The School of Life

We're usually taught that being loyal to people through difficulty is always the right way. But in fact, at points, a good life requires us to do something that may feel highly strange, but also highly liberating: give up on one or two people, with whom we have already tried too hard for our own good.

Uploaded 30-10-19

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“For noble and very understandable reasons, we’ve come to associate maturity and kindness with a capacity not to give up on people. Our heroes and heroines keep faith with those they love. They don’t throw in the towel when trouble rears its head. They put up with the hardships and friction. Running away is disloyalty. Many things are dispensable: people shouldn’t be…”

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Produced in collaboration with:

Creative seed
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This is a film about being stuck in a relationship - neither happily being able to stay nor freely being able to move on. Why do we find it so hard to move forward? Where does the feeling of being stuck come from, and what might we do to overcome it?

Uploaded 06-11-19

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“This is for those among us who are, secretly, very stuck – that is, who are entirely committed to staying, wholly tempted to leave – and entirely unable to resolve their dilemma one way or the other. We, the stuck ones, alternate between periods in which we manage to convince ourselves that it might after all be bearable and recurring crises when we acknowledge that we are – by remaining – well on the way to ruining the one life we will ever be granted. Torn between intense shame and untenable claustrophobia, weak in the face of our conundrum, we may start to fantasise that someone or something else – a parent, the government, a war, an illness, a divine command – might magically resolve the problem for us; like desperate children, we hope against hope that something might just show up...”

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Produced in collaboration with:

Gemma Green-Hope
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Knowing how emotionally mature someone is can be the most important thing to know about them; but this knowledge may take (painful) years to acquire. This is why we've devised a very quick and very reliable test that can - in a few minutes - help us to ascertain our own and other people's level of emotional maturity. It all has to do with how one responds to vulnerability.

Uploaded 13-11-19

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“One of the more puzzling aspects of the way we’re built is that our emotional development does not necessarily or automatically keep pace with our physical growth. We can be fifty-five on the outside and four and a half in terms of our impulses and habitual manner of communicating – just as we can be on the threshold of adulthood physically while an emotional sage within.
In order to assess our own and others’ emotional development, we can make use of a single deceptively simple question that quickly gets to the core of our underlying emotional ‘age’.
When someone on whom we depend emotionally lets us down, disappoints us, or leaves us hanging and uncertain, what is our characteristic way of responding?...”

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Produced in collaboration with:

Elaine Song
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The problem with anxious moods is that they often hide from us what it is we're actually concerned about. It feels like we're worrying about this or that, when in reality, the origin of our anxiety actually lies elsewhere. Here is a wonderfully simple tool to learn what is really on our mind - in order that we can start to address it and be liberated from it.

Uploaded 20-11-19

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“One of the most difficult features of anxiety is that it tends to be all-consuming. It squats in the middle of our minds and refuses to let anything else in or through. Though the anxiety causes us great pain, it denies any attempts to be questioned, analysed, probed or reconfigured. We are both terrified and unable to think beyond our terror. Our thoughts become low, relentless, repetitive, stymied things: returning again and again to the issue of whether the door is locked, the accounts were signed off or the social media account is not under attack. Anxiety dominates over and excludes any other form of mental activity; all that will be in our minds is terror. Impregnable and bullying, anxiety in effect shuts down our central faculties…”

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Many of us are walking around with an enormous secret burden: we deeply hate ourselves. That makes us very suspicious of anyone who likes us - and prone to staying in unfortunate romantic and professional situations that offer us far less than we deserve. We need to learn the art of becoming a better friend to ourselves.

Uploaded 27-11-19

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“There is one particularly salient question we should ask in order to measure our levels of emotional well-being: do you broadly feel that you have the right to exist and are, on balance, a good enough human being? Or, whatever your outward circumstances and achievements, do you generally feel you are a piece of excrement, who has only got through life by deluding others (who would quickly abandon you if they knew even a fraction of the truth about you) and, because you are a liar, are only ever one or two steps away from deserved humiliation and catastrophe?...”

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Noelle Smith Design
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We're often in a position of deeply hoping that someone on whom we depend might change: become (perhaps) less defensive or less angry, kinder or more thoughtful... A lot of our energy can be spent trying to prompt them to evolve. But can people in fact ever change? And how come we've ended up in a position of wanting them to change so badly?

Uploaded 04-12-19

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“‘Can people change?’ The question may sound somewhat abstract and disinterested, as if one were asking for a friend or for the universe, but it is likely to be a good deal more personally – and painfully – motivated than that.

