u/Non-Conventionnel-77

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What does it mean to be honest with ourselves?

One general answer is this: matching up what we’re telling ourselves with what we do. That’s a good starting definition, but self-honesty is more multifaceted than that.

Understanding Self-Honesty

To begin, we must recognize the different categories of self-knowledge that contribute to our overall experience of self. We define ourselves through our bodily capabilities (physical self), our memories (remembered self), our thoughts (private self), our relationships with other people (interpersonal self), and our self-concepts (conceptual self).

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Regularly feeling awe — becoming absorbed in something vast that takes us beyond ourselves — seems to be one of the best things we can do for ourselves and the world. Psychological research over the past few decades shows how awe promotes health and well-being, connects us with others, and even encourages us to take care of our natural environments.

When we think of what makes us feel awe, many of us tend to think of nature, which definitely is a powerful source of awe. More recently, though, scientists have turned their attention to other ways to feel awe, such as certain interior spaces.

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Do you prefer music written in a major or a minor key? It turns out this preference might just depend on your personality. So, let’s start at the beginning and look at what personality is.

Defining Personality

The APA defines personality as “the enduring configuration of characteristics and behavior that comprises an individual’s unique adjustment to life, including major traits, interests, drives, values, self-concept, abilities, and emotional patterns.” (American Psychological Association, 2018). We can see personality in any number of things we do, from whether or not we like spicy food to the characteristics we seek in a partner, and even a preference for music in a particular key.

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In 1924, the psychologist John Watson made a famous offer. Give me a dozen healthy infants, he wrote, and I will train any one of them to become any specialist I choose—doctor, lawyer, artist, even thief—regardless of talent or ancestry (Watson, 1924). It was the boldest version of one old answer: a human being is raw material, and culture does the shaping.

The opposite answer is just as old. Hobbes (1651) described people in their natural state as selfish and dangerous, like wolves to one another. And the impulse survives in modern dress, in headlines that promise a “gene for” intelligence, faith, or crime. Between Watson’s blank slate and the gene-for-everything story sits a question argued about since antiquity: Is there such a thing as human nature, or are we whatever our circumstances make of us?

Banjo and Jaw Harp with ‪@therealauracle‬

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Sniffing and burrowing his way through the rubble of Venezuela’s devastating earthquakes, Tsunami the mixed-breed border collie was out on one last job before retirement.

Recognizable by his heterochromia – with one eye brown and the other blue – he has helped locate several people trapped beneath the debris over the past 10 days.

“Our four-legged rescuer managed to save 25 people from the rubble of buildings that collapsed in the earthquakes,” Venezuela’s government said Thursday.

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Whether it's a birthday, mid-year or a Monday morning, psychologists say that these "fresh start" moments can make us more motivated to change our behaviour and more likely to pursue our goals.

I started the year with good intentions to do more strength training and work on a new book proposal, but other commitments quickly got in the way. 

As I'm entering the second half of the year it feels especially challenging to motivate myself to think about achieving these goals. Life is busy and starting one thing usually means having to give up something else.

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The US oil billionaire's 16th-Century English mansion was home to a stunning art collection and a lion named Nero. In 1963, the BBC visited him there to discuss his "great success".

In July 1960, J Paul Getty hosted a £10,000 (£300,000 or $400,000 today) house-warming party at Sutton Place, the 16th-Century Tudor mansion in Surrey he'd bought a year earlier. More than 2,000 socialites, aristocrats and celebrities attended, and the event made headlines when a pushy press photographer was thrown into the swimming pool. 

Afraid of flying or travelling by ocean liner, the US oil tycoon was to live there until his death in 1976 at the age of 83, installing coin-operated payphones for his house guests to prevent them from running up high long-distance bills. In 1963, the BBC's Alan Whicker interviewed Getty, who was famously elusive, in the manor house that had been Henry VIII's summer residence.

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The term "maxxing" is being used on social media, well, to the max. You've got terms like "fibermaxxing", "looksmaxxing", and even "climaxxing" encouraging everyone to maximize something—hence the suffix "maxxing." Well, now "solo-maxxing" is trending, especially among Gen Zers and Millennials. And there's more than a single reason why.

Solo-maxxing is about choosing to be single. It reframes singlehood as something desirable rather than an oh-I'm-sorry-that-you-can't-find-anyone-yet holding pattern. Posts on TikTok, Instagram, and other social media platforms tag "solo-maxxing" to tout the benefits of not only being single but staying single.