Have you discovered a hidden talent, skill?

I think I’m the only one who hasn’t learnt a new skill during these four months of Covid-19. I’m not even cooking more than I used to before this party pooper of a virus came and claimed a permanent parking spot. If anything, I’m cooking less, if at all.

This of course means that I haven’t learnt to prepare a single new meal, which is alarming because everyone I know has become a gourmet chef of sorts, whipping up complicated-looking meals with fancy names and ingredients I’ve never heard of – someone I know even started baking her own bread. No more stale supermarket bread, thank you.

 (Dalgona coffee anyone?) while others have grown a green thumb and now proudly eat vegetables from the small patch in their backyard or those grown in buckets on their verandah – such a mega achievement yet I haven’t added even one sukuma wiki plant to the ones I grew last year.

DISCOVERED TALENT

There are also people who have become fundis and interior designers, repainting their houses single-handedly and immersing themselves in DIY décor, and then showcasing their newly discovered talent on social media.

This is not all, not by a long shot, a number of people are now wearing sweaters that they knitted themselves to wade off the bone-chilling July weather. If you didn’t know it, knitting has become a trending activity as people all over the world, including the young and restless, continue to wait out the virus in their homes – this is no longer just an old people’s activity.

And I need not mention those that have made jogging part of their lifestyle and adopted a new bold hairstyle.

I am also yet to register for an online course, neither have I learnt how to do a self-manicure or pedicure, though to be fair to myself, I did finally get down to washing a couple of windows that have been crying for attention for some time.

Anyway, since I have never been one of those people who are easily swayed by the greener-looking grass on their neighbour’s lawn, I was doing okay with my laissez-faire attitude until a friend posted a photo of a cake she had baked from scratch for her daughter’s birthday on a WhatsApp group we’re both in.

You see, this friend has never been interested in culinary matters, yet she had managed to bake a cake that looked so well done, I began to question my lacklustre attitude, which mostly afflicts people who have taken leave from any kind of work to strictly rest, not to give attention to a neglected side hustle. And yet I wasn’t on leave.

COMBING FORESTS

Could it be that I was not exploring my full potential, I wondered? Wasting my God-given time on earth when I could be baking my own bread and combing forests in search of wood to make my own seats?

I am still mulling over these questions, and intend to write down a list of things that I could learn to do before life returns to normalcy, if this will ever happen, that is.

It is said that there is comfort in numbers – is there anyone who, like me, hasn’t yet discovered or been motivated to discover a hidden talent or skill that they could convert into a side hustle?

The writer is Editor, Society & Magazines, Daily Nation [email protected]