We ask, typically and acutely, when we’re in a relationship with someone who is inflicting a great deal of pain on us: someone who is refusing to open their hearts or can never stop lying, someone who is aggressive or detached, someone who is harming themselves or managing to devastate us. We ask too because the one immediately obvious response to frustration isn’t in this case open to us: we’re not able to simply get up and go, we are too emotionally or practically invested to give up, something roots us to the spot. And so, with the example of one troublesome human in mind, we start to wonder outwards about human nature in general, what it might be made of and how malleable it could turn out to be...”

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Deanca Rensyta Mihardja
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Dating is always a slightly daunting process, involving the need to gather our courage to reveal that we like someone - and that they may not like us... But we're not all the same in our levels of anxiety around the dating game. For some of us, dating is especially arduous for one particular reason that we may not have considered in enough depth: our childhoods...

Uploaded 11-12-19

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“In the course of any adult life, there will be periods when we’ll end up involved in that slightly odd, slightly unrepresentative and invariably slightly challenging activity: looking. Most people around us won’t be any the wiser, but with greater or lesser subtlety, we will be scanning: suggesting coffees and lunches, accepting every invitation, giving out our email addresses and thinking with unusual care about where to sit on train journeys. Sometimes the rigmarole will be joyful; at times, a bore. But for a portion of us, as many as one in four, it will count as one of the hardest things we ever have to do. Fun won’t remotely come into it. This will be closer to trauma. And it will be so for a reason that can feel more humiliating still: because, a long time ago now, we had a very bad childhood – one whose impact and legacy we still haven’t yet wholly mastered.

It may not look like it, but babies are also looking out for love. They’re not going out in party smocks or slipping strangers’ their phone numbers. They are lying more or less immobile in cribs and are capable of little besides the occasional devastating cute smile. But they too are looking out for someone’s arms to feel safe in; for someone who can soothe them, someone who can stroke their head, tell them it will all be OK when things feel desperate and lend them a breast to suck on. They are looking – as the psychologists call it – to get attached…”

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Natalia Biegaj
https://www.nb-animation.com/

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Vale Productions
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People tend to assume that if they're going to be in a relationship, it has to be a monogamous, long-term kind. Though that might have been true in many places for many years, there are an array of other options to consider.

Uploaded 18-12-19

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“To a greater extent than we perhaps realise, when it comes to what sort of relationships we are allowed to have, our societies present us with a menu with only a single option on it: The Monogamous, Cohabiting Romantic Relationship, usually served with a Side Order of Children.

To be considered remotely normal, we are meant to develop overwhelming emotional and sexual feelings for one very special person, who will then become a combination of our best friend, sole sexual partner, co-parent, business associate, therapist, travel companion, property co-manager, kindergarten teacher and soulmate – and with whom we will live exclusively in one house, in one bed, for many decades, in substantial harmony and with an active tolerance for each other’s foibles and ongoing desire for their evolving appearance, till death do us part…”

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David Crisp
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The reason we may feel more anxious than we should lies in an unusual place: Self-hatred. If we think of ourselves as 'bad', then surely bad things must happen to bad people. One of the ways of calming down is to learn to unpack the origins of our self-suspicion and lay the ground for a more self-loving and compassionate future.

Uploaded 25-12-19

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"The temptation, with dealing with anxiety, is always and invariably to focus on the ostensible cause of our worry: the journey to the airport, the forthcoming speech, the letter one is waiting for, the presentation one has to hand in… But if we proceed more psychologically, we might begin in a different place. With great kindness and no disrespect, we may step past the objective content of anxiety and look instead at something else: how the anxious person feels about themselves…"

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We often make some very peculiar and regrettable choices on the basis of a hidden and unmentioned fear: that of being alone. But once we realise that there isn't, in fact, anything to fear about being on our own, we'll be liberated to make some far healthier decisions.

Uploaded 01-01-20

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“It’s not hard to understand the fear of being alone: the empty apartment after work, the eerieness of Sunday afternoons, the sense of exclusion during the holidays… We know the agonies of being on our own very well.

What is far less well understood, and less eloquently or frequently described, is the enormously high price exacted on the other side of the equation. The fear, or more often simply the phobia, of being alone is perhaps responsible for more unhappy relationships, more throttling of psychological development, more claustrophobia and more pent up misery than almost any other: it is – by any reckoning – one of the single greatest contributors to human misery and the driver of some of our weightiest and most unfortunate decisions. If only we were able to get the costs of what is for the most part a simple misapprehension clear in our minds, we might save ourselves a substantial portion of our lives…”

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Natalia Ramos
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For too long, some of us are silent, afraid of voicing what we really want and telling others the important things that they need to hear. It isn't a good policy and with great care and compassion for ourselves, we deserve slowly to learn to discover our own voice.

