On Being Nice (The School of Life Library)

Most people – maybe more than you think – are peace- and love-seeking creatures who are sometimes caught in bad situations. The most practical thing you can do, even in hard times, is to lead with curiosity, lead with respect, work hard to understand the people you might be taught to detest.

“That means seeing people with generous eyes, offering tr... See more

It’s very touching that we live in a world where we have learned to be so kind to children; it would be even nicer if we learned to be a little more generous towards the childlike parts of one another. It sounds strange at first – and even condescending or despairing – to keep in mind that in crucial ways one’s partner always remains a child. On th

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if we employed the infant model of interpretation, our first assumption would be quite different: maybe they didn’t sleep well last night and are too exhausted to think straight; maybe they’ve got a sore knee; maybe they are doing the equivalent of testing the boundaries of parental tolerance. Seen from such a point of view, the lover’s adult behav

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