It ignites like a spark in your brain. It flickers for a moment and then again and again. You try to chase it away, but it won’t go, You tell it to stop existing, yet it says ‘No’. You know it’s easy to get rid of while still small. But it stays in your brain having a ball. Despite all your efforts to extinguish the spark It keeps multiplying like in a village the dogs’ bark. Pretty soon all your brain cells are burning, And your stomach slowly starts turning. You feel a nasty pain in your chest, Your hands tremble and there is no rest. Your new worry soon invites her brothers and...

I am not like many people who forget or do not care in the first place. I care and I remember. There is a huge array of horror stories which accumulated in my brain years ago, when I was still watching the news, reading newspapers, watching tragedy movies and reading all sorts of novels. Nowadays I only watch comedies and do not follow the news on TV or in newspapers. I also put down a book, if it frightens or saddens me too much. The stories from the past are still haunting me. I cannot believe the details I remember from all the stories of child abuse, mafia, incest, sexual slavery, war camps,...

…try try again. Yes, but is it really wise to keep trying in all situations? Not always. I can remember at least one time from my past, when I wish I had not been trying again. I would have saved myself and others a lot of trouble. I will call it the ‘Göttingen experience’. I have been writing about it before, but it keeps coming back in my mind. Apparently I will have to write about it until I really get over it. I was a diligent student of German language and literature in Slovenia, my home country. Naturally, I wanted to spend a semester in a German speaking country, attending classes at a...

Self help is not just about reading books. It is also about becoming fluent. One can read a million books and still not learn anything, for reading a book just once usually does not mean remembering its contents for a longer period of time. So my advice would be: Don’t just read, but become fluent. What do I mean by that? Take a book you like and memorize the wisdom inside. You can write down the crucial sentences and pin them on your bulletin board or a wall. Or you can store the paper cards with wisdom notes in your wallet, where you will look at them often. Self help writer Louise Hay, for...