25 Basic Life Skills That Are In Short Supply
In fact, there are plenty of "basic" skills that most people lack. Here is our roundup of the most important basic skills; how many have you mastered?
2.
Learning. The simple ability to watch others do something and try to redo it yourself. Listening. Looking things up by yourself. And, goddamn, ASKING. All of these make up learning. Nowadays you'd have to add finding tutorials on youtube, but growing up, I didn't have that.
3.
Following an instruction manual. I heard people say "I don't know how to build an IKEA cupboard" . Neither do I, that's why they ship it with instructions
4.
Laundry, especially emptying the dryer lint. So many places I’ve stayed had “bad driers” that were packed full of lint! How these people did not start a fire is amazing.
5.
Explaining things. If I explain something and someone tells me they don't understand, I explain it again, but frame or phrase it differently. I will never understand why so many people think just saying the exact same words again in a more exasperated/condescending tone is at all effective.
6.
I had a friend who grew up with maids. He was 18 and gay and his family kicked him out. So he got this tiny little run-down studio apartment in Los Feliz. He was super proud of it, and invited me to see it. He was using candles to light it when I got there (maybe to save money? Maybe to hide the blemishes?) and had left an ashtray on the floor, which I accidentally kicked and got (cold) ashes all over his carpet.He freaked the f*ck out. “What do I do? How am I going to clean that?!” “With a vacuum?” I replied, confused as to why this was a mystery. He didn’t have one, so he went to ask the building manager if there was one he could borrow; which there was. He pulls this standard upright vacuum into the middle of the room and then stares at it. After a few seconds of wondering what he was doing, I asked “do you not know how to use a vacuum?”“No, you have to understand, we always had maids, I never even made a bed before last week.”So I plug it in, turn it on, and take it a couple of times back and forth across part of the carpet.Then like a child with the Fisher-Price popper vacuum, he went to work. He was over the moon excited. 25 years later it’s a favorite memory of that person.
8.
I kid you not, I lived with a guy once who had a butler his whole life. Things I taught him:The funky knife with a hole in it is not useless, it's a potato peelerYou open cans with a can openerNothing needs to be microwaved for 10 minutesFor the record, I really liked this guy and he was incredibly fun and kind.
9.
Being able and willing to figure stuff out. A lot of basic skills aren't that complicated. And in this day, if it is complicated, the internet almost certainly has dozens, hundreds, or more, tutorials. Quitting because "I don't know how" should not be the answer. I wish more were taught to figure things out or seek the help/answers to get it done.
10.
Being gentle with your things. Any time we get help from siblings and their spouses I'm astounded by how roughly they treat all of their things/how rough of a job they're ok with accepting.Also when assembling furniture. My best mate put together a set of shelves using a drill as a driver on the short and easy to insert Allen keyed screws. Stripped half of the heads and forced a few in at slightly off-angles and also stripped their threads a bit. Like what are you doing bro? Could have just used an Allen key by hand and put it together in the same amount of time without damaging anything.
12.
I thought that everyone younger than me knows how to do basic computer troubleshooting.Turns out a fair of people younger than myself don't know how to look up answers online, it honestly baffled me.
13.
Basic awareness of when to call emergency servicesI recently saw a guy having a seizure on the ground on a busy street. There were 100+ people standing around watching him. I shouted 'has anyone called an ambulance?' and everyone looked at me blankly. People were recording with their phones but hadn't thought to call an ambulance for the guy. This is in the UK so it's free to call an ambulance and the man's hospital treatment would have been free. The whole thing freaked me out.
15.
Basic cooking skills. I once saw a guy try to cook pasta by dumping raw pasta shells in a frying pan with a little oil…
16.
Swimming. I feel like I need to be a lifeguard every time I go swimming and watch some people flail wildly in the water they could just stand in.
17.
The Scientific Method. My public school science teachers drilled us over and over on critically designing experiments. I thought that was normal.Turns out, my home town just has really good public schools. My eighth-grade English teacher had a doctorate.
18.
Writing an email with proper grammar and formatting seems obvious and easy to me, but I see so many people at work who are just the worst
19.
Basic first aid. Buddy in college got cut and didn’t understand how to make it stop bleeding and bandage/disinfect it properly, I was amazed.
20.
Reading a map. I grew up traveling long before computers. I've handed several adults paper maps while driving and they didn't even know how to find where we were. I guess it isn't a skill you need anymore though.
21.
Sewing. I thought I was a mediocre sewer because I wasn't great at cross-stitch and embroidery. Turns out fixing a button or seam is a skill.
22.
Planning. Why plan when you can mindlessly stumble through every moment and just complain when it doesn’t go well?
23.
Throwing your trash in a trash can/garbage can and watching people leave their sh*t outside their car when they are in a parking lot. Drives me nuts. Especially when NO ONE will pick that up and it's literally littering.
24.
Writing. The first peer-reviewed assignment I had in college was a major wake-up call. I could not believe that so many of my classmates could barely spell, punctuate, and use proper grammar--let alone approach making an actual argument in their essays.It got worse when I entered the professional world. Doubly so when I started teaching.
25.
Punctuality. I thought being on time for work and appointments as an adult was just a given but the more I deal with the workplace and working with clients, this is not true.
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