time.com

Why is it that some people can toss the newspaper in the recycling bin after reading it without giving the act a second thought while others can’t bear to part with yesterday’s news, letting a mountain of paper crowd their homes?

What makes a good mother? Probably the very qualities that also make a good person: compassion, kindness, intelligence, loyalty and strength — a sense of humour surely helps, too.

If you had good parents, or even one great parent, count your blessings. Not only did they teach you the meaning of the word love (a definition that you take out into the world with you and hopefully recreate) through their actions and behaviours, but the loving environment they created also encouraged proper brain development.

You’re lying in bed — too hot to sleep, too hot for blankets, so hot even the top sheet on your bed feels like a flannel blanket against your boiling skin. Ah, the sorrows of a summer heat wave and its far-too familiar nocturnal ritual of discomfort and bouts of irrational rage.

A few weeks ago a friend who is expecting his first child with his wife confided his worry about whether or not their soon-to-be-born child would inherit his sibling’s chronic debilitating depression.