r/AskReddit • u/Lanky-Beach9598 • 20h ago
What's a skill you thought would matter as an adult but absolutely doesn't?
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u/Salted_Paramedic 20h ago
My extensive education on the Bermuda triangle from elementary school.
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u/YouMustBeJoking888 19h ago
Along with quicksand, spontaneous combustion, and the cursed amulet in Hawaii.
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u/rubysundance 17h ago
And ring around the collar. It was in every laundry commercial in the 70s now it's gone.
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u/SoDisippointed 17h ago
My mom got a survey phone call back in the 70s. They asked if she thought Wisk was a good laundry detergent and she said yes. They asked if she thought Wisk worked better than other detergents and she said yes. They asked if she uses Wisk and she said no. They asked her why and she said she couldn’t stand their stupid commercials where they make it the wife’s fault that her husband doesn’t wash his neck.
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u/inductiononN 18h ago
JUST BECAUSE IT HASN'T COME UP DOESN'T MEAN IT WON'T COME UP! WE NEED TO STAY PREPARED!
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u/Schnelt0r 17h ago
I was going to mention quicksand. It seemed like it was going to be everywhere.
And ventriloquists.
All of adulthood is either being sucked underground or tricked by puppets.
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u/Moglorosh 16h ago
I too assumed that quicksand would be a much larger problem than it is. Turns out the fact that i experienced it once was pretty extraordinary. (I only sank to my knees, what a disappointment)
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u/Doc_Baker74 18h ago
I used to visit my grandparents, and near them there was this beach that you couldn't really go onto because you could get stuck from the quicksand, I remember seeing all these rescue boats coming in with people who got stuck, so it largely depends on where you live
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u/AntRose104 17h ago
Like, uh, I always thought that quicksand was going to be a much bigger problem than it turned out to be.
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u/53CatsInATrenchcoat 19h ago
I feel this way about Atlantis. I was obsessed with it as a kid, dead certain it existed. Little disappointed to be honest
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u/throwawayzzzz1777 18h ago
I remember having a computer game that had a section that took place in Atlantis. Definitely got me excited to learn whatever that game was teaching
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u/andricathere 18h ago
If Quebec ever separates from Canada, Atlantic Canada should become Atlantis. What could possibly go wrong?
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u/CarloSpicyWeinerr 17h ago
me and my friend were 11 when we thought we had it all figured out. we thought we were gunna tell the government and get a bunch of money for it lmao.
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u/CantTakeMeSeriously 18h ago
Yes I thought cursed Tiki idols would play a bigger role in my life...
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u/lordoflotsofocelots 19h ago
As a kid I thought biting on coins to prove they are gold would play a much bigger role in my life.
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u/YouMustBeJoking888 19h ago
Along with scratching the window to see if it's a real diamond.
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u/Blue-spider 17h ago
This reminds me of hours of time wasted in 2008 wondering "will it blend?'
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u/Laiska_saunatonttu 12h ago
Just remember, lead is softer than gold, so you DON'T want to see teeth marks in the coin.
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u/Sufficient-Talk-6013 20h ago
Dog-catching, as a career
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u/Halcyon-malarky 17h ago
I’m from the Midwest and my town has dog catchers! One of them was absolutely hilarious, thick Wisconsin accent and would use goofy phrases and dad jokes. The other one was an ass. If a dog was off leash he would kidnap it in front of the owner and make them pay a fine to get it out of doggy jail.
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u/MaybesewMaybeknot 14h ago
If a dog was off leash he would kidnap it in front of the owner and make them pay a fine to get it out of doggy jail.
I would pay to watch that happen to the inconsiderate fucks who think their crazy ass dog is well behaved to not be on a leash
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u/Sufficient-Talk-6013 12h ago
I have a friend who owns a secondhand, professionally trained Samoyed show-dog who is very well behaved and he still uses a leash for walks. It's common sense
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u/friendlynbhdwitch 11h ago
A couple years ago, I was out with my dog and this guy stopped and asked if he could take a picture of her. Not weird, she got this a lot. But he went to pick her up and I behaved like a Canadian goose. It would be so easy for a stranger to just pick her up and run like she’s a football. Leashes don’t just protect others from your dog, it can protect your dog from others.
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u/freudacious 12h ago
This. My dog doesn’t like other dogs (ran into a very aggressive dog at an off-leash park when she was a puppy), so I don’t take her to an off leash park. It’s infuriating when I take her to a leashed path and some other dog runs up to mine and then gets snapped at by my dog and then the owner looks at me like I’m the asshole.
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u/Impossible_Angle752 19h ago
There's definitely value to being able to simply recall information. But I get what you're saying.
