As we all go through our required elementary and high school educations, we are exposed to a great variety of different subjects, from government and civics to physics and biology. Probably the most important subjects we learn are in the very first grade- reading, writing and basic arithmetic. Beyond that, a lot of the subjects are good to know and broaden our horizons, but are not really that necessary or useful in daily life? When was the last time you used calculus or trigonometry in your daily life? Physics? Chemistry? Never? I thought so.

Really, while standardized education is really meant to give us a broad, academic overview of various disciplines and really is not designed to be very practical in nature. It does nothing to educate us regarding useful life skills. This is why it is not uncommon to see the guy who did everything right, excelled in school all the way up to including possibly graduate school, got a good job and career, but whose life is a total wreck because he has gone through several divorces and bankruptcies due to poor relationship and money management skills.  It’s possible to do everything right in life, do everything by the book, and still be a complete and utter failure in life if you don’t know how to manage your relationships and take care of your money in life. And these are the two most important things that no school in the country teaches its students.

The important thing to remember is that being good at being in a relationship or being prudent money is a skill that can be taught and learned. Just like anything else. Just like riding a bike or swimming. It seem odd to most people, but these two skills can both be broken down into smaller sub skill sets. These smaller sub skill sets are the foundation and building blocks that once learned, can be built upon to learn more complex skills that are required to manage your life, just like it is first important to learn how to tread water before learning the freestyle stroke.  The basic relationship sub-sets include 1) communication, 2) proper boundaries, and 3) empathy. All three of these come more naturally to some and less to others, but all can be learned to a general level of fluency for MOST people. It is well known that skillful communication can be taught and there are numerous such classes available in the country, most notably Verbal Judo, which is taken by many police cadets to ensure their safety on the streets. However, none of this is taught in our public school system. The framing of proper personal boundaries is something that is usually handled in therapy, when the patient feels like they are at the end of their rope and need professional help. This too can be learned. And empathy, although much harder to define and break down can also be improved through volunteer and social service work that exposes individuals to others who are different than they are. In some circles, this is as defined as “sensitivity training.”

Right now, there are thousands of people who are living unsatisfactory lives because they lack the life skills to properly manage their affairs as well as of those close to them. It’s like they are walking down the street with a massive bleeding hole in their head, but to the them and the rest of the world, their exterior looks fine. Unfortunately, most people will never seek the help they need, so then they will breed negativity and resentment due to their personal life dissatisfaction and pass along their neuroses and bad habits to their children. Make no mistake, for every person who is paying out all of their income to alimony, for every person who has seen most of their savings dwindle due to divorce, for everyone who is jaded about life due to negative outcomes with the opposite sex, their lives, and of those around them, could have been much more improved and positively impacted if they had proper relationship education in school.