Essential life skills to function as a human being?

I don't think we can say 'essential' without know where you live, conditions, etc.

If you live in the middle of the jungle, essential life skills will be much different than in SF.

I think we should divide skills into three types and then into three categories and adapt for your situation.

You should be very very good at 3 things:

- something that makes you money (programming, accounting, etc)

- a physical activity (lifting weights, soccer, etc)

- something you do for fun (woodworking, cooking, etc)

(for some woodworking can be making money and programming the fun part, switch as needed)

Then you should do the same but have 2/3 in each category but just as an ok/good level (can cook a normal veggies a steak meal or fix an electrical socket)

Then again, do the same for each category but for a very minimal understanding about it, but have as many as you can. You may not know how to so a butt joint, but can saw a piece of wood or drill a hole, etc etc.

This way, you are a more rounded human being, but also open your mind to other activities you wouldn't normally which may even go up in the hierarchy, but even if not, it may help you with other ones.

It also means you will almost always have something to talk about with anyone.

Mindfulness. Not necessarily meditating.

The path to happiness is not always the highest paying job or early retirement. Sometimes the most efficient solution is realizing that the problem is not worth solving. Sometimes there's a low hanging source of wealth that nobody has ever tried for. Sometimes you're always tired and burnt out because your source of entertainment is not entertaining.

It's a key skill to always check yourself. Are you really staying in late at work to do work or is it because you're used to doing 8 hours of work in 15 minutes? Do you really want the soda over the bottle of water or is it because the water is unfairly priced?

And from that self-awareness, actually build your own identity instead of having your identity built by others.

Having tools to process our thoughts and emotions, well integrated both intellectually and emotionally.

We can’t affect where we are, but we can affect in which direction we go. There is a space between stimulus and response, as Viktor Frankl said.

Some of the feelings and thoughts we have are automatically generated by our mind based on previous experience. They are the homo sapiens equivalent of speculative execution. To the extent that we choose to listen to them they will continue to weave the story of our life. Some of our neural networks are pattern matching for an environment that no longer exists. We should accept their presence for what they are, optional perspectives with an uncertain basis in reality.

I remind myself of this daily. Knowing that I have the ability to grow, cope, and learn new things. This wisdom has given me the courage and temperance to adjust the patterns in my life that are no longer serving me.

Does anyone else think like this? Comments are much appreciated.

Knowing how to:

- Get a job (including something as simple as getting a summer job mowing grass)

-Manage your money in a budget

-Practice saving money in a savings account

-Plan meals

-Drive a car

-Go grocery shopping

-Prepare food / cook

-Perform basic house repairs with hand tools (hammer a nail, use a screwdriver, understand how a tape measure works)

-Be in relationship with yourself (journaling, learning new things, going to therapy / counseling for unresolved issues)

-Be in relationship with others (communication / conflict resolution / counseling for unresolved issues)

-Be generous with your time / money / life

*

I'm reminded of Maslow's hierarchy of needs -- which might be a good outline for 'essential skills to function as a human': https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow%27s_hierarchy_of_needs

- Empathy, sympathy, and a willingness to see other points of view. Not politics per se, but just asking "what does $PERSON feel right now? why?" on the regular

- Communication skills -- too many to list, but uber-critical for most jobs / relationships / contexts. Only 10% of my job is actual tech; 90% is communication

- Cooking -- you're gonna have to eat for the rest of your life, so get some basic skills

- Basic understanding of cars -- still going to be a thing for the forseeable future and worth knowing a little bit about

- Basic understanding of computers -- like cars, this is a tech that's going to define your life, likely for the foreseeable future. Most of HN are tech focused, but if you're not, understand it as much as possible

- Basic understanding of housing tasks -- too many skills to list, but you're gonna have to live somewhere as a renter or owner for the rest of your natural life, so learn a bit about how your plumbing, electrical, drainage, etc. works.

- Basic finance -- you're gonna have to buy shit for the rest of your life. Understand how mortgages, credit cards, interest, inflation, etc. works. Learn enough to be confident and skeptical, since there is a lot of snake oil and obfuscation here.

- Make something with your hands -- candles, woodworking, cooking, welding, pottery, whatever.

- Something physical -- sports, gyms, running, even if just long walks with the dog. Take a weightlift course, or do some soccer training clinics, or just read a runner's mag sometimes, whatever.

I don't feel qualified to answer this question in its entirety. I'm sure I could do better at being me than I currently do, and I feel this is a question for which people such as developmental psychologists might be experts.

However I have two things that I think I do know enough about to add here:

- Presenting. Doing work is not sufficient is no-one knows about it. In most work contexts being able to present your work is important for getting recognition for it. This doesn't necessarily mean formal presentation with slides etc., but being able to speak up for yourself in a group setting is a good minimum. It's also useful for interacting with govt officials like the police.

- Maintaining your body. Know enough about your body to keep it working well (exercise, stretching, and so on) and recognise common problems before they become big issues (e.g. identifying skin cancers)

Finally, I think any answer is going to be biased by context. As someone has already noted in this thread, driving is an essential skill in some places but not in others. It would be better to give context for the people who you might be teaching.

