I was sitting with a friend the other day, nursing a cup of chai that was a little too sweet, just like most things in life. And he was going on and on about how he felt “useless.”
“I don’t think I’m good at anything,” he sighed, stirring his sugary oblivion. “Everyone else is building apps, starting side hustles, going viral. What do I even do?”
My first instinct was to tell him to calm down, that he’s a great friend, a good human, blah blah blah. But then I remembered the real magic.
We’ve been conditioned to believe that a “skill” must be something you can put on a resume. Something that fetches a salary. Something that makes the colony aunty next door go, “Ooh, so your son is a software engineer?”
But what about the unpaid, quiet superpowers?
Like my wife. She runs our house with the grace of a seasoned CEO, the patience of a spiritual guru, and the relentless energy of a zookeeper. She somehow manages a husband who is always lost in his own head and a teenager whose room looks like a tornado had a laundry party. It’s a skill that earns no salary, but it’s the quiet force that keeps our circus from completely falling apart.
And it’s not just the big things.
I know people who are just… naturally organized. Their desk is clean. Their thoughts are in a line. Their spice cabinet is arranged by alphabetical order (okay, maybe that’s a bit much, but you get the point). These are the folks who never lose their keys, their sanity, or a good pair of socks. Society might not throw a parade for their neatness, but they are the quiet heroes who navigate life with an elegant simplicity the rest of us can only dream of.
The thing is, they’re so good at it that they don’t even see it. It’s like breathing. You don’t get up in the morning and say, “Wow, I am a master of inhalation and exhalation.” It just is. This is the Dunning-Kruger effect in reverse. They are so ridiculously competent, so naturally gifted, that they become blind to their own brilliance.
Ask a great artist how they created a masterpiece, and they’ll probably just shrug and say, “I don’t know, I just… did it.” Ask a world-class chef how they made that biryani, and they’ll probably say, “Oh, just a pinch of this, a little bit of that.” They can’t explain the magic because for them, it’s not magic. It’s just their state of being.
So, if you’re sitting there thinking you’re not good at anything, maybe you need to look closer.
Are you the one who always remembers birthdays? Do you have a knack for telling a story that makes people laugh until their sides hurt? Are you the one who can make a perfect cup of chai without even thinking about it?
These aren’t just small things. They are the threads that hold the fabric of life together. They are the unpaid, uncelebrated, and utterly essential skills that make our world a little less chaotic and a lot more bearable.
So, go on. Take a moment. Smile. Look at the little things you do effortlessly. And give yourself a pat on the back. It’s a skill, and it’s a good one.
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