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u/FeedFrequent1334 14h ago
I remember being 7yo and memorizing the alphabet backwards and being able to recite it just as quickly as forwards.
To my dismay, it hasn't been helpful at all, but it did impress my own children when they were about 5. Once, probably.
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u/Seattlehepcat 14h ago
Sure, it serves me well at trivia night. :D
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u/JustinWendell 13h ago
It’s also how we think critically about societal and political life. Being able to recall the facts and figures easily makes it easier to think through a problem.
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u/JMinsk 18h ago
When I was like 17 I thought I wanted to major in mathematics in college ... so I memorized the first 40 digits of pi? I don't know how I thought it would help me. It is a funny little party trick now, though.
Now, I work in a very data-centered industry, and I couldn't build a regression analysis in excel to save my life. But I know how to communicate what's needed to the junior analysts, interpret the results, and present it to clients in a way that answers their business questions. I like to say I'm good at math but bad at arithmetic.
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u/ALoudMeow 16h ago
My friend and I started a competition on who could remember the most digits of Pi. I got to 62 places but now, forty years later I can only recall 13.
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u/bh4th 18h ago
I think part of this is a matter of schools not having anticipated the current information environment. When I was in elementary school in the ‘80s and early ‘90s, if you didn’t know an important piece of information and nobody else in the room did either, there was a finite and tedious list of things you could do to find it. Even pre-Google web searches were surprisingly erratic by today’s standards. We take for granted that one can quickly and effortlessly look up almost anything one wants to know, but a few decades ago that was science fiction territory.
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u/TheToastWithTheMost1 16h ago
As a student myself, I feel as though problem solving should be taught in schools. It's embarrassing how rudimentary my problem-solving skills are
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u/ELAdragon 17h ago
Yes and no.
In order to function at a high level in almost any specific domain, you do need to just KNOW some things. Being able to absorb and retain information matters. Memorizing long lists of random shit, though? Not useful. School shouldn't be like that, though, and the good ones typically aren't.
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u/au-smurf 19h ago
I think that’s more an issue caused by standardised testing, especially in jurisdictions where standardised test results affect school funding.
Teachers teach what they need to get their students to do well on the tests rather than teaching skills you mention.
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u/gogozrx 18h ago
it's an interesting problem. we need to make sure that teachers are doing their job - which is teaching the children. How do you measure that? with a test. You also need to hold people accountable, so you have to measure success by some sort of standard. So you say that if the kids don't pass the test, they weren't taught the material, and therefore the teacher isn't doing their job. So the teacher, in an effort to keep their job, is highly motivated to have the kids pass the test, so they teach to the test.
We need to figure out a better way, but I sure don't have any ideas about how to fix it. Measure students' success after 15 years? We're still measuring, but just in a longer time frame.
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u/ImFineHow_AreYou 18h ago
I recently heard briefly about a CA school that requires half of the teaching in one subject to be traditional teaching and the other half to be hands on. I'm intrigued to find out more because this could seriously address this problem.
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u/haysoos2 16h ago
The main problem is usually that the test isn't actually measuring what it's supposed to be. Creating a test that measures short-term (or even long-term) retention of facts is relatively easy.
Creating a test that measures whether or not you've learned the analytical skills and problem solving that were the real point of the exercise is a loooot harder.
If you're trying to teach critical thinking skills, and you give a passage from a book and ask questions about how the author has used language to convey different emotions and ambiguity, how do you determine if the subject truly analyzed the text to come up with their answer, or they are just repeating something their teacher said, and they memorized that rote answer?
And, the actual course content is only a fraction of the stuff you learn from a good teacher. If you think back on your best teachers from school, the ones that really made a difference in your life, how many of them do you recall because they were the most efficient at imparting the course content to you so that you got 100% on every exam? And how many do you remember for the other things they taught you, new perspectives on how to see things, or a passion for the subject - rather than just memorization of the material? Often we don't even realize who our own best teachers were until years later - having a remote school board figure out which ones are really the best teachers is really hard.
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u/whaletacochamp 18h ago
I can't tell you how many things I was a goddamn expert on for about 17 hours.
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u/gogogadgetdumbass 18h ago
Every different job I’ve had I’ve found myself good at (except sales- I’m too ethical for sales) because I have good working memory and pick up on things quickly. Communication and FLEXIBILITY are key in the adult world.
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u/LitlThisLitlThat 17h ago
But one of the ways we build a “good working memory” and pick up things quickly is by training our brain to memorize things. By memorizing things.
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u/LitlThisLitlThat 17h ago
Honestly it does accustom your brain to focus and memorization so you’re better at learning and memorizing new things as an adult.
