There are basic life lessons that are life-saving and cost-effective that we are all intimidated by but, in actuality, they take all of a few minutes to acquire. We all condition ourselves to believe that certain skills in life are just too complex for regular joes to master. The truth is... you do not need an Ivy League degree to learn how to clean out the water heater, clip your pet's nails, or change out a toilet. Who knew? So many of us have been forced to acquire new skills while we've been trapped at home and we're going to be better off for it.
Redditor u/goodspeed19 wanted to know what lessons we should all be learning while stuck in quarantine that will make us more useful in the future by asking..... What's a skill you can learn in 30 minutes to one hour that is extremely useful/cool?Car Basics....
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Changing the oil on a car. Changing a tire. Most of your basic car maintenance stuff that once learned will save you some money, and that you can fix in less time than it'd take to bring your car to a mechanic.
Blade
Knife sharpening, it'll stop you from cutting yourself to the bone by stopping your knife from slipping. Then use the other half of the hour to learn proper knife skills.
It's really amazing how much safer a sharp knife is. It "bites" whatever you're cutting immediately and stays on course almost like it has a mind of its own. As long as your fingers aren't in its path when you begin the slice, you're basically more likely to die of a brain aneurysm than cut yourself.
Picker
Lockpicking simple 3 pin locks.
Yes. It's freaking hilarious that people on here can't figure this out on their own.
Think about leaving your bike out with a lock on it vs without. Much more likely to come back to no bike if you don't put a lock.
The Rescue
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CPR, easy to learn and you could save a life someday ! (just don't do it like Michael and Dwight please).
Man Down
I learnt how to fall in my first judo class. It is really a life saver. My teacher grandpa was a judo 8-dan master, and while he was an 87 year old dude, he fell during a walk. I know it won't be a big deal to you, but at that age, falling is a real threat. He managed to do a Zempo Kaiten Ukemi, which is kind of landing on your shoulder first and rolling through your back and getting up striking the floor to use momentum to stand up, its purpose its to soften and dissipate the fall damage. He got up like nothing happened, but all the bystanders were losing it to an old man doing a front roll in the street. He was unharmed thanks to judo. Learning how to fall can save your life.
by the book....
Read the Boy Scout handbook.
It includes a humongous amount of incredibly useful information, including (but not limited to):
- Changing a car tire (depending on the edition)
- Useful knots such as the Bowline and Tautline Hitch
- How to sharpen a knife
- How to properly use the toilet when you're outdoors
- First-aid and triage
- How to tie a necktie
- How to set up and take down a tent, along with (most importantly!) where to set it up. It's ridiculous how many times I've been the only person on a campout whose tent wasn't flooded because I paid attention to this section.
- How to properly clean your dishes when you're outdoors so that you don't get dysentery.
- How to navigate using a map, compass, landmarks, and the stars
- How to stay safe when hiking
- Several different ways to start a fire
- How to repair gear
- How to detect, prepare for, and survive inclement weather
- How to identify various dangerous plants
- Etc. Etc. ad infinitum. The-Daleks
Keyboard Clips
Some keyboard shortcuts never hurt. Here's the ones I use the most
CTRL + W (Google chrome) = Immediately closes your current tab
CTRL + BACKSPACE = Deletes the last whole word rather than deleting one letter at a time
Click on a hyperlink with the mouse wheel button = Opens the link in another tab
CTRL + SHFT + ESC = Opens up task manager without having to go through the CTRL + ALT + DEL menu
K (YouTube) = pauses YouTube videos
, and . (YouTube) = cycles through frames of a YouTube video when paused
CTRL + N (Google Chrome) = Opens up a new tab immediately
CTRL + SHIFT + N (Google Chrome) = Opens up an incognito tab instantly.
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Grandma Knows
The basics of crochet/knitting. It's quite handy if you want to something original. In the end, the basics are quite simple. With those basics you can make anything. Pillows, stuffed animals/dolls, clothes, wash cloths, pot holders, gloves, hats, scarfs, and more. It can be as quick or slow as you like and as easy or challenging as you like.
Plus it's very mindful, kind if like meditation, and really calming and rewarding as you see your work grow and take form.