Uploaded 08-01-20

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“Despite a lot of encouragement, despite political freedoms and psychological exhortations, we suffer, still, most of us, in silence. We don’t say quite say – until it is way too late – what is wrong, what we want, how we are angry, what we’re ashamed of and the way we would like things to be…”

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Peter Caires
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We're often held back by a crippling fear that we can't possibly do certain things because other people will judge us. But for those of us hemmed in by self-consciousness of this kind, there is very good news on the horizon. Amazingly, partly depressingly and partly redemptively, in reality, no one much cares...

Uploaded 15-01-20

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“We tend to begin our lives with a deeply unrepresentative experience: that of being surrounded by people who care to an extraordinary extent about us. We look up from the dreams and confusions of early infancy and may find a smiling face or two observing us with the utmost tenderness and concern. They watch us as a rivulet of saliva leaks slowly from the corner of our mouth and rush to wipe it away as if dabbing at a precious canvas, then indulgently stroke the fine soft hairs on our delicate scalps. They declare us close to supernatural when, at last, we succeed in pulling our first smile. The applause rings for days when we take our initial steps, giggle, totter, fall, and bravely try to resume our progress. There is astonishment and beatific praise when we arduously manage to form the letters of our own name. Throughout the early years, the big people intelligently coax us into eating broccoli or peas; they make sure we put on our rubber boots when it’s raining; they dance around with us to our favourite songs, they tuck us up and sing to us when we’re feeling sad or unwell. When we’re anxious, they try very sensitively to find out what might be the matter…”

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Deanca Rensyta Mihardja
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We often imagine that the best way to endear ourselves to others is never to bother to them - and always to fit in with their plans. But that's to miss out on a great yet hidden truth of social life: in certain circumstances, people quite like to be asked for help; friendship builds when we can make ourselves vulnerable enough to show our need.

Uploaded 22-01-20

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“We tend to operate with the view that the best way to please people is not to bother them too much. We keep many of our dilemmas and confusions away from those we like, for fear of irritating or inconveniencing them and so spoiling the relationship. We may well have a voice echoing in our minds from childhood: ‘Don’t bother your mother, can’t you see she’s exhausted from her trip? Don’t bother your father, he works hard for us and he’s busy right now…’ There are powerful reasons why we equate making others happy with burdening them as little as possible.

But our analysis is missing a key detail of human psychology: we like to be bothered. Not at all time and over all things, nor at the expense of our own critical needs, but fundamentally, we have a powerful urge to feel helpful. We need to be needed. All of us suffer from a fear of superfluity, which the requirements of others has a critical capacity to appease. However nice presents may be for our friends, the real gift we can offer them is an insight into our problems…”

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Tracy Foster
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There's nothing more common and yet more peculiar than our habit, in certain moods, of feeling nostalgic for lovers whom we spent a good deal of time trying to escape from. What is this feeling and can it be trusted?

Uploaded 29-01-20

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“After considerable agony, we’ve left a relationship. We’re on our own now – and, when we can bear to be honest, it’s a little harder than we expected. We aren’t going on many dates; the central heating broke down last week; the shopping is proving a hurdle. In idle moments, we find ourselves daydreaming, returning fondly to certain occasions in the concluded relationship. There was that wintry weekend by the sea: they looked adorable walking on the beach in their thick scarf. We fed the seagulls and drank cheap white wine from paper cups on the seafront and felt connected and happy. Then there was a moment on honeymoon, when we discovered the little Vietnamese restaurant hidden away in a side street in Paris and became friends with the owner and her husband. Or we recall how, at a large party, we both realised we didn’t particularly like the other guests – it was a special, conspiratorial moment: the two of us, shoulder to shoulder, talking over just what was wrong with everyone else. We’re newly conscious of the charm of so many things that seemed ordinary at the time – coming out of the supermarket, putting everything away in the fridge and the cupboards; making soup and toasted cheese and watching television on the sofa…”

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Our schools teach us about trigonometry, the 100 years war and the properties of atoms - but they too often forget to address the one topic we really need to understand in order to make sense of our lives: ourselves.

Uploaded 05-02-20

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"There is perhaps no greater priority in childhood than to acquire an education: it’s in the early years that we have to push ourselves with special vigour to learn the lessons, and acquire the experience, that will help us successfully manoeuvre around the pitfalls of adult life. By studying hard and intelligently, we’ll have the best chance of avoiding a middle-age of confusion and resignation, regret and sorrow. The clue to a successful adult life – we’re repeatedly told – lies in childhood education…"

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Produced in collaboration with:

Gabriella Marsh
https://www.gabriellamarsh.com/About

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The clothes we choose to wear constitute some of our most crucial and carefully chosen lines of autobiography.

