Parents asking for their children to raise them is, sadly, not a new phenomenon

I was the youngest of five children, the only girl. My siblings were a good deal older than me, the next youngest being almost a decade older. My parents divorced when I was 8 years old and there were all sorts of splits in family loyalty, grudges, and in-fighting that followed.

But I was just a child and I loved all of them, so I was neutral territory. As such, I became the go-between. Everyone depended on me to keep the family emotionally balanced whenever they had to meet. …

Even when you work from home, toxicity can creep in and erode your confidence and self-worth.

“Maybe you just can’t cut it.”

For a long time there’s been a cultural idea about high-pressure jobs that sends a clear message: if you can’t handle it, you’re just not tough enough. You have to pay your dues by being mistreated or even hazed by your coworkers or boss. Eventually, they might start giving you the basic respect you need to be an effective member of the team if you can survive all the abuse.

Or maybe, you’ll stay the office punching bag for the duration of your employment.

Either way, the idea of workplace abuse is relatively new and it’s not limited to your boss getting handsy with you in the supply closet. Workplace abuse is any situation where your coworkers or boss harass, belittle, or sabotage you. These situations can be driven by bigotry, jealousy, or plain pettiness. They may even be engineered to push you into quitting. Not every challenging workplace is abusive, but they might be more common than you think. …

It’s a show that celebrates the little things and finds the best in people.

Lee Hyori was a major pop star at the beginning of the early 2000s girl group wave. But she grew up, went solo, and married another musician. This unscripted series follows Hyori and her husband, Sang Soon, as they turn their Jeju island home into a B and B.

Even if you know nothing about Hyori or Korea, the show is a delight. Unlike the reality series you may be used to from the English speaking world, it doesn’t strive to stir up conflict. It meditates instead, on the little nothings of daily life and feels very intimate.

Guests aren’t chosen because of the strife they’ll bring, but rather as a cross-section of average Korean people. The show captures the phenomenon that often really happens while you’re traveling. …

It’s travel for the grumpy and unimpressed.

Some people aren’t naturally adventurous. They’re homebodies who like the creature comforts they’re used to. But that doesn’t mean they can’t get out and expand their horizons. For those who are not sure they could find the back door into Europe and aren’t comfortable showing up somewhere without a reservation, Travel Man offers a refreshingly quirky and different sort of travel show.

Richard Ayoade (best known to many for his role as Moss on The I.T. Crowd) hosts the series and takes on the character of a reluctant traveler. He casts himself as the stereotypical British grump; a little uptight, a lot snarky. In each episode, he shuttles around a different celebrity co-host. From slightly smaller names like Roisin Conaty and Rob Beckett to big international stars like Paul Rudd and Rebel Wilson, Ayoade takes these stars to an international city for 48 hours. …

Life is no longer something enjoy, but something to endure.

I used to be brave. At 22 I packed a suitcase and moved to another continent. I traveled solo, I stayed out late, I couch-surfed through Europe and I recklessly fell in love several times. Life was a dynamic adventure.

Now I’m on the cusp of 30 and my life has changed. By most measuring sticks, I seem like my life is coming together. I’m married and we bought a house last year. I’m finally getting paid to do what I’ve wanted to do for most of my life. But something has changed.

Like many people who have achieved some semblance of adult “success,” I’m deeply stressed out. I’m in debt and don’t always take good care of myself. Whenever I talk to friends of a similar age, they seem to be in comparable situations, or they’ve avoided some of the economic stress by living with their parents, which brings its own challenges. …

While it’s certainly not deserved by every ESL teacher, being a foreign teacher in Korea doesn’t always elicit much respect.

At the fore, I want to say that I’ve met and worked with some great educators in Korea. Even in a hagwon setting, there are teachers who are smart and interesting people who really care about their students and teach them well. And while there’s been a surge of English teachers in the country in the last 20 or so years, they don’t make up the whole of the foreign community, though they are a significant percentage of the westerners living in Korea. …

The relationship between people and their clothing has fundamentally changed and not for the better

Modern fashion is all about you and your body. This explains why nearly every magazine has a rotating list of diets, exercises, and aesthetic procedures in their headlines each month. When fashion changes, we don’t just change our clothing. We have to change our bodies.

Plastic surgery has increased 471% since 1997 but many celebrities and public figures support the illusion that their on-trend figures are all-natural and achieved through healthy means. …

But that doesn’t mean I can’t be a more conscientious consumer.

Stark white rooms with a small, finely curated collection of useful and beautiful objects. A single plant in an artisanal pot. Metal, stone, and wood. Instagram lives for these interiors.

Minimalism is often seen as the way forward in our consumer-driven society and in some ways, I can’t fault the logic. Most people in highly industrialized countries simply buy too much. We update our wardrobes with cheap, fast-fashion every year. We have plastic knick-knacks that only come out for certain seasons or holidays, but otherwise gather dust. Garages and attics are loaded with stuff.

We need to focus more on living our lives rather than buying things. But the fetishization of minimalism is misleading. It implies that for your life to be full, your house must be empty. It also has overtones of elitism by assuming that everyone has the financial stability to invest in a curated collection of high-quality items. It assumes you have access to the facilities to frequently wash your five designer outfits. …