationship between courage and fear then? Courage might actually be the other side of the same coin. The more fear you feel, the more you get tired of being afraid and finally you do something about it, which takes courage in turn. On the other hand, if you wait long enough, you get used to fear to such an extent that you get indifferent. In the state of apathy there will be neither fear nor courage. Of course there are two different kinds of situations: 1. Situations, when one needs to gather enough courage and do...

Oh, no, my colleagues from high-school all have high paying jobs! Oh, no, all my girl-friends already have children! Oh, no, all my neighbors are happier than me! Does it sound familiar? Where do you feel the pain? I feel it in my heart. When I am stupid enough to compare myself to others of course. I broke the habit of constantly comparing myself to others, but it still happens occasionally. Whenever I read a book written by a wise person, it says we should only compare ‘ourselves today’ with ‘ourselves a while ago’. But our mind so easily gets distracted by comparisons with the more...

»You cannot spend your life trying to avoid the mistakes I have made. You have to make your own.« This is a line from a movie. It is a piece of advice a mother gives her grown-up daughter. (Laws of Attraction with Julianne Moore and Pierce Brosnan) Being a light comedy the movie still has some important messages in it. I would like to concentrate on the upper quotation. Many times we are so afraid of making the same mistake our parents did that we exaggerate in the opposite direction instead and make even worse mistakes. Or we as parents or older sisters or brothers try to protect the children or...

It is actually easy – you will probably never experience a burnout. No, I am joking. But seriously: Who defines a person as a loser? The person herself/himself or others? What are the basic criteria for this kind of a definition? Or is the word ‘loser’ just a label, almost a curse? Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary defines a loser as ‘a person who is incompetent or unable to succeed’. In my opinion this definition applies more to certain situations and cannot be viewed as a general description of somebody. For example I cannot drive hence I am a loser as a driver. I was trying to drive...

This title definitely sounds better than: “Face it – you have bipolar disorder.” Or: “Face it – you have schizoaffective disorder.” Or: “Face it – you have a mental illness.” Why? Simply because of the stigma that is attached to the words like: bipolar disorder, schizoaffective disorder or mental illness. We can look at stigma from two sides: from the outer side and from the inner one. Looking at it from the outer side means how other people treat us. There are many campaigns that fight this kind of prejudice that healthy people have against people with mental illnesses. On the other...