One of twelve articles Nick wrote for Psychologies magazine in 2006.

We give value to our life by living by our values (working title)

No matter who we are, our actions count. The 18th Century Irish philosopher, Edmund Burke, wrote: "No one could make a greater mistake than he who did nothing because he could only do a little."

In A matter of life and death (Michael Powell & Emeric Pressburger, 1946), a WWII bomber pilot (a young David Niven) is washed up on a Norfolk shore having miraculously been spared from certain death. He is immediately befriended by the very same American servicewoman (Kim Hunter) to whom he had exchanged brave farewells over the radio before leaping into the night from his fatally stricken Lancaster. A romance naturally blossoms, but something's wrong. Niven is suffering blinding headaches, and is convinced that an angel has been dispatched to fetch him away, unless he can prove his right-to-life. And that's just the point: no matter the war is claiming tens of millions of lives the world over, this film convinces us that the well-being of these loving souls is of paramount importance.

Downfall (Oliver Hirschbiegel, 2004; English subtitles) dramatises the experiences of an attractive young woman called Traudl Junge, (Alexandra Lara) who won the position as Adolph Hitler's personal typist in the closing years of the Second World War. We witness the disintegration of morale and sanity in the last 12 days before Hitler's suicide as the Russian army closes-in on the fuhrer's bunker. All the individuals portrayed had placed themselves at the centre of a catastrophic episode in world history and, we eventually learn, many lived long into their dotage. So it is that in the final minute of the film, the real-life Traudl Junge, speaking to camera in her last month's of life, testifies to her terrible error of judgment and lack of conviction. She brushes aside the excuse of youth, citing the deeds of a 21 year old German heroine, Sophie Scholl, as evidence that even youth can make vital, life-affirming choices.

Apt then, that Sophie Scholl (Marc Rothermund 2005; English subtitles) dramatises the story of that very same extraordinary German girl who was guillotined by the Nazi courts for distributing anti-war literature to her fellow students at Munich University in 1943. Julia Jentsch is entrancing in the role, and the camera never deserts her. Better still, the script is faithful to the actual transcripts of the interrogation. Young Sophie's position is so excruciating that we can smell her fear, and so vivid that we are warmed by her courage in the face of it. Under interrogation, Sophie's articulate passion is quite astonishing.

In the light of such moving accounts, we might now well ask: what might I have done... and what can I do now that is true to my values… no matter how modest and faltering that first step?