41–50 of 277 posts
Losing weight/maintaining proper weight (without being miserable, eg not juice dieting), meeting people (since your high school/college friends will move away), good posture/technique (don't get carpal tunnel), the importance of stretching.
Cooking (proper food not junk), growing your own food, personal finances, how to manage emotions, carpentry, welding, how to enjoy time by your own, languages (the more the better), how to do basic fixing of appliances (see RepairCaffe), learn the joy of not to stop learning, sleeping habits, health habits, be conscious what you want at work to be happy (depressed Manager or happy technician)... To be continued... ni…
How do you manage emotions? Do you have any tips?
I volunteered for Habitat for Humanity and learned how to tile a floor. I imagine if you do it consistently you can learn a lot of things.
Floor tiles are the worst, a real pain in the arse. I don't want to do that again, ever.
How to handle your finances. I can't believe this basic lesson wasn't taught to me at all during my formative years, either by my parents or in school.
Learning how to cook would be fairly near the top of my list. More specifically learning how to cook a few dishes well (ideally ones that you like).
Here's Lazarus Long's list, from Heinlein's "Time Enough for Love", which I had actually just posted on another thread recently: "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 man…
Only learn skills that are truly applicable to your life.
"You see," he explained, "I consider that a man's brain originally is like a little empty attic, and you have to stock it with such furniture as you choose. A fool takes in all the lumber of every sort that he comes across, so that the knowledge which might be useful to him gets crowded out, or at best is jumbled up with a lot of other things, so that he has difficulty laying his hands upon it. Now the skillful workman is very careful indeed as to what he takes into his brain-attic. He will have nothing but the tools which may help him in doing his work, but of these he has a large assortment, and all in the most perfect order. It is a mistake to think that that little room has elastic walls and can distend to any extent. Depend upon it there comes a time when for every addition of knowledge you forget something that you knew before. It is of the highest importance, therefore, not to have useless facts elbowing out the useful ones." "But the Solar System!" [Dr. Watson] protested.
"What of the deuce is it to me?" he interrupted impatiently: "you say that we go round the sun. If we went round the moon it would not make a pennyworth of difference to me or to my work."
learn to swim
I've learnt several physical stuffs (e.g. bodybuilding, music), several emotional stuffs (e.g. meditating, music) and other intellectual skills (e.g. game theory, the humanities and programming of course...) and if I had to choose one to recommend to the HN community, it's language.
Unfortunately, it's high reward [0] also comes with high effort. Even with the best resources, it will take time and patience. But you can start at anytime of your life and at anywhere.
CBT
Probably the most important skill people are skipping is etiquette. Which I think says a lot about HN. Communication (texting, listening, etc), maintaining and creating relationships, avoiding injury, relaxation, exercise, cooking, healthy eating, self defense, first aid, swimming, types of reading (fun, searching, learning), searching, separating truth from fiction, knowing when to seek help, a hobby, cleaning, main…
In fact, most of them make no sense. It's just social constructs made by people, and some go to war over it. Ridiculous. I don't want to shake hands, I don't want to smile, I don't want to sit down if you do.
It's like, why does it matter to you? I literally couldn't give half a fork about it, so if I can learn to forget the more detailed bullshit, so can you. Focus on what matters, not whether I'm slouching or not.