‘What’s a simple life skill that surprisingly many people struggle with?’ – 23 apparently easy things that people are terrible at

Have you got a partner or a friend who is hugely competent in many areas of their life, but an absolute failure when it comes to something that should be simple, like cooking a meal? It turns out lots of people are rubbish at doing what should be easy tasks, as the good people of the AskReddit page have discovered after user capy_bawa posed this question:

‘What’s a simple life skill that surprisingly many people struggle with?’

Lots of folk have some slightly exasperating friends in their lives, as the replies showed…

1.

‘Reading comprehension and critical thinking.’
–Hojeekush

2.

‘Time management—so many people underestimate how long things actually take.’
–Best_Sherbet2727

3.

‘Effective listening. It’s simple but not always easy to truly hear and understand others.’
–rRitzzi

4.

‘Living within their means. Most people can’t afford the lifestyle they’re projecting.’
–CallingDrDingle

5.

‘Learning. Like some people think once they are done with school there is no need to learn new stuff.’
–ZunoJ

6.

‘Problem solving skills. I work in recruitment and the amount of times people call in and say they can’t log into a portal and i asked if they’ve tried resetting their password and they say no. I have a million examples of this. people will waste our time instead of taking a few minutes to solve their own problems.’
–lexilou_dimplington

7.

‘Tiny daily tidies to keep your space clean pretty effortlessly.’
–MoistMonstrosity69

8.

‘Doing their own research. Like actually doing research and just hunting things that confirm their bias. That’s not research.’
–GoauldofWar

9.

‘Identifying their own emotions and the reasons for them.’
–alexi_lupin

10.

‘Using public toilet facilities considerately and correctly.’
–Feetdownunder

11.

‘How to have an engaging conversation where their focus is on the other person. It’s a valuable skill for building rapport and just basically getting along with people. So many times I see people just talking AT somebody, not WITH somebody.’
–atticusfinch1973

12.

‘One often overlooked life skill that many people struggle with is effective communication.’
–nainakainth