Author Writes a Break-Up Letter to His "Fear of What Others Think"

Dear Fear-Of-What-Others-Think:

I am sick of you, and it's time we broke up. I know we've broken up and gotten back together many times, but seriously, ...

Parents Who Worry Too Much About Their Kids Self-Esteem

In an article in The Atlantic titled "How the Cult of Self-Esteem Is Ruining Our Kids," therapist Lori Gottlieb observes a growing trend: parents ...

Columnist David Brooks Reflects on Overconfidence

"We're an overconfident species," contends New York Times columnist David Brooks. Brooks calls it a "magnification of the self," ...

Online Confessions Reveal Struggles with Body Image

Author Diana Spechler launched a website that gives people the chance to anonymously confess their true feelings about their bodies. So far, thousands ...

How Aging Became a "Disease"—and a Huge Business

Trying to look younger and prevent aging has become an $511 billion a year business [as of 2022]. According to a book by Arlene Weintraub titled Selling ...

Research Shows We Inflate Our Good Qualities

Here's some good news: if you're like most people, you're way above average—at almost everything. Psychologists call this the state ...

The Danger of Self-hatred

In his book All Over but the Shoutin,' Rick Bragg shares a brief story about a bird to show just how devastating self-hatred can be. He writes:

Once ...

Little Boy Insists He Met President Lincoln

George Patten was an 8-year-old kid who told his friends he had shaken the hand of the new president. "Did not," they probably jeered. "Did ...

Woman Decides to "Live Otherwise" and Finds Healing

Muriel's childhood crippled her emotionally. She began visits to the hospital's psychiatric ward when she was in her teens. By her late forties, ...

A Lesson from the Life of the "Tone-Deaf Diva"

Florence Foster Jenkins, a soprano, loved to sing—especially the great operatic classics. She inherited money when she was in her 50s, which funded ...