The memories come to her in fragments. The bed creaking late at night after one of her brothers snuck into her room and pulled her to the edge of her mattress. Her underwear shoved to the side as his body hovered over hers, one of his feet still on the floor.

This is a man who grew into authenticity and is now reaping the reward. He brings to mind the advice of Polonius from Shakespeare’s “Hamlet”: “This above all: to thine own self be true.” Polonius’ words encourage us to live honestly with ourselves. Similarly, Beltran shares a personal lesson with his friends, namely that we cannot lie to ourselves (or others) without negative consequences.

On paper, it looks like Scott Larsen is doing better than his father was at the same age. At 29, Larsen has a college degree and earns more money, but he doesn't feel he's moving up in the world.

The year 2019 saw Bill Gates reclaim his title as the world’s richest person from Jeff Bezos — and come under harsher scrutiny than ever amid a new, powerful backlash against the billionaire class and the economic system that produces extraordinary wealth like his.

Rent control is back in style. Despite real-world failed examples and bipartisan criticism from economists, it’s being revived in places and by people who thrive on emotion-based politics. New York, California and Oregon have all passed recent bills imposing some variation of rent control on housing statewide. Even some national politicians have called for it, including Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who said it should be universal.

We've long been taught that helping others helps ourselves. As Charles Dickens wrote, "No one is useless in this world who lightens the burdens of another." And science has shown that altruistic behaviors -- defined as putting the well-being of others before our own without expecting anything in return -- actually do improve our health.

Some millennials feel that their six-figure paychecks are stretching thin. As Melkorka Licea reported for the New York Post in October, they are known as "Henrys." The acronym — short for "high earner, not rich yet" — was invented by Shawn Tully in a 2003 Fortune magazine article and has come to characterize a certain group of six-figure earners who are mostly millennials, Licea wrote.

According to traditional knowledge, in Southeast Asia at the end of the last Ice Age, “fenua imi,” the swallowing of land, forced people to relocate to faraway atolls in a region now called Oceania. About 4,500 years of global stability allowed for the island cultures to develop and thrive in ways specifically tied to the local environment.

"I'm having a very deathly week," the young woman says, starting the conversation after a round of introductions. All 26 people sit in the dark room in the back of Washington D.C.’s The Potter's House Cafe, encircling a single candle. It isn't the woman's first time talking about death in a group setting. She has been to one of Nicole Heidbreder's "death cafes" before. She says she came out of it feeling very heavy and drained. It called up emotions from her father's death three years ago. Still, she felt compelled to attend a second time.

It used to be that the battle to overcome inequality was about money. It was about helping the poor get better jobs so they could access a larger slice of the economic pie. What if that approach to inequality is no longer relevant? In the latest edition of its Human Development Report, the U.N. Development Programme (UNDP) argues that 20th-century thinking on global inequality no longer works in the 21st century.

Millions of Americans – as many as 25% of the population – are delaying getting medical help because of skyrocketing costs. Susan Finley returned to her job at a Walmart retail store in Grand Junction, Colorado, after having to call in sick because she was recovering from pneumonia. The day she returned, the 53-year-old received her ten year associate award – and was simultaneously laid off, according to her family. She had taken off one day beyond what is permitted by Walmart’s attendance policy.

Giving up your vices and guilty pleasures can lead to a happier and healthier life that’s full of purpose. Even though you might not see the changes day-to-day.

If you could live in a luxury apartment (furnishing included), make new friends, and help reduce your carbon footprint, would you jump at the chance? Turns out, it could be within your reach. You already know about shared rides and shared working spaces, but now, sharing has made it to your residence. Introducing: co-living.

A giant 3D printer is currently squeezing out new homes in rural Mexico. Each one takes 24 hours and lets local families upgrade from a shack to a two-bedroom house. Could this be part of the global housing solution?

The social changes of the past few generations have made the question of when (or whether) to include a significant other in a holiday celebration a particularly fraught one—for everyone involved.

Abigail Disney remembers the moment, two decades ago, when she no longer wanted to fly on her family’s private plane. Disney is the granddaughter of Roy O. Disney, who founded the Disney company with his younger brother, Walt, in 1923, and her father was a longtime senior executive there. Abigail’s parents owned a Boeing 737, one of the largest private-aircraft models on the market, and they let her use it for family trips.

Vern Loomis, a retired structural draftsman in West Bloomfield, Michigan, had a standard office lunch: a peanut-butter sandwich, with various fruit, vegetable, and dessert accompaniments. He ate this, he estimates, nearly every workday for about 25 years.

For now and probably forever.

Japan has an increasing percentage of young adults with no history of heterosexual vaginal intercourse. Public health experts at the University of Tokyo completed the most detailed analysis of national fertility survey data to date to understand trends in sexual experience over the past three decades. "Previous news reports about virginity rates among Japanese young adults were a bit sensationalist, only included never-married individuals, and did not distinguish virginity rates by age group," said Dr. Peter Ueda, an expert in epidemiology and public health and leader of the research project.

Any number of world religions may claim to have the monopoly on enlightenment, but a study published Thursday in the journal Psychology of Religion and Spirituality challenges the idea that being religious is the most consistent way to feel satisfied with life. The researchers behind the study argue that a better predictor of life satisfaction is a sense of oneness with the world — a mindset that people of all creeds can adopt.