À la Victoire

Rejecting quick fixes and perfect starts, Sheila Paylan reframes New Year’s resolutions as bold, life-shaping

commitments and encourages readers to stop quitting small promises and start pursuing the "major" goals that truly change a life.

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À la Victoire

Sheila Paylan

Dec 1, 2025

Reflecting on democracy, dissent and the dangers of entrenched power, Sheila Paylan tells the story

of jailed Rwandan opposition leader Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza with growing concerns in Armenia, urging vigilance against the erosion of hard-won democratic space.

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Respect the Pause

Sheila Paylan

Nov 3, 2025

Reflecting on her struggle with impatience and the hard-earned art of restraint, Sheila Paylan writes

with humor and honesty about how learning to pause before reacting, speaking, or judging can become an act of power, healing and grace.

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Forgive Me Not

Sheila Paylan

Oct 7, 2025

Forgiveness is often misunderstood whether as surrender, self-help, or moral performance. Drawing from personal experience

and collective trauma, Sheila Paylan explores the tension between justice and mercy, insisting that peace built on truth, not amnesia, is the only kind that endures.

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Archbiases

Sheila Paylan

Sep 8, 2025

From genocide trials to the Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict, Sheila Paylan explores the biases we all carry,

how they shape our views, and what it takes to confront them honestly to find freedom on the other side.

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Boxes and Labels

Sheila Paylan

Aug 11, 2025

From gold stars in kindergarten to titles and accolades in adulthood, we’ve been taught to

measure our worth by checklists and labels. Sheila Paylan invites us to break free from the empty chase for approval and instead build lives that are real, sometimes messy, and truly ours.

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To the One Who Refused to Hate Us

Sheila Paylan

Jun 30, 2025

Azerbaijani activist Bahruz Samadov was imprisoned for his pro-peace stance. In this open letter, Sheila

Paylan highlights the brutal cost of dissent under Azerbaijan’s authoritarian regime and the moral failure of silence in the face of repression.

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To Be Sure

Sheila Paylan

Jun 2, 2025

Reflecting on her own struggle with imposter syndrome, Sheila Paylan unpacks the weight of inherited

trauma and the seduction of Armenian exceptionalism. Through the lens of identity and confidence, she calls for both an individual and collective shift—from needing to be seen as exceptional to doing the work of becoming truly excellent.

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