Mental-health (maintenance, acquiring, keeping it etc).

As a technical person growing up, I always put mental-health stuff in the "soft-science" mental-basket, right next to marriage counselling and green tea for weight-loss. These days(i'm 38 now) I'm appalled at how "for granted" I took mental health(depression, focus, motivation, work-life-balance) and spend a great amount of time looking into it and trying to better mine.

OH and as a 2nd skill it will be "communication" also something I neglected as a "super-tech-nerd". Writing good code in teams, is as much an exercise in social-structure and etiquette. Doing code reviews I've noticed I'm more or less critical depending on who the author is of the code and if I like them or not. We really should be doing code-reviews anonymously.

Coding in a multi person team can be hard if you can't get your point across or get social buy in from your team and of course when the differences happens, you need some kick-ass communication skills. I younger me would have just sworn and walk away calling everyone stupid :)

I've been saying for years every comp.sci program should have at least 2nd year communication courses, right next to calculus.

Edit:"Super-tech-nerd" refers to me being really really into tech. Not that I'm on equal footing of say Linus Trovalds or Jeff Dean in terms of tech-skills. Afrikaans is my first language. English very-far-distant second.

Manage resources (time, money, mood). Keep self healthy enough. Plan. Set goals and work towards those (not necessary to my opinion, but good to have). Process data (search, synthesize, categorize, derive knowledge). Learn (understanding what is required to learn and how to approach learning, be open to learn from new situations). Understand self (where are own thoughts, what is own values, what is external to you). Communicate and cooperate with others. Reading, counting.

---

The rest can be derived.

An underrated one is being able to bullshit convincingly: that is, being able to quickly read around a topic, get a feel for expected content and style, and talk confidently about it. Antithetical to most nerds, but much of the world is run by people with this skill, so it's necessary to understand it (though one shouldn't ever rely on it)

I think it’s funny how driving has become such a “required skill” in the states. I have a lot of friends who are in their 30s or older who haven’t ever been behind the wheel. It shows how what one person perceives as an essential skill is nothing to another person.

Negotiation.

Just about every resource you might ever want is controlled by someone else. Every interaction you have with someone else to acquire resource is a negotiation, whether you think about it that way or not. Most other skills are learnt through others.

Basic financial literacy. Everyone should understand how to budget, and save for retirement.

"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 A. Heinlein

The practice of compassion and empathy. Many people will tell you these are soft skill that doesn't need practicing, but the more you engage with these qualities in person, the richer your life can be.

-Don't hurt or kill for fun (ok, maybe except fishing...) -Plant a tree. -Work. Something. Anything -Listen the world around you and pay attention. -Listen to your intuition, but use your head. -Read and write. -Learn a foreign language: math, programming, etc. -Travel. -Make friends. -Pick your trash. -Don't spit while in public. -Say HELLO, THANK YOU and GOODBYE! -Don't put music on your speaker in public and get your dirty shoes off from the chair. -DO NOT WATCH TV!!! -Try not to leave to much of a mess behind you after you're dead.

Continuously reflecting on yourself, on others, on the relationships between people, on the institutions that formalize them and on the values and motivations behind all of the above.

This should be done with mindful attention to the edge of your awareness, determination and grit towards achieving your goals, openness to changing direction and values, compassion to the situation of all involved and skeptical suspension of beliefs - particularly your own.

I guess you can call put this in the category of metaskills.

Human being living in isolation needs very different skills than a human being living among other human beings. The latter's ability to integrate into society is essential.

- Being able to call and talk to someone on the phone.

Spend 7 days alone in a tarp or tent in the woods and live out of a backpack; all the problems that will inevitably arise will teach you valuable skills and, most importantly, show you that you can be content even when you're very close to scratching rock bottom.

This will give you superpowers.

To learn about yourself. You are unique, there is no owner's manual. You have to learn why you behave like you do.

Once you figure out a little bit about why you do what you do, then you can begin to motivate yourself, react less fearfully, etc.

I am working on this very idea (loosely). http://www.louiscordier.com/book/

1. Love - yourself and others 2. Comfort - the ability to generate and manage sufficient resources to be comfortable 3. Challenge - yourself to be, do, learn, experience the new always

How to control your emotions in the face of disputes with others in order to avoid showing on social media as an idiot and to avoid physical confrontation, injury, and death.

Essential? Knowing how to not get killed by another human being. Say the wrong thing, step in the wrong neighborhood, get in the wrong car, and you’re a dead man.

Listening and conveying your thoughts clearly to others.

Not one person in this thread is going to say "how to dress" that's how far we've come as a civilization.

Kite surfing (or some other hobby that you can throw infinite enjoyable hours behind and still have more to learn).

To function as a balanced human being, you need a functioning set of semi-circular canals.

For me, learning how to listen. This is something I'm struggling with myself but getting better at.

- Learn to hunt. - Basically learn whatever you can from hunting-gathering people.

personal finance is a big one.

find out what makes you happy, obvious but difficult in practice.

Learn to shoot a gun.