Growing up I was taught independence.

Initiative.

Self sustaining habits.

The works, really.

There was a period where I was home schooled, for a short time – it helped me skip two grades and graduate grade school early. This taught self-discipline and time management, which helps me a lot today.

I know – I’ve been late in posting my musings the past two weeks – but only because I’ve been working on a BIG project that’s going to provide valuable and EPIC content for all my readers.

Those are the only two hints I can give right now – anything else and I’d spoil the surprise.

Now I’m not at all a micro-manager – no way. I believe in telling someone to get something done, then sitting back and watching them execute it. Only if they’re steering off the path in a major way do I intervene.

I like to give people flexibility to try different methods, new things, and alternate solutions. If a person finds a better, more efficient way of carrying out things – I look at that as time leverage.

As long as things are done properly, and in a timely matter, I’m not bothered much by the exact means in which the result was obtained – because there’s always more than one way to an answer or a destination.

What I don’t like is someone taking forever to decide on something then waiting until the last minute to drop the hammer.

This shows indecisiveness, and inability to make a snap decision independently.

There’s two character traits I mostly live my life by – independence, being the stronger of the two – and interdependence – something that I’ve learnt over the years through relationships, both platonic and romantic.

Since I was a kid I really had no problem doing things on my own, speaking out, or learning things on my own. Because of this, I also had no problem getting into the odd scuffle every now and again – if it was warranted.

There are huge benefits in doing things yourself – in certain circumstances. Other times it’s good to allocate things to other people if it pans out to be more time consuming or impractical than it’s really worth. To put it simply, it’s better to “outsource,” when the need calls.

A quick and easy example of this could be getting your car oil changed at a mechanic or doing it yourself.

The pros and cons?

Take it to the mechanic:

Pros – You don’t have to deal with doing it yourself and could be doing other things while your car is geting serviced.

Cons – They can throw any kind of cheap oil filter in there they choose to and they may not use the ideal oil type for the engine…thus inadvertently shortening your vehicle’s engine life. If you don’t have a second car you could be stuck sitting at the mech shop waiting for your vehicle anyway.

Doing it yourself:

Pros – You know what components are going into your car and can choose quality, for practically the same price. You learn a simple service enabling you to choose whether or not you want to outsource the task.

Cons – If you don’t have the tools (ratchet, washers, oil pan) you have to eat the initial investment. It’s a learning curve – whether or not you choose to conquer it is up to you.

Pros and cons of being a Do-it-yourselfer can be spread across any and all spectrums. The thing I like about doing things myself sometimes is the education – you can learn a lot if you just take the initiative and learn the basic structure of how things work.

Learning this could even mean just interacting with people from all aspects of life who specialize in various things – from mechanics to the art of conversation, a simple one-on-one conversation and genuine interest in someone’s talent can teach a person a lot.

Once you gain the insight though, don’t become a dick.

A lot of people extract information, apply it practically, and then forget exactly how they learned it in the first place. Every do-it-yourselfer is really just someone who’s studied their interests and gained insight from multiple sources.

However, the real and final learning process lies in execution, and executing well.

I’m not saying try and do everything yourself – not in the slightest…but every once in a while it’s good to have a go at something and see if you can conquer it.

Make it your business to learn or do something new at least once a week, and you’ll find you’ll develop more skills, gain more knowledge, and have more to talk about when interacting with other people.

I do, and it’s probably the best thing I’ve kept up in my life for a while. 😉

Stay awesome.

– Rego

Musings Episode 24: Do it Yourself…. is a post from and appeared first on Rego’s Life

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