Find the beliefs that are strangling your feelings, challenge them for your sake as well as theirs, and see how it feels to love someone without a thought about the future, simply for who they are today.

Throughout history, independent minds have carried mankind forward. Whether they identified how to make fire or manufacture tools, develop rational philosophy or create man-glorifying art, pioneer scientific knowledge or invent the electric light, independent thinkers have created the goods on which human life and prosperity depend.

You might think that shifting your thoughts is as easy as setting your mind to it. But stressful thoughts aren't held in place through choice or will power. They're held in place through perceived truth value.

The more you worry, the more you throw off the delicate balance of hormones required for health.

Negative thoughts stick around because we believe them, not because we want them or choose them.

Even in this secular country, the threat posed by religious fundamentalists is never very far away. Every major religious text exhorts the same principles - that of unyielding obedience to a supernatural being, and renunciation of the intellect and personal aspirations.

Stress is the negative whirlwind of emotions that gets imposed on top of our stimulation and engagement.