As the parent of a 4 year old boy I spend a lot of time in the park, the other day I overheard a parent tell their daughter not to kick the ball 'like a girl'. I thought this was a strange thing to say, firstly because she was a girl, and because I thought she'd actually given that ball a pretty hefty kick. It's not uncommon to hear people saying "don't throw/kick/hit like a girl" – in fact, writing this I realise I've said it to my own child - but this got me wondering when exactly it became ok to use the term as an insult? And more generally, why are we so quick to insult when we could be celebrating?

As you can imagine, anything called The Happy List is going to catch our eye in the Practically Positive office and The Independent on Sunday's Happy List did just that. Released for the first time in 2008 as an antidote to lists of the rich & famous, such as those from Forbes and The Sunday Times, the "feel good list" contains "100 people who, without thought of personal gain, give back and help others, rather than themselves." Following a huge amount of support from the UK and around the world it was soon made an annual event.

Running, Positivity, Resilience

I've recently started doing something I never thought I'd do, let alone enjoy, something that other "crazy" people do and enjoy. I mean, why would you want to? What is it? Running. Now I'm a cuddly/chubby/voluptuous/rotund/fat (choose your favourite label) 43 year old mum of one, why on earth would I suddenly want to start running? The key phrase there is "mum of one", my son is 4 and ever since he was around 18 months old I've been thinking it's time to lose weight and get fit so that I can be here for him for as long as possible.

Like millions of people around the world, we were deeply saddened at the news of Stephen Sutton's death two weeks ago. He had captured the hearts of not only our nation, but those of people all over the world, who were in awe of and inspired by his courage and continued zest for life despite his terminal cancer. Stephen, who had said "I don't see the point in measuring life in time anymore, I would rather measure it in terms of what I actually achieve. I'd rather measure it in terms of making a difference, which I think is a much more valid and pragmatic measure" was diagnosed with metastatic bowel cancer in September 2010 when he was just 15.