Yufa

This is the paradox of transformative experience: Because our imagination is bounded by our existing templates of how the world as we know it works, we fail to anticipate the greatest transformations—the events and encounters so unmoored from the familiar that they transfigure our map of reality and propel us into a wholly novel mode of being.

Social supportReligionHumourSubstance usePlanningBehavioural disengagementVenting of emotionsAcceptanceDenialRestraintFocus on solving situationsPersonal growthPositive reinterpretationDistracting activitiesCognitive avoidance

Unlike the prose of letters, pinned to the physical and emotional reality of the present, in poetry the imagination is allowed to travel between fact and fantasy, to traverse present, past, and future, so that the reader, and perhaps even the writer, is never quite sure—nor need ever ask—to what extent the images evoked correspond to the... See more

Pulsating through them are a handful of common themes — the elementary particles of which any creative life, any life of passion and purpose, any fully human life is built — none looming larger than the relationship between vulnerability and belonging, which constellates our entire cosmos of being: what we make, how we love, why we long for the... See more

The under-challenged worker. You can see this type of burnout as the opposite of the first one. You feel like your work doesn’t offer you opportunities to develop your abilities: “The under-challenged type has to cope with monotonous and unstimulating conditions that fail to provide satisfaction and feels indifference, boredom and lack of personal... See more

There is often a desire to escape oneself in love. It’s not so much that one wants to be welcomed by another person. It’s that one wants to forget oneself and immerse in the perfection of another…

“The notion that I should be fine with the status quo even if I am not wholly affected by the status quo is repulsive.”