Skills That Endure

?????????? Last weekend, my daughter’s family visited us at our West Virginia farm.? It takes more than a little grit to do that.? In late 2020, my husband Kenny and I bought 163 acres of deeply beautiful mountains, forests, and meadows in West Virginia’s Potomac Highlands.? In the three years since then, we have built a rustic settlement that meets minimal needs of modern, pampered humans.

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??????????? I write that with full awareness that within my lifetime, many people in Appalachia lived without plumbing or electricity.? Some still do.

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??????????? Anyway, I digress. ?The last three years have taught us a lot and I’ll write about that later.

???????????? The point of today’s article is that while we learn many skills over our lifetimes.? The ones that really matter, endure.

???????????? My daughter, Annie, and her husband brought baby James with them.? He is my first grandbaby.? He’s two months old, and I am totally in love with him.? On Saturday, in the face of a cold, steady rain, we opted to go bowling at the community center in the quaint little nearby town. ?I was perfectly happy to hold baby James while everyone bowled.? He quickly fell asleep in my arms.

???????????? As his nap wound down, he began to stir.? At that moment, Annie and my son-in-law were locked in a fun, fierce battle for victory and bragging rights.? Going into the seventh frame, my daughter held a commanding lead thanks to the multiple strikes she had racked up.? But her husband rallied, and his steady focus threatened her win.?

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James started to fuss.? I had to keep him happy until the duel ended.?

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It has been at least twenty-five years since I had to settle a fussy baby.? I worried whether I was up to the task.? But then I relaxed and allowed my mama skills to resurface from somewhere deep, where I had packed them away long ago.? I hummed a lullaby.? I gently rocked from side to side, somehow keeping exactly the right tempo.? At one moment, my swaying sped up a bit only to soften in intuitive response to James.? Without thinking, I knew when to stand and walk.

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??????????? We learn many skills over our lives, but human-centered skills will always matter most.? When we learn to connect with others and truly pay attention with our minds and our hearts, it affirms our collective humanity.? ?It is these people skills – employers like to call them ‘soft’ skills – that never really leave us.? They endure and can be summoned from dormancy by simply paying attention.? Noticing.? Connecting.? Being with another person.

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??????????? I’m no expert on which skills are most correlated to successful careers, but experience has taught me that people skills are irreplaceable.? Because each person relates to others in their own unique ways, we each have an opportunity to build a skill set unmatched by any other human or machine.? With AI emerging as a material threat to knowledge-based skills, perhaps people skills are more relevant and essential than ever.? We humans needs each other.

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??????????? Last Saturday, I achieved the goal.? I successfully kept James happy enough for the game to run its course.? It was a close call but, in the final frame, my son-in-law’s focus and determination paid off.? He won.

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??????????? So did I.

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