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As with many cultures and societies, before the time of the industrial revolution, those living in the Balkans survived only by doing everything themselves.

It was natural that most of life was learned from or spent at work. Everything revolved around physical labor; socializing, family connections, acquiring knowledge and habits, personality development, learning, cultural traditions.

Anything learned from and during physical labor was applied to everything else in life. It was practically school before schools became available to the majority of the population.

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To date, I’ve had numerous jobs and hobbies, although rarely do I ever sit down to think about what is learned in each of them that carries over to other areas of life and to future projects.

I feel that there is always something that can be learned from anything done outside of your comfort zone; this is what I’ve strived to do for many years and still do, even though it’s no longer realistic career-wise (sticking to and specializing in one area is important too). For me, there’s just something about sitting in one spot with no challenges coming along that I can never get used to.

In my professional and personal life, I’ve been involved in many different jobs and hobbies, including but not limited to: IT service, computer repair, online marketing, home renovation, automobile service, woodworking, gardening, research, restoration, custom fabrication. Many, if not all, have provided lessons or developed habits that have helped out in other areas of life. To explain in more detail, below are explanations of what has helped me improve in other areas, or even in some cases, have the assurance that I can handle the complexity of the work. It’s been a

– IT service requires patience, memory, thoroughness, trial and error, creativity as well as an understanding of system interaction with changes such as applications or settings.

– Computer repair requires knowledge of interaction of other computer components, trial and error, memory; An understanding of component margin of optimal performance to prevent overload, as well as wiring organization and tracing.

– Online marketing content creation requires creativity, repetitiveness; knowledge of synonyms, sentence and paragraph structuring, as well as attention to integration of and consistency of ideas and themes throughout a project.

– Home renovation needs a strong ability to envision how something will appear; electrical, structural and mathematical knowledge, attention to both detail and timelines, preparation and advance planning, consistency and safety planning.

– Automobile service requires systems interaction knowledge, trial and error, patience, attention to detail, creativity, consistency, thoroughness and memory of component appearance and location. Also safety implementation and advance planning is important.

– Woodworking takes advance planning, safety implementation, understanding of material capabilities, mathematical and structural understanding, attention to detail as well as creativity.

– Gardening requires patience, advance planning, consistency, attention to detail, advance planning and an ability to envision how something will appear. Also needed is an understanding of outside influences on garden and individual plant condition.

– Research is primarily a matter of patience, consistency, thoroughness, organization, record-keeping and an ability to put all the pieces of information in order.

– Restoration of various antiques needs many things; patience, finesse, thoroughness, creativity, trial and error, attention to material and surface appearance and integrity, organization, as well as memory of component placement and appearance.

– Fabrication of items that are non-existent or expensive. This is simply an exercise in advance planning, trial and error, attention to detail, thoroughness and patience.

After laying out all the different areas i’ve had experience in, there are several habits that stand out as being useful when applied to other areas of life. Think about the last time you did something new, be it a hobby or work/career related; did you find you learned a new habit in the midst of it?

An example I’ve experienced:

While learning how to use farm machinery to work on a larger plot of land for gardening, there was no line of vision as to what was happening around the machine, and what the result was after passing over an area could only be seen after the fact. This could be be problematic if working close to sensitive plants; keeping the machine working in a specific area is important. The only way to get this done is by feel, sound and awareness of your surroundings and a heightened depth perception, accompanied by fast reaction time. Of course there is always trial and error involved the first few times, although I eventually learned how to use the machinery without causing unwanted damage to anything else, or to the machine itself.

Now to answer the question, How is that useful in other areas of life?:

– Driving larger vehicles or trailers where vision is blocked and other senses are employed.

– Working with your hands in an area where you aren’t able to see what is being done, only the sense of touch is your source of information.

– Anything involving a chain reaction where a result happens far out of your line of sight, such as plugging in an electronic instrument using an extension cord, where quick disconnect of power is needed after a specific time has passed.

– Digging in a garden, trying to find by feel only what is hidden in the soil.

Of course, there are endless examples, although this brings clarity to the idea discussed here; that there are practical lessons to be learned from one area that can be applied to other areas. This practice can be expanded far beyond the topics I’ve covered here. It can easily and effectively applied to sports, exercise and more; it can bring out more interesting ideas than most people realize.

As detailed at the foreword; this was once a normal part of life. However, it has been long dismissed or ignored. It’s still valid and widely available even today. All that is needed is recognition of and willingness to partake in the activity, to put to use all the benefits it can bring.