Uploaded 29-03-17

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"Once, we were all dressed by someone else. Parents picked out a T-shirt; the school dictated what colour our trousers should be. But at some point, we were granted the opportunity to discover who we might be in the world of clothes. We had to decide for ourselves about collars and necklines, fit, colours, patterns, textures and what goes (or doesn’t) with what. We learnt to speak about ourselves in the language of garments. Despite the potential silliness and exaggeration of sections of the fashion industry, assembling a wardrobe is a serious and meaningful exercise."

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Gemma Rose Green-Hope
http://www.gemmagreenhope.com/ #TheSchoolOfLife

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Emotional Intelligence, Daily. Start now: https://www.theschooloflife.com/subscription/ Why do we overlook the very people who treat us best? This film explores our tragic tendency to choose drama over peace and "complicated" types over kindness. Learn why we are magnetically drawn to pain, how to break toxic relationship patterns, and why valuing reliability and niceness is the ultimate sign of emotional maturity. #NicePeople #Kindness #Relationships Unlock all the content of The School of Life with a subscription to our podcast, articles, videos, and exercises, specially tailored to your needs. Get weekly insights for better relationships, deeper self-knowledge, and inner calm straight to your inbox. Sign up for more ideas, plus 10% off your first shop order: https://www.theschooloflife.com/signup/ You can read more on this and other subjects in our articles, here: https://www.theschooloflife.com/article/in-praise-of-nice-people/ “We sometimes hear reminders: appreciate the good people. The people who are kind to you, who message you regularly, who ask how you are, who support your ambitions, who want the best for you. The ones who are thoughtful and don’t flare up - and will write sweetly to you hoping you have a good night. The advice can sound remote, mechanical, sentimental. We suspect: surely there must be something wrong with these ‘good people’ if we need reminders to appreciate them. Surely truly good people, people we should really bother with, assert their value without any need for artificial prompts…” OUR COLLECTIONS https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLwxNMb28XmpcEwc0qydf2jSszQFSht81E https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLwxNMb28XmpckOvZZ_AZjD7WM2p9-6NBv https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLwxNMb28XmpeUL1vz9Su7OmeghBDgmj7X https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLwxNMb28XmpeypJMHfNbJ4RAFkRtmAN3P https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLwxNMb28XmpcpxBm1RoGRx4mVKNRIrKkG https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLwxNMb28Xmpcp7jXVszdNruKUtHZ2zuZb https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLwxNMb28Xmpfv2COuuJaKzy6E2n8nSMdi https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLwxNMb28Xmpc1qCJ6RYYh4rKNOOlKtFIK SOCIAL MEDIA Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theschooloflifelondon/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-school-of-life/ TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@theschooloflife?lang=en CREDITS Produced in collaboration with: Léon Moh-Cah https://leonmohcah.com/ Title animation produced in collaboration with Graeme Probert www.gpmotion.co.uk

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We often believe that the very worst and most immature thing to do might be to cry about our sorrows. In fact, the ability to go off for a while and have a very intense cry about how awful everything is is in fact a crucial bit of wisdom - and a very adult move as well. Being a crybaby isn't just something children should be afraid of being called, it's something every adult should be proud to remember about themselves.

Uploaded 20-05-20

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“One of the wisest things about young children is that they have no shame or compunction whatsoever about bursting into tears, perhaps because they have a more accurate and less pride-filled sense of their place in the world: they know they are extremely small beings in a hostile and unpredictable realm, that they can’t control much of what is happening around them, that their powers of understanding are limited and that there is a great deal to feel distressed, melancholy and confused about. Why not then, on a fairly regular basis, sometimes for only a few moments at a time, collapse into some highly salutary sobs at the sheer scale of the sorrow of being alive?...”

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Gabriella Marsh
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Title animation produced in collaboration with

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We often think that the best way to have friends is to be deeply impressive and accomplished. In fact, the route to true friendship always flows through vulnerability. Enjoying our Youtube videos? Get full access to all our audio content, videos, and thousands of thought-provoking articles, conversation cards and more with The School of Life Subscription: https://t.ly/Mv_Z8 Be more mindful, present and inspired. Get the best of The School of Life delivered straight to your inbox: https://t.ly/Z_qlW SOCIAL MEDIA Feel free to follow us at the links below: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/theschooloflifelondon/ X: https://twitter.com/TheSchoolOfLife Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theschooloflifelondon/ CREDITS Brought to you by http://www.theschooloflife.com Produced in collaboration with Daniela Scherer http://www.danielasherer.com/ #TheSchoolOfLife

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