Learning New Skills may not always be good for you

I heard that learning new skills was good for you. Especially the older you get. Not sure where I got this, but I vaguely remember hearing that it helps prevent Alzheimer's. Which is why you've got airplanes full of people working Sudoku puzzles, all in hopes that by the time they figure them out they will either have a) healthy brains, or b) arrived at their destination, even if they don't know who or where they are. Cause I guarantee you, those puzzles are not inherently fun or relaxing, but instead put you into a math-induced coma.

So I have tried something more practical in the past week. First I tried my hand at Putting in and taking out a contact lens. (I don't really consider wearing them a skill, just in case you wondered.) This became MY GOAL, on the order of JFK's vision - by the end of the decade, landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the earth. (Practice saying it like him, it sounds more dramatic.)


By the way...
I have always thought the ending of the Man on the Moon vision - "and return him safely to earth" - was an interesting tack-on, like we might not care if we got them back safely, as long we beat the Russians in getting them up there.

NASA techie #1 "Hey does anyone know how to get Neil back?"
NASA techie #2 "No, it wasn't in my job description."
NASA techie #1 "You hungry, let's go get pizza."

Back to our featured story...MY GOAL-
The Contact Lens Skill wasn't just for my long term mental health. Its because I'm tired of reading glasses. Mostly, finding ones I like, then sitting on them in the car or crushing them in my backpack on the plane. I thought it would be more convenient to get A Contact Lens. But actually, I almost lost my short term mental health learning this refined and extraordinarily difficult art, which is practiced successfully by 40 million Americans according to my reassuring optometrist, Dr. Ipokeu. Anyone who tells you its easy to learn to put in contacts should be immediately regarded as a habitual liar. I tried every method and trick for days to keep my eye from blinking at the critical moment. Turns out my eye has a fantastic avoidance system for having someone's finger in it, including my own. This is what eyelids are supposed to do right? 50 years of training, and my eye has it down pat.

I discovered my eyelid is actually stronger that my finger's ability to hold it back. I tested them at the YMCA, and my eyelids can lift 150 pounds, but my index finger and ring finger only about 2.5 lbs. So, my eyelid wins every time.

As if the Contact Lens Skill sessions weren't enough, I decided to vastly diminish my long term Alzheimer's odds in the same week by putting on new screens that turns our backyard in to a small version of a batting cage. Turns out Mr. Weedwacker got a little too close over the years (another skill I must improve on) and I have enough rips in the screen that they serve as safety flaps to let the lizards know they are now entering our living area.

My friend Bob gave me great instructions on how to plan for, measure, cut, and install the screens. Even gave me the tools. Unfortunately, he could not do a brain transplant beforehand to tell me which side of the rubber stripping to put in that holds the fence into the frame. Of course, I had it turned the wrong way. Never once did it occur to me that I had it turned the wrong way. That is why God gave men wives. So that they can show us how to do stuff.

Wife: Honey, maybe if you turned it around it would help.
Husband: Right? Its obvious this is the right way.
Wife: Hey, look, its easy the other way.
Hsuband: #$%^&#! (while screaming)

Yes, it was magic. Suddenly, I did not have to use the strength of my arms, legs, and eyelids to force the threading in the groove of the frame in the fence of the cage that surrounds the house that sits on the street that Jack built, but it actually went in fairly easily, much easier than a contact lens in fact.

So, there are many morals, principles, and lessons you, or I, can take from this week of Learning a New Skill. Feel free to make up your own. I had a few to share, but I can't remember them now.