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We all know that food and drinks can go bad. Your refrigerator likely has items right now that were once wholesome food and is now…not wholesome, and no longer food. But one basic component of our lives that might seem immune to that spoilage is water. It’s a pretty fundamental compound, after all, and doesn’t contain anything other than a bunch of hydrogen and oxygen, so there doesn’t seem to be anything in there that other organisms could defile. When your leftover mint chutney goes bad, it makes sense, but water seems so impervious that noticing an expiration date on a bottle of water seems kind of ludicrous. But it’s not completely wrong. Water doesn’t rot or spoil like many foods, but there’s definitely a shelf life.

When tap water goes bad

Water that comes out of your faucet has most likely been treated with chlorine, which helps keep it free from microorganisms that can do you harm. But that water will react with the carbon dioxide in the air continuously, lowering the pH of the water, making it more acidic, which will can make it taste funny. Additionally, uncovered water will collect dust and other stuff from the air, adding to the unpleasantness. Eventually, this process could even make you sick—although the water would have to sit there a very long time before it became dangerous as opposed to just gross.

At the same time, that chlorine that was added is off-gassing and leeching away, making the water more inviting to organisms. The executive summary is that a glass of tap water left out overnight might taste weird, but is probably okay to drink from a health point of view. But water that sits out for a very long time should probably be avoided—especially if there are obvious signs of things, you know, living in it.

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Have you ever suffered creative mortification? Coined by educator Ronald Beghetto, the term describes losing your willingness to pursue a creative avenue following a negative outcome. Maybe you gave up on stand-up comedy forever after your set at the open mic night was met with murmurs instead of laughs, or you burned your accordion after that disastrous appearance on America’s Got Talent. 

Creative mortification doesn’t refer to temporarily being discouraged by negative feedback; that’s called “creative suppression” (also “reading the YouTube comments”), and it’s inevitable in any creative pursuit. Creative mortification can be understood by the classic definition of the word “mortification.” It means “to put to death,” and it encompasses all the finality that implies. It describes someone who loved to sing but never opened their mouth again after being in the school play or the person who says “I can’t draw” for their entire life because of a 4th-grade art teacher’s criticism. Creative mortification is giving up completely.

When discouragement becomes mortification

According to Beghetto’s research, there are two main components of creative mortification. The first is “attributing negative outcomes to one’s fixed creative ability,” and the second is experiencing negative emotions, particularly shame.

If you ask high-level creatives how they got that way, most will say something like, “I practiced a lot.” Very few will respond, “I’m just naturally good at it.” Still, the idea that here’s some inherent talent level that a person either has or doesn’t have tends to be how most people think of creative pursuits, especially when we’re thinking about ourselves. Mortification can come from an external event that reinforces your internal insecurity about your own inherent talent.

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Smash hit TV show “Succession” has sparked a resurgence of the “quiet luxury” trend.  Frazer Harrison/Getty Images

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The good news is there are many effective anti-prejudice interventions, but the most promising remains relatively unknown

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Flower market, East End of London. Photo by Andrew Testa/Panos

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Okay, so you’re not the best at small talk. We’ve all become a bit All you’re looking to have is a decent conversation. It could be with the guy on the sidelines, at the gym, or anyone else you keep running into. But someone’s gotta break the ice. You don’t mind doing it. You just don’t want things to be … ah … um … eeh … awkward.

If only there was a can’t-miss opening line. There isn’t. That’s the bad news, but also the good. The words you say are secondary to just being willing to take the chance. But still, you worry that whatever comes out won’t work. There will be silence, stares, and walking away questioning what you just did.

You know what you say to that?

“So what?,” says Bethany Teachman, professor of psychology and director of clinical training at University of Virginia. The exchange might be awkward, but will it be excruciating? Impossible to recover from? Will it ruin you? Nah. This isn’t the most important person to you, which means it’s not the most important conversation you’ll ever have.

“It’s not that big of a deal,” she says. “Not much will change in your life.”

It’s good to remember one other thing: Conversations take two people to make it work, and the other person may not be engaged because they’re stressed, preoccupied, exhausted, overly shy, or any other reason that has nothing to do with you.

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The following are five common self-sabotaging mistakes overwhelmed people tend to make. There are practical solutions for each that will help you feel like you’re on top of things and do a better job of navigating your most important tasks and solving problems.

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From

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At birth we boarded the train
and met our parents, and we
believe they will always travel
on our side.

However, at some station
our parents will step down from
the train, leaving us on this
journey alone.

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The Train of Life

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In 2014, psychologists at the University of California launched a course with one goal: Help students become happier in eight weeks.

Incredibly, it seemed to work. Thousands of students took the Science of Happiness course (which is still free to audit on edX, a provider of open online courses) and learned about the science of connection, compassion, gratitude, and mindfulness. Perhaps more importantly, they also completed a series of simple activities that research suggests increase happiness. 

Those who fully participated saw their positive feelings increase each week. They reported feeling less sadness, stress, loneliness, anger, and fear, while at the same time experiencing more amusement, enthusiasm, and affection, as well as a greater sense of community. During the course, students’ happiness and life satisfaction increased by about 5%. And that boost remained even four months after the course ended, though it’s difficult to fully untangle that result. It could’ve been from doing the activities, the students’ new understanding of the psychology of happiness, or something totally different. How does this work? Can you really change how happy you are that easily? According to the research, yes. 

The malleability of happiness

“There’s a misconception that happiness is built-in and that we can’t change it,” says Laurie Santos, a professor of psychology at Yale University who teaches a free Coursera class called The Science of Well-Being. 

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The world is their playground — and their teacher.

Adele and Matt Allen are raising their three children with “child autonomy,” allowing their kids to set their own curriculum, bedtimes, menus, meal times, and chore lists.

The Allens, who live in Brighton, UK, fully embrace the “unconventional parenting” style that aligns with their “frugal and natural living” habits.

“We got into natural living before we had our kids, so it just became a natural progression that continued and began to affect all of our decisions after I fell pregnant,” Adele told Caters.

The parents, who are both 39, don’t trust the healthcare or education systems and have allowed their children — Ulysses, 12, Ostara, 8, and Kai, 4 — to make their own choices from a very young age.

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Kai, 4, Ostara, 8, and Ulysses, 12, are encouraged “to take governance of their life, make their own choices and decide what goes on in their life,” their mother explained.Caters News Agency

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You’re reminded of it every time you move: You have too much crap. It piles up in closets, under beds, in storage units, and inside garages. And dealing with all that clutter is bad for your mental health. The psychological weight of hoarder-level clutter and mess is easy to understand, but it can affect you even if you’re not navigating canyons of trash in your house.

Even modest levels of clutter can negatively impact your life for a number of reasons—because you’re often lugging old connections around, preventing you from letting go of past traumas; because you have to expend mental and emotional energy on things that are no longer vital to your everyday life; because you know, deep down, that someone is eventually going to have to deal with all of it after you die. But the practice of “Swedish death cleaning” can help—and you don’t have to wait until you’re near the end to benefit.

What is Swedish death cleaning?

Swedish Death Cleaning is a simple concept with powerful potential. It’s based on a Swedish concept called döstädning (literally “death cleaning”) that was expanded into a book by Margareta Magnusson (The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning). Magnusson was inspired to write the book after she lost her parents and her husband and had to wade through all the stuff they left behind.

The idea behind it is simple: At a certain point in your life, you should stop accumulating more stuff and start dealing with the stuff you’ve already accumulated so your loved ones won’t have to do it after you’re gone. Instead of leaving an enormous chore behind for the future, you can make it a thoughtful project now, while you’re still in control.

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