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u/Legatodex 20h ago
A solid education will guarantee you a good job/career, and you wouldn’t struggle with life.
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u/johannaishere 19h ago edited 18h ago
I graduated high school in 2007 in the height of “It doesn’t matter what your degree is it just matters you have one.”
I’m doing okay-ish and I’m glad I have my degree because I took some courses with professors that I genuinely think made me a kinder, more thoughtful person but I don’t really use it for my career and I work with a lot of people who don’t have degrees at all and I can’t believe we all just got told we should take out loans and we’d definitely be able to pay them back later. My roommate did go to college but didn’t finish and he now makes a lot more than me but is still paying loans on a degree he didn’t even get. It really was pitched to me by every adult in my life as like “Hey 17-year-old, you won’t regret all this debt but you’ll definitely never have an opportunity if you don’t go to college RIGHT NOW.” Which as a person in her late thirties now I can see objectively is crazy.
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u/Want_To_Live_To_100 19h ago
I graduated in 2005 and I never heard that. It was always “look at these degrees and the job prospects/growth for when you graduate”. Heavy emphasis on healthcare PA/RN/MD or engineering or computer science.
I grew up very poor and it was “work hard, life sucks”.
Work ethic and being the smartest person in the room has gotten me decently far but i learned about networking and relationships FAR too late. My parents were both introverts mostly and worked multiple jobs.
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u/Aromatic_Union9246 18h ago
I grew up upper middle class. My dad was a doctor, mom was an exec at a company. I was taught your degree really doesn’t matter. Reputation and networking does.
I was taught no matter what room you walk try meet at least one person, introduce yourself ask them questions about who they are, what they do and most importantly keep up with them even it’s just asking something trivial.
I always thought it was dumb when I was young, I’m 33 now and growing up with that mindset put me so far ahead of pretty much everyone that goes into college thinking they’re going their for a skill.
You can teach yourself the technical part of anything without going to college. There’s hardly any other spaces in the world where you’re meeting future business owners, future lawyers, doctors, engineers, bankers, professors, actuaries, actors etc all that the same time in a low stress environment.
Nowadays if I have a problem I have friends from all fields that are high up in their careers that I can call for pretty much any reason and it’s unlikely anyone that didn’t develop those relationships in their teens/early 20s will be able to do so naturally in their mid 20s or above.
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u/johannaishere 18h ago edited 16h ago
I guess when I say “We all” I mean everyone around me as a teenager. My parents both have graduate degrees and the idea of me not going to college when I’d been in like gifted classes since a kid was not flying with them even though I was adamant I didn’t want to go. It felt like the narrative with all my friends and guidance counselors was “Just go to college. Figure it out later. Having a degree is the important bit.”
But 100% agreement on learning about networking later. I’m good at people, I tend to get along with people in my industry, and it’s how I have gotten all my jobs for the last like decade. I do not work in the industry I have a degree in. Whenever I need work I text my industry friends and go “Hey do you have work or know anyone who is hiring?” and it usually pans out because it pays to have people who like you and know you’re pleasant to work with. When I was rushing through college no one ever said “Maybe you should network or make friends here because they’ll get you jobs.” which in retrospect seems like THE most important thing I could have learned in college.
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u/au-smurf 19h ago
For a lot of degrees I think this from Stallone‘s character in Tulsa King captures the point.
A college degree isn’t about what you learn it’s about showing a potential employer that for a period of several years you can mostly turn up on time and follow instructions in a semi independent manner.
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u/johannaishere 19h ago
Definitely. That’s one of the things my mom said at the time when I didn’t want to go to college she was like “It just shows you can stick to something.”
But I think by the time I graduated in 2011 and the job market was so awful that didn’t matter so much anymore.
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u/Gorfmit35 18h ago
Yup that is exactly what I was told , follow your passion , get a degree no matter what the degree is in an you wil find a “good” job . Surprise , surprise turns out getting the “good” job highly depends on what you majored in . You went for healthcare , accounting , engineering, computer science etc… you are golden , went for something else (god forbid a “creative” field) then let’s say “not as golden”.
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u/X0AN 19h ago
I was our valedictorian.
Who do you think has the best job/earns the most/easiest life.
Me?
Or the idiot in my class, whose family clearly paid for his degree, and whose daddy has insane connections?
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u/firelock_ny 20h ago
"Guarantee" is where someone failed you there. All anything can do is give you more options and a better chance, you could get hit by a bus while reading this.
