As I sit by, 22 years old, my life gets combined into a blend of routine that mostly includes sitting at a desk, drinking and sleeping. I’m the most washed up I’ve ever been in my life in most aspects: I can’t stand up after about an hour of pickup half-court basketball, I get a stiff buzz off two or three glasses of red wine (I’m not an animal), I don’t know how to talk to girls at the bar, the list goes on.

So now I’m trying to add some spice into my life and maybe pick up a skill or two that can help me add a wrinkle to what has become a very stagnant life. This has made me think of a list of things that I really wish I could be perfect at, and I’m here tonight to share these things with you.

Playing the Guitar

To be completely frank, this is something that I started about a year ago and I don’t have the patience to really sit down and learn it. I just want to be good at it with no practice, it’s plain and simple. If you’ve read prior blogs, you know I’m a huge country music guy so a guitar was a fun thing for me to try. I’ve managed to learn exactly four (4) chords, but luckily they’re the major four of country music so I’ve picked up a couple songs I can loosely play but God damn I just want to be able to sit down and strum that shit like Chris Stapleton. Maybe with some more sitting around and being pissed off about not being able to do it, it’ll magically come to me.

Look at Chris plucking this thang. Wow.

Knife Skills

Cooking is actually one of my decent skills in life, I can definitely hold my own in the kitchen. I’m certainly not perfect, and one of the things holding me back the most is that I cut vegetables and such at a fifth grade level. During quarantine I’ve become a pretty avid TikTok user, and cooking TikTok has been a big part of that. Something about watching a meal come together in 60 seconds or less really just gets me going. These chefs can perfectly chop a whole onion in a blink of an eye and it’s baffling to me. Being able to just guide the knife with your fingers across food is such a dream of mine, but I also know that I would cut off at least one finger doing so. So for now I’ll just sit by with my uneven cuts like some kind of Neanderthal and focus on my flavors.

Better Fastball

A lifelong baseball player and college halflete (club), being a left-handed pitcher I had somewhat of a leg up except for the fact that I could never break about 83 mph on my fastball. Looking back I really don’t think playing a sport in college would’ve been my cup of tea even if I was good enough, but man it would’ve been cool. Taking the field in front of fans that aren’t your just parents or high school classmates, man, what a feeling. I found my sweet spot showing up to games at a local Babe Ruth field hungover as dirt on a Sunday morning, but sometimes I wonder what life would be like had I been able to hit 90 on the gun. “Oh Jake, why didn’t you just work harder on your mechanics?” you might ask. To that I say – Idk man.

Shuffling Cards

This may seem like a weird one, but I legitimately may be the worst card shuffler on the face of this planet. Going to the casino or just having a nice poker night with the fellas, I’m always envious of the people that can fling cards through each other in a blaze of glory. For me personally, it’s gotten to the point that my friends get so pissed that they just shuffle the cards for me when it’s my turn to be dealer like I’m a 4-year-old. I feel like this one has to be the easiest one of the four to learn but I just have no desire to sit down and learn how to shuffle cards of all things. I just want to sit back, relax, and be able to do it with no effort. Is that too much to ask?

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