At her 13th birthday party, Rebecca Black hired a production company to create a music video for fun. Fast forward ten years, and it’s known as “the most hated music video ever made.” In the weeks that followed the release, Black received millions of insults, death threats, and personal attacks; and her video accumulated 3.8 million dislikes, to its 1.2 million likes.

Chances are your work won’t be controversial enough to cause that much of a stir. But being creative means being vulnerable. It involves sharing a part of who you are, your opinions, and ideas. Putting them out in a world where everyone and anyone can judge. …

Human beings are naturally sociable creatures. Relationships, love, and social interaction are at the center of almost everything we do and every choice we have ever made.

At our core, we want to be liked. We strive for an emotional connection. To avoid loneliness and social isolation.

Sadly, external factors often get in the way of our search. The people we find ourselves surrounded by aren’t always well suited to us. In short, they’re not compatible with our personality and don’t make a good candidate for potential friendships. We rarely fit in with the people around us.

In these social circumstances, it’s natural for people to commit to a trait that Psychologists call homophily. To make themselves likable, they set their sights on a group of potential friends (perhaps ones that are “cool,” or “socially popular,”) and then adapt their behavior to make themselves appealing to that group. …

Becoming a freelancer is a bit like riding a bike: once you’ve got the hang of it, you’ll never go back. But, unlike a bike, there’s nobody there to show you what to do, no stabilizers to protect you from failing, and no set way to achieve the right results.

The first hurdle of freelancing is getting started.

The industry has a low barrier of entry. Being a freelancer could mean being a pro who charges $1000 per hour, or it could mean being a complete novice who charges $5 for a day's work — both share the same title.

Until a year ago, I was on the latter form of the spectrum. I spent two years freelance writing on the side of my University studies and learning the ropes. …

We all know someone who is emotionally immature. They don’t know how to listen, they make everything about them, they act like a child. Our natural instinct is to tell these sorts of people to “act their age.” But we might be wrong to do that.

According to clinical Psychologist, Susan Heitler, these people might already be acting their age, counter to what we think. She justifies this claim by making an important distinction between our Physical and Psychological Age.

Our Physical age can be counted by the number of years since our birth — it correlates with height, strength, and cognitive functioning. …

Non-fiction writers carry a purpose and agenda. They will make you aware of their experiences, and their interpretation of them. They want to persuade you of a particular viewpoint, or show you how to live your life.

But in the world of 60 second Tik Tok videos and Twitter’s 280 character limit, consumers are accustomed to getting their information as quickly and concisely as possible. A study by Microsoft Corp indicates that our attention spans are at an all-time low; we lose focus after just 8 seconds.

To retain their audience’s attention while fulfilling their aims, modern-day writers have to get creative. …

Updated January 2021

America is one of the most overworked nations in the world. Unlike 134 other countries, they don’t have laws restricting the hours someone can work in a week. As a result, up to 85.8 percent of US males reportedly work over 40 hours per week. They work 260 hours more than British workers, and 499 more hours than French workers every year.

US workers have some of the worst employee rights of any developed nation:

• There is no federal law requiring sick pay.
• America is the only industrialized country nationwide that lacks legally mandated annual leave.
• The US is one of few developed nations where a worker can be fired at any time, for any reason, without notice. …

Have you ever heard an apparently persuasive and logical argument that comes to an absurd conclusion?

Philosophy is known as a “love of wisdom.” Philosophers study fundamental questions of the universe in an attempt to uncover the truth. In doing so, they appeal to logic, rationality, empirical evidence, and much more. Unfortunately, in their pursuit of knowledge and truth, they often stumble across logical paradoxes that cause more harm than good.

Put simply, a paradox is a seemingly rational argument. It has valid reasoning and logically follows. The claims made all appear true. Because of that, it’s often attributed as a sound argument, and the conclusion is considered true. Unfortunately, despite its logical and sound reasoning, the conclusion of a logical paradox is intuitively false. At times, they contradict what we know from physical experience. …