Crafts...
Sewing. Just learning how to straight stitch, whipstitch and ladderstitch can save A LOT of clothing, furniture, toys, etc and it's so easy that you likely will never forget how to do it.
Basics...
Basic excel or google sheets - it's shocking how many people with office jobs can't use this critical tool.
Or a copier. Especially if its jammed. Most modern copiers have screens that will tell you where the jam is and how to fix it step by step. Some won't go to the next step unless you for sure fixed what needed to be fixed.
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Coding
Regular expressions are a neat skill and they come in handy if you work with computers, especially if you're a programmer or just work with a lot of text. While there are many programmers, not all of them learn it, and they should. Often programmers who don't know it take time writing needless code that can replace with much shorter code.
To Cut An Onion
How to cut an onion all fancy like, and pretty much a lot of knife technique. Takes practice after the initial 'learning' but they're not terribly tricky to remember.
I've been working on this one. Doing it right is taking me much longer than it did doing it wrong! :)
But I figure that it's like learning to type. At first it takes longer to do it the correct way. But once you get it down, you can go SO much faster than you ever could pecking it out with your pointer fingers. 2 months in and I'm still waiting to get faster with the onion.... but I'm sure it will happen. :) (I only chop an onion like once a week).
Cubed
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You can learn to solve a Rubik's cube in an hour, or maybe two; it's just a matter of memorizing a few short series of turns and when to apply them. The rest is just training your muscle memory.
Save A Life
How bout the Heimlich Maneuver? When you're choking bc of food everybody just hits your back, which may or not help or in some cases worsen things, but the Heimlich Maneuver just gets it done perfectly.
Self taught
Self taught myself how to use editing programs like filmora and Adobe. I'm no where near an expert at them (not dissing on people with the trust skills gained from school or using them on a professional level) but it does allow me to make videos for teaching as well as worksheets for the class.
The Good Hole
I teach my students how to cut a hole in a standard piece of paper big enough to walk through. Not very useful, but my students end betting students outside my class that they can walk through a hole in paper. Easier to share a link then describe without photos, but here ya go!
https://allfortheboys.com/quick-trick-walk-through-a-sheet-of-paper/
It's magic...
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Simple magic tricks. There are a bunch you can learn that shouldn't take more than 5-10 minutes each.
Use them to make friends and meet people. CPR and fire-making are more important, because they could save you or someone else in an emergency... But you will use magic far more often in every day life.
In the Oven...
Cooking one home cooked meal. I had no idea how easy some meals are to cook, until my dad started to teach me. We prepared a meatloaf AND potatoes in 10 minutes when my dad was on a 15 minute break from work (he works from home). All I had to do after was just put it in the oven.
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***WARNING: THIS ARTICLE CONTAINS SENSITIVE MATERIAL. PROCEED WITH CAUTION!***
I can't think of anything hilarious at the moment. Make us LOL.
Lady
Shocked Oh No GIF by Yêu LuGiphy"I have this friend, love him to bits, but his wife has a tendency of just constantly showing everyone pictures of their son at every social event. At the start it was understandable, but now I'm just like 'Lady, it's been two years; they're not going to find him.'"
UnoriginalUse
at 9am...
"Not the most morbid but I love Anthony Jeselnik’s story about his neighbor who has Alzheimer’s. 'One of my next door neighbors is a 90 year old man suffering from Alzheimer’s. And every single morning at 9am he knocks on my door and asks me if I have seen his wife.'"
"'Which means that every single morning at 9am I have to explain to a 90 year old man suffering from Alzheimer’s that his wife has been dead for quite some time. Now I’ve thought about moving. I have thought about just not answering my door in the morning. But to be honest, it’s worth it… just to see the smile on his face.”
dreagan021
Comedy?
"Why can't orphans play baseball? They don't know where home is."
GW2RNGR
"Why can't orphans play tennis? They get confused when they hear love."
JayDub506
People who make comedy are evil. LOL.
The Darkness
That 70S Show Reaction GIF by LaffGiphy"Dark humor is like food; not everyone gets it."
storm_the_castle
God Laughs?