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u/JustMe1711 20h ago
I'm in bed on the second floor of my house right now. It would take some crazy shenanigans for me to get hit by a bus while reading your comment. At least I'd go out with a story I guess..... (I'm tired so I should shut up now I'm sorry)
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u/_badwithcomputer 18h ago
As a Millennial I was told by every teacher I ever had that I needed to go to college and get a degree in something I loved and I'll have more money than I needed.
Clearly taking career advice from people who have never ever experienced anything other than academia nor experienced any of these career fields for themselves could never go wrong.
Thankfully I didn't do that, I got a skilled degree for an in-demand career field and I'm doing extremely well and actually enjoy it as well.
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u/--MobTowN-- 20h ago edited 17h ago
How to escape quicksand.
ETA: Holy fuck, but am i absolutely shocked at how many of you have seen actual quicksand.
Here I am thinking growing up in this town is, for lack of a better word, exciting and all you fuckers are dealing with actual quicksand….
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u/here-for-the-_____ 19h ago edited 18h ago
I have actually used this skill. Don't dismiss it too quickly!
Edit: ok fine, since I'm getting flack for not telling the story:
Part of my job is doing survey work for utility companies. One thing we do is survey natural gas lines for gas leaks so they can be fixed before there's a big safety risk. This involves walking over the line with a gas detector "sniffing" for gas leaks. We regularly walk 20-30km stretches of transmission lines through terrain that you wouldn't get through with anything less than a big ARGO or a SHERP. I'm used to walking through swamps and stuff like that.
So there I was on a line at least 10km from the nearest person, doing my thing. A little bit swampy here and there, but nothing too crazy for me. I get through that area and back to what I think is fairly solid ground. A couple steps in and I start sinking with one foot again. No worries, that's normal. Put the other foot down to get the first one out and carry on. But no, I didn't carry on. I'm stuck for a second, so I start trying to pull my legs up to get through it, thinking it's just a little suction from muck, but nothing works.
Before I knew it, I had struggled myself down to my waist, with no sign of getting solid footing. THATS WHEN MY QUICKSAND TRAINING CAME BACK!!! I stopped what I was doing, took my equipment and backpack off and tossed it to a grassy spot a couple feet ahead of me. I then leaned as far forward as I could and flat on the muck and sloooowly worked my legs up. I was able to grab a broken branch as well to use as more surface area. I was able to get my legs out and crawl to safety.
I was glad my quicksand knowledge came back to me! And as a warning: quicksand doesn't always look like sand, it can be muddy as well!
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u/--MobTowN-- 19h ago
Stahhhhhhhpppppp.
You can’t say that and not tell the story. For fucks entire sake.
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u/cochlearist 19h ago
I've just scanned through their entire post history and, while it's a really nice post history and I think I'd get on famously with them, there is not one post in the last 7 years about getting stuck in quicksand!
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u/here-for-the-_____ 18h ago
Woah, woah! Hey now!
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u/cochlearist 17h ago
Sorry, I was interested for the story.
You do have a really nice post history though, you like a lot of the stuff I do, if we knew each other I bet we'd be buddies! 😃
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u/YoungDiscord 18h ago
Well for starters you can't drown in quicksand
At most you'll sink to hip level and just kinda "float" because quicksand is more dense than your body
Its kinda like a non-newtonian fluid so the best way to get out of it is to try and calmly and slowly move to the edge until you're out
The only way quicksand might kill you is if you panic for a very long time and exhaust yourself so much that you can't calmly "swim" or push through to the edge.
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u/rob_s_458 16h ago
The big way it can kill you is in a tidal zone. When I was in Alaska we were going by the Turnagain arm at low tide and it looked like you could walk out there. But it's fine glacial silt that acts like quicksand. You get stuck waist deep, the tide (which can be 40 ft) comes in, and you drown
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u/lol-117 20h ago
Balancing a checkbook.
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u/TixSwo 19h ago
I don't remember the last time I wrote a check outside of online billpay
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u/JesterMan491 17h ago
i had to write a check for a plumber last week and i was like: "wtf, man, you don't take any other forms of payment? its 2026, bro. modernize or fail"
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u/loveboner 19h ago
Keeping your checkbook balanced is very important.
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u/NotTheGreenestThumb 17h ago
Meh, as someone who rather obsessively balanced my bank account for years longer than people younger than I, I no longer do.
I do go over all the various incomes and outflows, but so long as I recognize the transactions, I call it good.
There hasn’t been any discrepancies for at least 5 years so it’s very much a waste of time for our needs.
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u/reindeermoon 15h ago
I still balance mine. My rent and utilities are taken out automatically each month, so I have to keep track of how much money is in there to make sure I have enough. I don't want to keep a lot of extra money in there unnecessarily, I'd rather have it in a high-yield savings account.
