Things you wish you were good at, but you're not and vice versa

[JaneV2.0]

Like Yppej, I would have loved being good at home repairs. I was hugely jealous when a co-worker remarked that his wife was home building a deck. I can't imagine. It's not that home repairs would have been impossible to learn. I'd love to have the perseverance to excel at any discipline; I have serial interests that I reliably abandon for the Next Shiny Thing.

I took an auto repair class once and all I got out of it was a boyfriend or two. I did change my oil, but that turned out to be a disaster with a leaking collection pan and the neighbor's friendly sheepdog who thought lying down next to me in a puddle of oil looked like fun. So much for my career as a grease monkey.

I took a tennis class and a hiking class. I was doing swimmingly well at tennis when I blew my left knee out (again) and had to quit. I was the dead weight of the hiking class. I'm lucky I did't end up like one of David Paulides' mysterious disappearances. Luckily, the 60-year old instructor saw to it I didn't straggle. I had to drive the fifty or so miles home lifting my legs between pedals by hand. My knees have never worked right.

I was always effortlessly good at languages, but that wasn't a burden. More than one person suggested I'd be good at stand-up comedy, but the idea of having all eyes on me is chill-inducing. Maybe comedy writing would have been a good fit, but I think print translation (and a life in Europe) would have been just the ticket.

This exercise has shone a light on how unaccomplished I truly am. Hoping for reincarnation.

[catherine]

More than one person suggested I'd be good at stand-up comedy

That is so funny because as I was reading your previous 3 paragraphs I was thinking about how funny you are!

[iris lilies]

Oh, I forget my 70 year old garden club lady. She is a “both sides of the brain” garden club judge because she is equally competent at floral design and horticulture; most of us are strong on one side or the other.

But the impressive thing is her Home Improvement DIY skills. She lays tile, she lays carpet, she fixes plumbing, that sort of thing.

[pinkytoe]

I wish that I could have been a musician in this life. Nothing is more enchanting to me than seeing a group of individuals make music together. I had piano lessons for many years but never got beyond a certain point.

[Gardnr]

I'm a both sides of the brain girl. I was STEM decades ago--long before it was a thing. I love math and science. I have done demolition, insulation, drywall, tiling. I garden, preserve food, play piano, sing, knit, crochet, quilt, cook.

In general, I'm too stubborn to fail-I work at it till I get it. It's from childhood. I wasn't allowed to quit anything. I had to work at it until I got it. I'll thank my Dad for that. My fail is orchids. I've been gifted 2 over time-not a good thing.

[JaneV2.0]

I'm probably a "both sides of the brain" person--I did fine in math and science--if I could just tame my unruly mind. Both sides just sit down and cross their arms and I pick up a book.

[iris lilies]

I'm a both sides of the brain girl. I was STEM decades ago--long before it was a thing. I love math and science. I have done demolition, insulation, drywall, tiling. I garden, preserve food, play piano, sing, knit, crochet, quilt, cook.

In general, I'm too stubborn to fail-I work at it till I get it. It's from childhood. I wasn't allowed to quit anything. I had to work at it until I got it. I'll thank my Dad for that. My fail is orchids. I've been gifted 2 over time-not a good thing.

That is cool. I am not STEM. But I can be decent at analytical skills. I’ll never forget that when I took the GRE test for graduate school they had three sections: verbal, analytical and mathematical. I had never thought about there being three worlds of measurement, I knew only verbal skills and math/science testing.I had fun with the analytical part and did well on it. And that made me happy because I did not do well at math, no surprise, I knew I wouldn’t.

I still have nightmares about math in school. I am the only person I know outside of my student colleagues who got a graduate degree and did not have to take statistics. I am eternally grateful for that.

I cannot figure out anything that is mechanical. Spatial issues stymie me. I truly think I have below average skills in that area. I have a new car where I have to figure out how stuff works. I do read the manual a bit, and then I try it out, and then sometimes I asked
DH for help. The other day we spent five minutes in that car trying to figure out how the windshield wipers work without consulting the manual. It is impossible and not intuitive. I’m gonna have to read up on the damn manual.

[LDAHL]

I have always been a dreadful marksman. It was humiliating in my military years: “go nuclear; that’s the only way you’ll hit anything”, “you’re a de facto pacifist”, “remind me again whose side you’re on”, “you know, you don’t get a refund for unused targets, don’t you?”, “maybe the noise will scare them away”, “I want you on my firing squad”. The worst was “I’m not standing next to you at the urinal, that’s for sure “.

I spent countless hours and taxpayer dollars practicing, but I never got past mediocre. I have no idea what the problem was to this day. I have mastered other task with effort, but never that.

[Teacher Terry]

IL, I am just like you in all the areas you mentioned. When I took a spatial aptitude test I scored average. I am just a good test taker because I have no spatial skills. When my oldest son was 2 it took my sister and I all night to put together his tricycle and she has a genius level IQ. We laughed about that for years.

[catherine]

This is fun to see everyone's different kinds of intelligence. LDAHL, lol on marksmanship remarks! DH actually did pretty well in the Marines in that area--but when we started dating (two months after he got out) he took me to a carnival, and tried to prove to me what a great sharpshooter he was by shooting out the little star in the paper at the end of the line. He was so disappointed he couldn't win me a big stuffed animal.

And I'm also in the "hopeless at math" crowd--but only algebra. I got straight As in geometry. Proving theorems was so much fun.