Ask HN: What are some skills you have that are worth learning?

Becoming a dancer opened up all sorts of doors for me. It made me comfortable in social situations from small-talk in intimate groups to public speaking in front of large ones.

I even ended up married and living in a foreign country. Currently I'm learning the language and making some progress. All of which I can trace fairly directly to learning to dance.

Caveats:

You need to like the music! So pick a form that's compatible with that (if there is one).

Don't go into this looking for a hook-up. Those people are greatly disliked by most of the people in the scene.

Obviously this is open to confident people too, but shy people will likely get more out of it because the structured nature of dance classes compensates for lack of confidence.

(Also, for all the "two left feet" people - if you can clap a rhythm to a song, you can learn to dance just fine)

“A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.” ~ Robert Anson Heinlein

In my personal experience, these things have a much great impact on my well-being and quality of life and they are within my control. In contrast with ideal of how I think society/world should be.

If you become accountable to the things that are within your control (ie. thoughts and actions) you will quickly notice that trying to control things beyond that is futile and a source of frustration.

- Negotiation + game theory. Learn the traditional methods, and then forget everything you know about them because the real world has changed and broken the assumptions that went into the formal theories, but you need it as a foundation.

- Basic vehicle maintenance and repair. Even if it's just buying an ODBII connector for fault reading and being able to trace fuse box connections. Also, learn to drive stick, or be dependent in an emergency on someone who does.

- Learn confidence and humility by mastering a common physical skill like an instrument, singing, or performing monologues, etc. Not stupid tricks, but something where other people are objectively way better than you are and plan to be embarrassingly bad at it for at least a decade.