Lifeskills Through Games - Knowing One's Sills Making A Skills Inventory

In the previous edition of this serialised feature we discussed an emotional block that prevents one from leading a creative life ; fears related to one’s actions drawing the attention of others.

- Dr. Jeyakar Vedamanickam

This episode is about the importance of skills. Confidence in oneself largely comes from the set of skills one is equipped with to meet life’s challenges. The ‘Skills Inventory’ game introduced in this episode, facilitates being conscious of one’s skills; this reinforces confidence in oneself and prepares one to focus on developing more skills.

The family had planned to dine out that evening, but then the rain was playing spoilsport. ‘Never mind; I’ll make pizzas for dinner’, announced Taj, as she examined the contents in the fridge and declared, ‘Yes, I have stocked all one needs for a rainy day’.

Sam loved her pizzas. He blew a short shrill whistle to express his appreciation. He had the knack of placing the middle and fore fingers of both his hands in his mouth, on his tongue, to blow a loud trill.

‘What a dirty thing to do’, commented Shama, and turning to her Dad continued, ‘Please ask him to stop whistling with his fingers in his dirty mouth, Dad’. ‘Why? What’s wrong with his whistling?’ responded Raj. ‘Of course he will need to clean his hands after the whistle, which I know he will. On the contrary, I admire Sam’s skill to whistle with his fingers’. ‘Do you call this dirty thing, a skill, Dad? In that case, it’s a dirty skill’.

‘Skill is the ability to physically perform an activity or accomplish a task. Sam has this ability; rare and valuable, since none of us can do that’.