Waiting is so unusual that many of us can't stand in a queue for 30 seconds without getting out our phones to check for messages or to Google something.

Progress is more of a challenge for the cynic but also more important and urgent, since for the optimist things aren't that bad and are bound to get better anyway.

Constructive complaint requires only two things: that what you are complaining about should be different, and that it can be different. It sounds simple, but too often our protests fail this test.

As a teenager, I increasingly had questions about religion to which I found no good answers.

Many people are never happier than when they get the opportunity to complain, while others are deeply unhappy with how things are but just accept the fact. Complaint occurs when we refuse to accept that things are wrong and we do something about it, even if that something is simply articulating our unease.

I think that internet technologies are making everything so transparent. The arms race of deception and spin against the public trying to keep up with it - I think the forces of spin have to lose. In the corporate world people are finding this. Corporate social responsibility has been on the agenda for a very long time - and a lot of people say it's a kind of green-wash or white-wash - but because there's nowhere to hide anymore, people are coming around to the realization that the only way to be seen to be good is to be good. You can't fake it.

"That which does not kill me makes me stronger" is not a law of the universe. What it can be, if we so choose, is a resolution.