5 Skills You Didn’t Realize Were Skills

Have you ever had a day where you feel like you aren’t good at anything? Like you have no skills worthy of ribbons or awards or even a gasp of awed recognition? Like maybe you can’t even open a door correctly?

I have those days. I think we all do. And why wouldn’t we when there are singers and actors and athletes and those balloon animal artists that walk around restaurants doing their thing, making you think man, I wish I could do that.

The good news is, we can do things, my friends. In fact, we do amazing things all the time without even noticing them.

For example:

1) Carrying Laundry

Do you remember when you were little and your mom would ask you to get the laundry out of the dryer, and how when you pulled it out a towel wrapped around your legs and tripped you and then you dropped a sock and bent down to pick it up, only to drop another one and then another one, until eventually there was more laundry on the floor than in your hands and so you threw it all down in frustration? Just look at how far we’ve come. Now we know exactly how to angle our body; curving our arms and arching our back to ensure that no piece of clothing is left behind.

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2) Driving

For this one, I know we obviously spent time intentionally learning this skill. But I just felt it was necessary to mention it because it is kind of crazy that we casually operate two ton vehicles on a daily basis. Most of the time while listening to music, eating, and trying to do our eye makeup in the mirror on the way to work.

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3) Technology

When I was in 5th grade, my family had a white landline telephone that had huge blue buttons and a speakerphone, which I thought was THE COOLEST. Then when I was in 7th grade, my mom got the first cellphone in our house, which had an antenna that you pulled out of the top, which I also thought was THE COOLEST. And now I have an iPhone a.k.a a tiny, portable computer, that I get angry at when the AirDrop feature can’t receive pictures from other iPhones in the blink of an eye, or when the Bluetooth doesn’t sync to a portable speaker or when the Wifi I’m connected to won’t stream movies and television shows. WHAT EVEN IS THE WORLD WE LIVE IN?! When did we learn what all of this was—let alone how to work it all?! Our fifth grade selves would be freaking out.

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4) Cracking our bones

This one goes out to all of our younger selves who only woke up sore when we accidentally fell asleep with our head propped up against a wall with one leg tucked under us and the other one stretched out in mid side-split. Now we wake up, lean forward, twist our legs to the side, point an arm at a specific part of the ceiling and roll our head back along our shoulders, knowing that afterwards, our bodies will be ready (ish) for the day.

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5) People

It’s a part of growing up to learn the way other people work and to be able to identify whether they are worth our time or not. And while there are always going to be times when we are blindsided by an undercover a-hole, it’s still worth mentioning how far we’ve come in the people department. All that advice we can give our friends? It comes from years of learning, sometimes—at least I like to believe—for the very serendipitous reason to tell that friend exactly what they need to hear in that moment.

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These are only five things, y’all.

FIVE.

I know—or at least I assume—that you thought of more while you were reading this. Like hey, you’re right, Kim, I hadn’t even realized how fast I can put my hair in a ponytail. Or that I know the exact amount of meats, cheeses and veggies are required to make the perfect sandwich. Or that I know how to twist, lift and shove that closet door open, even when I’m in a time crunch and don’t have a second to spare.

Sure, it’s silly stuff. But the point of all of this is to remember that we’re all learning, every day, and we’re all growing. Even though it might not feel like it, we are figuring this life thing out piece by piece, in our own way.

Plus, we can’t all be out there making scarily accurate balloon versions of Disney princesses. That would be chaos.

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