You should learn to cook
We all have activities we enjoy and those we don't. Some things naturally attract and excite us, while others fill us with dread. For example, activities such as cooking, writing, exercising, or socializing may be desirable and exciting to some yet boring or terrifying to others.
I've learned that most dread people feel comes from chronically avoiding learning a new skill or trying a new activity. Just like children, adults also need to explore new things, even if they initially find them uninteresting. To our surprise, we might end up enjoying them. This is especially true as we grow older. Our abilities and passions change with time, and so can our skills and interests.
One good example of an essential skill that should be taught in primary school is cooking. Creating tasty food is important, yet for many of us, cooking is a chore that takes time we don't want to spend. As a result, we often delegate that task to others and move on with our lives.
Being skillful in any activity we will need all our lives is good. Learning to cook well might take 10-20 hours of lessons, even YouTube ones. Making a good omelet takes minimal extra effort than making a mediocre one.
Yet, most of us go through life just winging it. The same goes for many other skills like:
- Driving
- Writing
- Running
- Budgeting
- Basic first aid
- Taking photos
- Public speaking
- Time management
- Basic home repairs and maintenance
- Sleeping (yes, there are incorrect ways to sleep)
These seemingly unimportant skills can significantly improve our daily lives, can save the lives of others, and can even save us money in the long run.
A wise Australian professor I once had said, "If you eat, you don't shit. If you don't shit, you die." If you don't know how to cook, you'll eat poorly. Eating poorly can lead to a reluctance to learn how to cook. Reluctance to learn how to cook can lead to eating poorly… you know where I am going with this.
The key is not to see this as a chore but as a part of our Exploration needs, which we must take every year. By challenging ourselves to explore a new skill now and then, we can improve our quality of life and become more self-sufficient. It also helps us discover new hobbies or passions that we never knew we had. So I recommend anyone to learn how to cook or, at the very least, how to grill a steak properly.