When faced with the distress of others, we tend to assume a calming role. Commonly, this happens when we talk to a friend who is facing difficulty. We see their concern, acknowledge their view of events, but calmly present a different, less worrisome view. Were we to be facing a similar difficulty, a friend would be likely to do the same. She would

Selective perception. This is confirmation bias at work. We commonly pay attention to the things that confirm our pre-existing beliefs. If we are already convinced that a person is being unsupportive towards us, we will pay attention to any behaviour they exhibit which seems to confirm that.

In other words, we feel very differently about pain that has happened in the past and pain that is yet to come. Pain we prefer to be behind us, and positive experiences in our future. We have a certain ‘future bias’ that means we care more about what’s yet to happen. An abyss of nothingness ahead of us, then, is not the same to us as one that’s

William B. Irvine, a philosophy professor at Dallas University, is the author of On Desire: Why We Want What We Want. Upon exploring the subject for this book, he found himself particularly drawn to the teachings of the Stoics and decided to become one.

Epicurus, the founder of the first school (which bears his name), was a very early atomist, with no time for mysticism. He controversially believed that everything was made up of tiny particles flying invisibly through space. Happiness, he said, was a question of tranquillity, and good and evil were no more than a matter of pleasure and pain; to

In the year of Christ 1571, at the age of thirty-eight, on the last day of February, his birthday, Michel de Montaigne, long weary of the servitude of the court and of public employments, while still entire, retired to the bosom of the learned virgins, where in calm and freedom from all cares he will spend what little remains of his life, now more

It’s important to recognise that we have a relationship with our money. This notion is very well explored in a little book called How to Worry Less about Money by the British philosopher John Armstrong. Simply having money is not good enough, in the same way that simply having a partner is not enough for a good relationship. The vital matter with

Humans can know themselves. We can use our reason to examine our unconscious beliefs and values. 2. Humans can change themselves. We can use our reason to change our beliefs. This will change our emotions, because our emotions follow our beliefs. 3. Humans can consciously create new habits of thinking, feeling and acting. 4. If we follow philosophy

The point of this is not to blame ourselves. It is to begin to dissolve unwanted frustrations and anxieties in our lives. Once we stop blaming the world for our problems, we can achieve some control.