James' World 2

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When we talk about “downsizing,” it’s usually referring to the size a person’s home. For example, people may decide to sell their larger family home after their children have grown up and moved out because they simply no longer need that much living space anymore. Others buy or rent a home that initially seemed like the right size for them but later realized that it’s too large.

Whatever the reason for your move, part of the downsizing process involves clearing out stuff you no longer need, and ensuring that everything has a spot in your new place; in other words, some serious decluttering. Here are some strategies that may help.

How to declutter when downsizing

There’s no need to wait until you have solid moving plans to start decluttering. In fact, the sooner you’re able to get it done (or at least begin the process), the better: That way you’ll feel less overwhelmed during the already-stressful experience of packing and moving. (see article)

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Photo: SeventyFour (Shutterstock)

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In the 13th canto of “Purgatorio” in Dante’s Divine Comedy, the 14th-century Italian poet describes the ultimate punishment of people who in life had fallen prey to envy, one of the seven deadly sins. He shows them perched precariously on the edge of a cliff. Because envy started with what they saw, their eyes are wired shut. To avoid falling, they must support themselves upon one another, something they never did in life. This is a pretty grim punishment—not surprising, perhaps, given that envy is the only sin that is forbidden by not just one of the Ten Commandments in the Catholic tradition, but two.

Perhaps you are less concerned than Dante with punishment in the hereafter. There is plenty of evidence that envy—the resentful longing for what someone else possesses—can give you a little bit of hell or purgatory in the here and now. We all know how envy feels—how it sours our love and desiccates our soul. How it brings out the ugly, spiteful phantasms inside us that take pleasure in the suffering of others for no other reason than that their good fortune makes ours feel insufficient in comparison. As the essayist Joseph Epstein has written, “Of the seven deadly sins, only envy is no fun at all.”

Envy, in short, is a happiness killer. Unfortunately, it is also completely natural, and no one escapes it entirely. But if you understand it better, you can stop fueling it and step back from that cliff’s edge.

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Jan Buchczik

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A 31-year-old gardener wonders what she should be eating in the day to improve her sleep at night.

A little about me:

Age: 31

Occupation: gardener

Number of hours sleep you get each night: 6 hours

Number of hours sleep you wish you got each night: 8-9 hours

Any officially diagnosed sleep-related problems: no

How much water you drink on average per day: 1 litre (not enough)

How much exercise I do on average per week: 1 cardio workout a week, plus the manual labor of my day-to-day job (see article)

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Lead image design: Ami O’Callaghan; Photos by Getty Images

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(Image credit: Getty Images)

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Dear How to Do It,

My husband and I are high school sweethearts and have been together for over 15 years but we are at a serious impasse. Over the years, the last five to seven, he has expressed his desires for more/different sexual experiences. We agreed that he could have a “side piece” as long as certain boundaries were kept. I don’t know if I’ve ever been fully comfortable with this but I don’t want to leave him so I’ve been trying out of love. Every time he finds someone he may be interested in and I get wind of, I LOSE MY MIND. He gets upset because he says we have talked about it and I have agreed and keep changing my mind. I understand that is not fair to him but I have no idea how to proceed. Neither of us wants a divorce but I have no idea how to keep the peace. I get upset and distant and in turn, he feels super guilty and doesn’t end up going through with going to see these girls. He’s fed up and we’re going through a rough patch. Any advice?

Photo illustration by Slate. Photo by Staras/iStock/Getty Images Plus.

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(Image credit: Getty Images)

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Have you ever decided not to go for that job promotion because you believe you’re not qualified enough? Or avoided asking a neighbor for help because you feel you’d be a nuisance? Or taken your failure to get what you wanted as confirmation that, yes, your hunch that it was never going to work out was obviously correct? Yep, me too. Pessimistic beliefs like these are common, and they hold you back more than you realize. Perhaps it’s never occurred to you that it’s possible to change these attitudes, let alone how you might go about it. Perhaps you wouldn’t even want to change them even if you could – after all, who wants to be that person who is arrogant enough to think they’re definitely in with a shot for that promotion despite being underqualified, or who doesn’t think twice about making demands on their neighbors, or who approaches their goals with an unwavering confidence in their likelihood of success?

Philosophy and coaching are a perfect – and underexplored – partnership. Doing philosophy involves identifying and challenging hidden assumptions, using analogies to reveal double standards, and exposing dodgy reasoning: all things that are helpful to coaching clients who are burdened with beliefs that get in the way of their success, who are compassionate to everyone but themselves, and who overlook their own errors in reasoning because they are too busy criticizing themselves. Often, too, the thoughts of philosophers – including René Descartes and the other thinkers that I’m going to mention here – find fresh application in providing a helpful new perspective on the difficulties that many of us face every day.

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Rising, Falling, Clinging, Flying (equilibrium) (detail, 1934) by Sophie Taeuber-Arp. Courtesy Kunstmuseum Basel

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