2019 Year in Review: Growth versus Goals

The end of the year is usually a time for reflection, gratitude, and planning. With our inboxes quiet and our schedules free of meetings, we can afford to take a moment and think about what we achieved and what’s next. It’s my second year writing an annual review, and I want to make it more … Read More

Noterday: letting go of yesterday

“If your yesterday was much better than your today, then today you will most probably walk around in your yesterday.” Mehmet Murat ildan, Turkish playwright and novelist. I love playing with words. They’re living vessels of what it means to be human. Some words feel so natural we never stop to question their meaning. Take … Read More

Untranslatable words and your well-being

Sometimes, things get lost in translation. If you’ve seen the beautiful 2003 eponymous movie, you’ll know how powerful culture shock can be. It’s one of my favourite films, which is why my colleagues—when I was an intern at Google—gifted me a voucher to spend an evening at the Park Hyatt Tokyo’s cocktail bar, admire the … Read More

The psychology of gift giving

The holiday season is around the corner. For most of us, it means we need to get gifts for our loved ones—our family, our friends, maybe even for people we don’t know all that well, such as clients and coworkers. The holiday season is notoriously stressful. Surveys show that nearly 7 people out of 10 … Read More

An introduction to metamodernism: the cultural philosophy of the digital age

The term metamodernism was coined in 1975 by Mas’ud Zavarzade, a writer and researcher, to describe an emerging cultural trend in American literature. Since then, the term has become popular and is frequently discussed in every corner of the Internet. If you are active on Twitter, blogging, using filters and stickers to edit photos before … Read More

How to read a book

When I was a kid, my parents struggled to understand why I always looked so tired. We had a curfew and were usually pretty quiet after bedtime. What was happening? Well, I was reading. Sometimes until dawn. Treasure Island, The Lord of the Rings, His Dark Materials, Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, The Count … Read More