Tag Archives: skills

It’s the little things that count

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I always get a little excited when I see the concept of self-reliance brought up in unexpected places or referring to aspects outside the usual “prepper” mindset. After all, my philosophy of self-reliance is much broader, and should be more applicable to everyday life by everyday people. So it caught my attention when I found “7 Tips for Increasing Self-Reliance” on The Law of Attraction.com.

Some of their seven points are somewhat familiar, such as “Accept Responsibility” and “Make Your Own Decisions,” but others are are a little less obvious–or at least less practiced these days.

Take Point #3: Learn More Practical Skills:

The more practical skills you have in your toolkit, the fewer chances there will be for you to feel helpless or need other people to come to your rescue. While you should feel free to call out experts to help you with complicated household problems and mechanical difficulties, it’s great if you can at least do the basics for yourself. Get some books or join some classes.

Try to get a better grasp of everything from plumbing to IT, electronics and cooking.

A few (dozen) years ago I spent two years in Australia as a missionary for my church. Before we travel to our assigned locations we spend anywhere from three to eight weeks learning teaching skills and, where necessary, a new language. From the beginning we are paired up with another missionary, who we will be with 24/7.

My companion was a really pleasant fellow from solid farm stock (Central Utah turkey farmers), but I was soon quite surprised to find he had no idea how to do his own laundry! Nor did he know what to do when he spilled dinner on his tie. Now, I won’t claim to have been anything but a burden on my mother up until that point in time, but she had at least taught me how to do laundry, how to cook, how to sew on buttons and mend pants. I gladly dispensed my wisdom to my companion, and I have definitive proof he was able to survive the entire two years.

A few years later while I was in college I went to an activity with a bunch of other college students. We decided to go get some ice cream or something afterward at a place several blocks away. While I was driving through campus I realized my tire had gone flat. I pulled over into a parking lot and started pulling out my equipment to change it for my spare.

Before long about a handful of young women from our group had pulled over to see if everything was okay. When I explained what the problem was and that I’d be okay, they all insisted on staying to watch. No one had taught them how to change a tire! I was only too happy to demonstrate for them, of course.

Whether it’s hanging a picture, or strengthening a wobbly chair, or reattaching things that come loose, there are a lot of simple tasks in life we can easily take for granted and forget to either learn or pass on. There’s no reason we should be helpless when it comes to using basic tools to perform simple maintenance tasks. Fixing a leaky faucet–or outright replacing one–isn’t difficult, but if you have no idea how to go about it you might be tempted to spend a decent chunk of money on something that shouldn’t take very long.

Learning some basic skills will pay off in spades sooner or later. And it might just help you get the girls! (Okay, not really. They were all impressed, but that’s about as far as it went.)

Leadership skills for self-reliance

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I recently found an article titled “Leadership Skills Anyone Can Develop.” It outlines five traits of leaders:

  1. Take ownership of your life
  2. Be optimistic
  3. Be honest
  4. Measure results
  5. Believe God wants you to succeed

Simple ideas, though not necessarily easy to implement. Read more at the link.

British journalist becomes a mechanic for a day

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Iain Hollingshead, writing for the Telegraph, decides to test out the theories in a book by Matthew Crawford on the benefits of working with one’s hands. He decides to help his favorite mechanic services his Alpha Romeo:

I have a minor triumph of my own when, after an hour of gentle, blokey ribbing for knowing nothing about cars, I mend a fiddly rear numberplate light. As we celebrate with a mug of builder’s tea, I’m surprised by how pathetically, disproportionately happy I feel. Then I remember Crawford’s words: “The satisfactions of manifesting oneself concretely in the world through manual competence have been known to make a man quiet and easy. They seem to relieve him of the need to offer chattering interpretations of himself to vindicate his worth. He can simply point: the building stands, the car now runs, the lights are on. Boasting is what a boy does, because he has no real effect in the world.”

 

Self reliance means skills, not just tools

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Melanie Williams at Where Simplicity Leads has some excellent thoughts on the difference between tools and skills in self reliance:

When I was just getting serious about simple living a few years ago I read an article about self-reliance which really stuck with me. The author said that the biggest mistake people make when starting out is thinking that in order to become self-reliant they have to go out and buy a bunch of stuff. I remember thinking that was kind of funny–what kind of self-reliance is that? Self-reliance is really more about skill-building than it is about tool-getting, but in the early stages it’s easy to believe all you need are the right tools (or at least to believe that the right tools will get you a very long way).

Tools of course are important, and when we’re first adopting a simpler and more resilient lifestyle it might become very obvious, very quickly that all the tools and gadgets and gizmos we’ve acquired over the years are precisely all the wrong tools and gadgets and gizmos needed for self-reliance. Riding lawn mowers, microwave ovens, GPS navigation, bread machines, rototillers, dishwashers…not so important. Root cellars, chicken coops, grain mills, spades, shovels, buckets, jars…very important tools.

Read the whole thing. And not just because she uses the same blog template I used to! 😉

 

Thoreau on delegating our work to others

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Lest you think from my previous posts that I find little of value in Thoreau, I present this passage that struck me today:

There is some of the same fitness in a man’s building his own house that there is in a bird’s building its own nest. Who knows but if men constructed their dwellings with their own hands, and provided food for themselves and families simply and honestly enough, the poetic faculty would be universally developed, as birds universally sing when they are so engaged? But Alas! we do like cowbirds and cuckoos, which lay their eggs in nests which other birds have built, and cheer no traveler with their chattering and unmusical notes. Shall we forever resign the pleasure of construction to the carpenter? (From “Walden”, Economy)

I have not built my own house. I, like the cuckoo, live in a “nest” that has been thrice inhabited. But I have built a backyard shed and a playhouse with my own hands and, with some temporary exceptions, found the process invigorating and enjoyable. I certainly have a better appreciate of the work that went into my own house (and, in some cases, better recognize the cheap corner-cutting that went into some parts of it).

I do not advocate throwing off our responsibilities and learning to do everything ourselves. But I do think we are benefited when we develop at least some cursory skills in various other “trades”, such as construction. The joy of honest labor and the satisfaction of a job well done (or at least completed) are potent emotions.

And simply knowing how to do something should you ever need to is always a solid investment. Whether drying your own fruit or jerky, sealing and freezing produce from your garden, or changing the oil on a car, those who know how have more options than those who do not. Waiting for periods of need to prepare yourselves is a recipe for failure, as we’ve been told by Aesop’s “The Ant and the Grasshopper” since the cradle.

It is an interesting note on the period Thoreau lived in that he, an intellectual, still knew at least rudimentary carpentry and root-crop storage. How many of us could pick up and move into the forest with any hope of survival? While I would never advocate it, I suspect we may someday be required to endure at least somewhat significant changes to our way of life that we would do well to be prepared for. Intellectual and philosopher or not, if that day comes, I’d want Thoreau around.