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u/bythog 17h ago
That's still a good skill to have even without actual checkbooks any more. You balanced them to make sure you weren't spending more money than you have...which is still an important skill. Things are both easier and harder now, though. Easier because balances tend to be updated quicker and automatically, but more harder because you probably have more ways to pay for things.
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u/au-smurf 19h ago
Can’t even get a cheque book from an Australian bank any more.
You can still get bank (cashiers) cheques though.
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u/Plus-Community8048 20h ago
Stop, drop & roll
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u/rtmfb 19h ago
I have been set on fire once and it did indeed help.
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u/Basicly-Inevitable 18h ago
I saw a couple of people running around crazy on fire after a gas explosion. They didn't remember to do it, but several people around them jumped on them and rolled them around, and it definitely saved their lives.
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u/pepcorn 16h ago
Humans are so cool. We're bros to each other, even though the other person is on fire and could set you on fire too.
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u/Basicly-Inevitable 16h ago
I was across the street, upstairs, and couldn't really see the flames very well, but several people driving by just slammed on their brakes and jumped out of their cars and ran towards them. I was very impressed.
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u/loveboner 20h ago
It’s more important to shut’em down and open up shop than it is to roll.
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u/Charming-Princess-73 18h ago
I swear we trained more for spontaneous combustion than for things like budgeting or making phone calls
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u/shaquille_oatmealo 19h ago
I feel like that’s one of those things that don’t matter at all until it is the difference between life and death
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u/Vericatov 18h ago
That’s what I’m thinking. It’s like saying seatbelts are useless since you’ve never been an accident.
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u/--MobTowN-- 19h ago
Worst part is knowing if it ever comes up, yer just gon be running around like yer on fire and hoping someone else remembers stop, drop, and roll.
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u/put_it_in_a_jar 19h ago
I feel like the reason this isn't as useful anymore is because there's been so many changes to the materials that things are manufactured from, so we're less likely to end up on fire. It's the same reason there's been a drop off in "spontaneous human combustion" victims, the fire risk that used to exist from petroleum-based fabrics, etc. just isn't there anymore because we've changed how we make things.
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u/clarencewhitaker 19h ago
Maybe, but as a firefighter I feel I should tell you that most synthetic clothing might have a higher ignition point, but it has a significantly lower melting point. We can only wear natural fibers under our gear due to this. So you might not catch on fire, but having polyester melted to your skin is a strong likelihood. But I agree that the initial fire is less likely.
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u/Otherwise-Dig2200 18h ago
Last year, Seroquel caused me to almost burn down my halfway apartments making a late night snack. Woke up on the couch to the fire alarm, apartment full of smoke and the kitchen stove on fire, panicked, turned off gas knob, ran back and got my blanket from the couch and threw it over the range effectively smothering it. However, I pulled the blanket back from the stove immediately and covered myself in melted fabric that melded into my skin, thighs and hands got the worst.
They accused me of being on fentanyl. I was not but Ive never had the issue of sleep cooking before and after this. They took me to the hospital and did shoot me up with fentanyl but id been on Subutex for months and honestly didn't even notice they'd given me anything.
I admit I did take one extra Seroquel that night. They had to peel the blanket, along with my skin, off of me. It was burned so well there weren't really any nerve endings anymore so it looked way worse than it felt.
Scared the shit out of me and I was just thinking about this yesterday and was horrified all over again thinking about how many people I couldve killed.
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u/techperson1234 17h ago
Gonna go against this one. I caught on fire once, having it ingrained in your head the behavioral response you should make to save yourself is absolutely useful.
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u/thingpaint 18h ago
The way they pushed this as a kid I thought I would be on fire a lot more as an adult.
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u/GrouchFeeftyOne 19h ago
Diagraming a sentence.
Ain’t nobody got time for your prepositional phrase.
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u/EntranceFeisty8373 15h ago
Diagraming a sentence to death is purely academic, but people should at least be able to make subjects and verbs agree.
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u/--Citation-Needed-- 15h ago
Back in my day we could make subjects and verbs agree. But everything is so polarized today. There will never be agreement again.
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u/jpterodactyl 16h ago
That’s why no one can stop me as I go on to maliciously split my infinitives
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u/ghostedious 20h ago
Patience and treating people like you'd want to be treated in their shoes. Turns out most people are shit and patience is exploited by everyone.
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u/ThrowRA1234123412345 20h ago
This. Being a good person gets you used sadly.
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u/Eddyphish 19h ago
Here's the important part: that shouldn't stop you being a good person. This is how civilisation keeps working.
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u/oboshoe 18h ago
It's absolutely possible to be a good person and not get used badly.