"A Holocaust survivor dies and goes to heaven, where she meets God. To break the tension she tells God a joke about the Holocaust, but God doesn’t laugh. The lady shrugs and says 'I guess you had to be there.'"
“'I guess you had to be there' is a common expression used when someone doesn’t laugh at a joke. It means that the comedy may not translate without the context of the situation."
"In this case the Holocaust survivor is saying it, meaning that during the Holocaust God was nowhere to be found. It’s not really a joke about the Holocaust, but the absurdity of belief in a benevolent God. Hilarious right?"
semimillennial
Oh Baby
"How many dead babies does it take to fix a light bulb? More than 3 cause my garage is still dark."
sirnibs3
I don't know whether to laugh or cry. Because I don't know what it says about us as people if we laugh. Oye.
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Curious to hear from strangers online, Redditor Liam_Tang asked:
"People who've divorced, aside from adultery, what were the irreconcilable differences that ended the marriage?"
You think you know a person when you walk down the aisle.
These Redditors were in for a rude awakening.
Pet Neglect
"My wife divorced her ex for many reasons, but the final straw was when she went out of town for a few days, and when she got back he had not fed or given water to the dog. The dog lived a long and happy life after that."
– StrangeCrimes
Obsessed With A Crush
"Not me, but I had an old coworker that divorced his wife for spending their entire savings on candy crush and games of the same type."
– Hexis40
Compatibility Musts
"ITT: Intimacy (sex/romance), beliefs (religion/spirituality/politics), kids, and I haven’t seen it yet but it’s coming: finances."
"The big four. You REALLY need to discuss these things in detail BEFORE getting married."
– rabbiskittles
Physical violence is a legit reason for people to peace out of a relationship.
The Flattening
"She threatened to hit me with a hammer."
– michaelrohansmith
Hitting The Bottle
"She became an abusive alcoholic. It was sad but I had to get out."
– diegojones4
Emotional pain is too damaging to recover from.
Truth Hurts
"She told me as we stood in front of the judge ending our 7 year marriage, 'I never loved you, I just wanted kids.'"
– Pinch_Dogs
Can't Fix Angry
"She was beautiful/smart but an angry angry person. I thought I could be sweet to her and 'fix' that. Heh. She kicked the crap out of me emotionally. Wife II has been a walk in the roses for 32 years now :)"
– lowlandr
A change of heart is worthless if comes too late.
"We Could've Had A Nice Marriage
"He could not understand that my wants and needs were as important as his wants and needs. We tried to make it work for 7 years. During that time, for things that were really important to me, I tried explaining logically, asking nicely, begging, crying, yelling, passive aggressiveness... cycled back through all of these options multiple times."
"(If I knew something was important to him, I would do that. For example, he was really into sports, so I went to all his events, even though that is not at all my thing.) When I finally threw up my hands and told him it was time to get a divorce, he suddenly panicked and said 'What can I do? Do you want me to do half the chores? I'll do it! Do you want me to get a job? I'll do it! Do you want me to buy you presents for your birthday? I'll do it!'"
"So, in other words, he could have been doing that all along, but just couldn't be bothered. That made me so angry. We could have had a nice marriage that we both enjoyed, but no, by the time he saw the light, that ship had sailed."
"We are both happily remarried now (to different people) and I joke that his new wife owes me a thank you note. It was his experience with me that taught him to listen to her and take her needs seriously."
– Bluebird-True
"What Can I Do?"
"My ex was exactly like this. I didn't marry him but when I told him let's break up, he went all like, what can I do? Let's get engaged, let's look at houses, etc. Basically all the pre-marriage topics that we should be discussing about after being together for 7 years."
"I got so angry and straight up told him it's too late... I don't need you anymore."
– gudetarako
As much as a couple wants to stay together, unforeseen circumstances can eventually tear people apart.
Very few people can maintain healthy long-distance relationships.
When a new job opportunity takes a significant other away, would you begrudge them for wanting a better position to earn more money? Or is it better for them to reluctantly turn down the opportunity so they could stay with you? Do either scenarios breed resentment?
These were questions I've often asked myself with past relationships, and my answers varied depending on the person I was with.
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