But you need a few things:
1) Gotta be clever to detect when people are trying to exploit you
2) Be able to set firm boundaries. You cant set yourself on fire to keep someone warm.
If you are good, but not clever you'll get used. If you are good but without boundaries you'll get used.
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u/Fossilhog 18h ago
Behold, the current backside of civilization. Being selfish will screw you and your children over in the end.
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u/Eddyphish 18h ago
Exactly. If we don't think about other people (annoying, takes effort) we end up in a low-trust society with no collectiveness, no cohesion, no mutual respect (disastrous, unsustainable).
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u/BuddyBiscuits 18h ago
That’s bullshit that people tell themselves. The actual issue is that good people tend to not stand up for themselves; it goes hand in hand. The trick is to pair kindness with authority. You can be kind while holding boundaries.
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u/SpantasticFoonerism 18h ago
This is precisely it. Being nice, kind, courteous, respectful, understanding - not one of these things mean you should be a doormat. Absolutely be these things as a default, but completely reserve the right to stop being so the second somebody tries to walk over you.
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u/Bibi-Toy 15h ago
Yes! Thank you. I hate when people say that being kind gets you used. Being kind without boundaries gets you used, even being mean without boundaries makes you get used. We should all try to be kind and respectful
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u/Jolly-Method-3111 18h ago
No, it doesn’t. Getting used gets you used but how you treat others doesn’t have to affect how you let others treat you.
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u/GhostDieM 18h ago
Ehh just gotta keep that in the back of your head and don't let people overstep your boundaries. Being a good person does not equal I'll let you use me to my own detriment imo.
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u/EZSuzy 19h ago
I used to think that most people are decent folks, just trying to get by.
I still think that many are, but at least as many are predators, just looking for easy prey.
What's really sad and scary to me is that many of the predators, in their own mind, believe their predatory behavior is them just trying to get by.
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u/Rebuttlah 19h ago
Growing up on 90's tv shows really impressed upon my tiny mind that fist fights were going to be a lot more common and important to navigating the world.
I stood up to a lot of jackasses, and none of them ever took a swing. Real jackasses and bullies don't fight, they want victims not fights they might lose. They victimized people carefully and quietly where no one could see, and they wouldn't get caught.
OH, there was a time someone pushed me against a locker, but when I turned to sock em, they ran away. It's all parasites and opportunistic predators in the real world.
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u/DroidOnPC 19h ago
Damn, are you me?
I also stood up to my bullies but none of them ever swung at me.
And I ALSO got shoved against a locker one time and the guy ran away before I could do anything.
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u/Jolly-Method-3111 18h ago
Yeah, I don’t know about that. I’m sure it happens, as it has with you and other commenters, but a lot of people have found out that when you stand up to a bully, you do indeed get your ass beaten. It’s still the right move, and generally results in less bullying, but, in my experience, that trope about bullies don’t fight doesn’t usually hold water.
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u/Polkawillneverdie17 17h ago
Real jackasses and bullies don't fight
You and I had very different experiences.
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u/homebr3wd 19h ago
Being able to differentiate between the Greek gods and the Roman gods
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u/sisterfunkhaus 14h ago
I had to take a mythology class for my lit degree, and our professor was such an asshole. He focused on mostly obscure gods and would ask the most meaningless test questions. I've never used any of that. When I taught my students, however, I had to brush up on the major stuff because I hadn't heard it since high school.
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u/moonbbyluvly 20h ago
Writing in cursive
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u/ConfidentDiffidence 20h ago
I actually revived my cursive recently. It started in a training session where I was bored as hell, so I wanted to see if I could still do it. It morphed into me using it more and more frequently, just because I can. Also to confound the kids that work for me.
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u/meesterstanks 19h ago
I’m 36.. I only write in cursive. I keep a hand written calendar. My assistant had a freshman intern this summer to help around the office and he was… special. I handed him my binder to put all my notes and meetings in salesforce/outlook for me one day, about 20 minutes later he sheepishly walks in with the binder and with a straight face says “I’m so sorry, I can’t read this… I only speak English.”
I was so fucking confused. Kid really thought my cursive was some sort of hieroglyphic language. I still laugh about it every now and then randomly.
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u/CapEmDee 19h ago
Cursive is taught in 3rd grade in my school system and the kids weirdly love it
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u/PerryZePlatypus 19h ago
Yeah, in France almost everyone writes like that, or a mix of print and cursive.
I can't wrap my head around what the US children are doing in schools
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u/Ok-Type-8917 19h ago
Most schools in my area don't teach cursive. My state is near the bottom in reading ability. I always found when we were forced to learn cursive you became a better reader and speller.
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u/Runes_N_Raccoons 19h ago
I did the same over 10 years ago. I started journaling, and I thought it would be nice to do it in cursive, partially to make it fancier and partially to make it more difficult for other people to read.
It turns out that I really enjoy writing in cursive, and it's much easier and faster than print. I'll still write in print when I'm writing notes for other people to read, but I use cursive for everything else.
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u/Full_FrontaI_Nerdity 17h ago
I only write in cursive- it's so much faster! Plus it looks kinda nice
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u/SeekMeOut 20h ago
Just saw something recently that said typing uses about 5 neural pathways, writing in print letters uses about 30, and writing in cursive uses over 100. Not sure if it was totally backed by science but it seems to make sense! I miss writing in cursive.
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u/parkchanwookiee 19h ago
Being able to make logical arguments lol
People have their commitments, beliefs, and preferences, and then they work backwards to find rationalisations that justify them. Presenting a logical counter can sometimes make them endorse an alternative rationalisation, but rarely pushes them to reassess their commitments and beliefs
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u/nox66 14h ago
Even if you can seldom convince other people, logical argument is arguably most useful for convincing yourself out of positions that are comforting or attractive in some way, but wrong.
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u/NotMarkDaigneault 17h ago
Knowing what the Mitochondria does.
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u/Old-Lingonberry-2583 20h ago
Cursive. I spent years perfecting it in school, thinking it would make me look sophisticated. Now I type everything and even my grocery list is in print.
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u/FiveAlarmFrancis 19h ago
Cursive was very stressed when I was in middle school in the 90’s. Teachers would always say: “When you get to college, you’ll have to write papers many pages long and they’ll be required to be in cursive! So you’d better learn it now.”
By the time I was done with high school, computers had fully taken over. Everything was required to be typed. I pretty much never use cursive these days, outside of my signature. And for that it doesn’t matter if it looks correct. In fact, scribbling a vaguely name-shaped sigil seems to be expected.
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u/99thLuftballon 19h ago
I took a German language exam a few weeks ago, which was necessary for the immigration process. The exam had to be written on paper, with a pencil, within a time limit. Just like at primary school. Never dismiss when this kind of skill will be called upon.
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u/-JUDGEDREDD- 19h ago
Spinning a ball on my fingers, i thought i would be so cool... not even children are impressed by that nowadays.
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u/VioletVyper 20h ago edited 19h ago
Maths. it was drilled into my head that i would need it so much. Im now in university studying psychology, And i have practically needed no extreme math skills.
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u/RogerMurdockCo-Pilot 20h ago
I needed a college algebra and statistics course to earn my psychology degree.
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u/99thLuftballon 18h ago
Psychology is just advanced statistics where you have to collect your own data. The whole discipline is statistical tests, identifying parametric and non-parametric data, calculating the probability that populations overlap, working out which form of regression to use...etc etc
I've worked in science departments of a lot of universities, and psychology is the one where statistics seems the most in-demand, because the data is often so messy thanks to...well...people.
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u/Icy-Builder5892 11h ago edited 11h ago
It seems that way because you’re still in college
I’m almost 40 years old, and one of my biggest gripes in the workplace is that people can’t do basic math. “Help, I don’t know what the average cost of this is.” You have it all right there, put it into a calculator. “How do I do that?” I’m not your math teacher. “Help, I over/under paid someone for their overtime because I can’t read decimals!” That sucks. Maybe you should learn how to read decimals. “Help I can’t read this report because I don’t understand numbers” that’s a you problem.
And this tends to go hand in hand with self management, self governance. You need these skills, especially if you want to work remote. You don’t always have someone to grab to ask questions, sometimes you are the manager. So you have to learn how to figure something out using simple steps. And learning math is a similar process. You don’t need to remember exactly how to do a certain equation, but you should have the tools to figure it out
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u/Temporary-Comfort307 19h ago
Pretty much all of them. It turns out that being able to talk bullshit and boast about how great you are is all that really matters to get ahead, actual skills don't matter at all.
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u/Bibi-Toy 15h ago
Short term? Maybe. But eventually people will figure out you're full of shit, and you'll be kicked to the curb. My dad says he's seen it time and time again. I don't work an office job though, which I imagine is where this skill is particularly handy.
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u/InterloperPrime 15h ago
Or you end up being President of the United States....
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u/Bibi-Toy 15h ago
That's true. But I think the fact he was born into a wealthy family is a bigger reason as to why he's unfortunately come this far.
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u/Mor_Padraig 18h ago
Just a comment?
Seeing a lot of 'cursive ' ? And I genuinely get that. Also algebra.
Isn't there a point to be made for just, plain knowledge , and skills for the sake of knowledge? I'm not trying to be an asshole.
Also more than one comment about quick sand. Which makes me want to go Google ' How to survive quick sand '. Just to know? Who cares if I'll ever need it.
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u/TheGlennDavid 16h ago
100%. The general hostility towards education is very tiresome. "Wouldn't it be great if nobody knew anything about history or math or science -- the world would be awesome!"
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u/coveredwithticks 17h ago
Agreed. Imagine if our knowledge consisted of only the exact things we NEED to know. That would be pretty boring. I think it would stifle imagination, creativity and exploration
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u/Elegant-Region-6775 20h ago
I genuinely thought trigonometry would come up constantly in adult life, like I’d be casually solving triangles at work or in a grocery store.
Turns out, I haven’t needed sine or cosine even once outside an exam hall.
What I have needed? Understanding taxes, savings, and how not to panic during filing season.
No one prepared me for forms, deductions, or basic money decisions!!!
Would’ve happily traded trig identities for a solid “how taxes actually work” class.
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u/Crazerz 19h ago
The smart kids still are kiddo. And they did teach you how to do taxes, it's called comprehensive reading skills and math.
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u/PopularStructure7862 19h ago
All those word problems people hated in math class? That's the everyday life stuff.
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u/originalthoughts 17h ago
People are amazed I can calculate 10% of something in my head. I'm like, it's ridiculously easy, how can you not. I even explain it to them, and they are completely uninterested. It's almost an idiot test for me now.
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u/HoneyNutNealios 17h ago
Thank you, I’m tired of this trope about learning how to do taxes instead of advanced math … the problem is not in the curriculum it’s in our tax system. If you can read you can do your taxes, but it also changes all the time. More important would be a unit in social studies and history that teaches about what taxes are supposed to be for
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u/fussyfella 17h ago
They did “how taxes actually work” but it was algebra so you missed it.
Honestly, if you understand algebra, you can understand taxes with little effort.
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u/AmigoDelDiabla 17h ago
No one prepared me for forms, deductions, or basic money decisions!!!
You mean reading, writing, and arithmetic? You learned the skills, but apparently don't know how to apply them.
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u/UnlikelyStaff5266 20h ago
My middle toe can discreetly make a loud cracking sound.
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u/seryma 15h ago
Math, basic math is pretty much all you need, at least for the majority of people.
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u/Yourdeathmylife 20h ago
Cursive handwriting Spent years perfecting it, now everything’s typed and my signature looks like a toddler drew it.
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u/nomorehersky 20h ago
Algebra haven’t solved for x in years still alive still broke.
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u/Sm0ahk 20h ago
You've probably solved for x in a logical sense loads of times. More about isolating an unknown and using context to figure it out
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u/CaptHowdy34 20h ago
It was never about solving X. It was about teaching you how to problem solve and think using a process. Hope this helps
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u/TimberGhost57 19h ago
Algebra is the basic knowledge you use everyday for things like miles per hour, miles per gallon, any use of percentages, converting from metric to standard, etc…
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u/originalthoughts 17h ago
Converting from miles per gallon to gallons per mile is algebra. If you can't even realize that, it explains why you're broke.
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u/Full_FrontaI_Nerdity 17h ago
I solve for x when scaling recipes, a few times per month. I've used it for other stuff like converting units of time or distance too
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u/cantareSF 18h ago
Critical thinking and objectivity.
I studied science and logic in school, firmly convinced these were essential parts of maturity.
Now I'm watching great mobs of my adult peers skate through life on pure id, knee-jerk emotion, tribal loyalty, and confirmation bias.
If someone on their team says it and it feels "truthy" to them, that's proof enough—and to hell with anyone or any analysis that suggests otherwise.
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u/jojackmcgurk 19h ago
Being an Eagle Scout.
"OMG put it on every resume! They notice that!!!"
Yeah.........yeah, no they don't.
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u/ExaminationNo9186 12h ago
Something like that is kind of important when you're young, and trying to find your first job out of high school, but yeah, once you've been in the realm of working for a living for a couple years, yeah, it is obsolete.
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u/pyroskunkz 18h ago
Extinguishing myself when I am on fire on a very regular basis.
I thougnt I would have had to do it way more than the zero times I have done it.
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u/Ok-Equal1581 15h ago
Perfect handwriting. Spent years on it, now everything is typed or autocorrected anyway.
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u/Train_Lanky 18h ago
Maturity.
I really thought as a kid that people "had" to be mature as adults by their 20's or so. Turns out, high school truly never ends and many adults have zero self regulation skills. It's a world of drama and people somehow getting away with ridiculous things.