McKay B.H. - Heading Out On Your Own: 31 Basic Life Skills in 31 Days

Cover Design by Eric Granata

Illustrations by Ted Slampyak

Photography by Darren Bush, Antonio Centeno, Brett Mckay and Matt Moore

Typesetting by Screen Four Solutions

Copyright 2013 by Brett H. McKay and Kate R. McKay

All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof

may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever

without the express written permission of the publisher

except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

First Printing, 2013

ISBN 978-0-9891903-0-5

Semper Virilis Publishing

PO Box 978

Jenks, OK 74037

www.sempervirilis.com

Table of Contents

Introduction

Growing up, Dwight D. Eisenhower was responsible for many chores around the house and for looking after his younger brothers. When his mother got sick and was quarantined in a room in the house for several months, Ike was responsible for cooking for his whole family his mother would call directions to him from her bed on how to make the meals (an experience that gave Ike a lifelong love of cooking). When Eisenhower graduated from high school, he started working as an engineer in a creamerys ice plant. He worked 84 hours a week on the night shift from 6pm to 6am, 7 days a week, 52 weeks a year. Even with his savings, he didnt want his college education to put any burden on his parents, so he decided to apply to the Naval Academy. He and a friend sent away for past entrance examinations, and after working all night, Ike would sleep a few hours and then go over to the gas lighting store where his friend was employed, and together they would study every afternoon before Ike had to be back at the ice plant. Eisenhower ended up at West Point and was able to hit the ground running when he got there. That was 1915.

In 2001, I, Brett McKay, graduated from high school and after a summer working at a paint shop, left home to become a freshman at the University of Oklahoma. I had never done my own laundry. I had never cleaned my own bathroom. I had never cooked for myself (unless plates of nachos count). I was a typical middle-class kid from the burbs, and the first time I moved away from home, I floundered. I finished the fall semester with a 2.6 GPA, and moved back home to go to a local college in my hometown. I just didnt know how to live on my own successfully.

My parents, God bless em, had tried to prepare me for leaving the nest, but they were also willing to do a lot of things for me, and as a teenager lacking foresight, I didnt see a reason to look the gift horse in the mouth and learn how to do them myself. I eventually learned a lot of the basic life skills I had once been lacking, but I wish I had prepared myself a little better to become independent and self-reliant once I had flown the coop.

Every fall, millions of young men around the country get ready to head off to college and/or move out on their own. In an effort to help these young men avoid the same hapless mistakes I made, and better navigate the waters of independence, we decided to put together this book.

The goal is simple: to help young men heading out on their own for the first time learn some of the very basic life skills theyll need to succeed once theyre living on their own . If thats you, think of this book as a 31-day boot camp on becoming a successful, well-adjusted adult. If youve already been living on your own for a short time, or even for decades, but either never got around to learning some of these life skills, or simply need to brush up on them, this book is for you, too.

Weve divided it into 31 chapters or days. Each day, youll learn a different basic life skill that will help you become self-sufficient as you head out on your own for the first time. We cover everything from shopping for groceries and stocking your kitchen, to ironing your clothes, to properly dealing with stress, and many more of the things that get taken for granted or just dont apply when living at home. When possible, try to perform, practice, or implement the skill on the day that its covered. At the same time, keep in mind that some of these skills will require more than a few hours to master; the traits having to do with your mindset, in particular, will be things youll work on over a lifetime. No matter the type of skill, youll make mistakes and fail along the way. Dont get discouraged just keep working on them. If it makes you feel any better, Ive been living on my own for over ten years, and Im still working on some of these basic life skills!

Alright, youll be packing your bags and heading out the door before you know it, so lets get cracking on transforming you from dependent boy to self-sufficient man.

Day #1: Develop a Self-Reliant Mentality

This first task is really more of a mindset than a skill set, but its a crucial building block that will lay the foundation for the rest of the harder, more practical skills well be covering in this book.

Its developing a self-reliant mentality.

Part of being a grown man is taking care of yourself and making your own decisions. It isnt until youre on your own that you realize how much you relied on adults to make your life run smoothly. From doing your laundry to calling the doctor when you were sick, your parents likely did a lot of things for you.

While you might not be completely self-sufficient right when you move out (many young people rely on their parents for varying degrees of financial support well into their twenties), you can certainly be self-reliant in a number of areas in your life. For example, you shouldnt need your mom to remind you about important appointments or your dad to bug you about taking your car in to get its routine maintenance. You should be able to remember to do those things yourself. A man with a self-reliant mentality doesnt wait around for someone else to take care of things that need to be taken care of. If he encounters a problem, he takes the initiative and tries to figure out how to resolve it himself.

So how does a man develop a self-reliant mentality?

One of the best answers I have found to this question actually comes from a great, albeit endearingly cheesy, 1950s educational film called Developing Self-Reliance. Its ten minutes long and definitely worth watching:

Watch at http://youtu.be/xGROmq1mX1o

In the film, a kind-hearted teacher lays out the four principles of building self-reliance for one of his young students:

Assume responsibility . Start taking responsibility for your life and the things in it. If youve relied on your mom to wake you up every morning so you werent late to school, its time to make friends with the alarm clock on your smartphone. Start using a calendar to keep track of your appointments and important due dates. When you notice your apartment or dorm room is looking messy, clean it up. Dont blame your teacher or your boss if youre not doing well in a class or at work. If you make a mistake, own up to it, and try to make it right yourself instead of immediately running back to mom and dad so they can fix it for you. When you come home to visit your parents, dont fall back into old routines and let mom do your laundry for you. Parents sacrifice much in taking on not only their own burdens, but the burden of responsibility for each of their children as well. But they should not have to carry more than their own burdens indefinitely; when a child is able, he, in gratitude to the unselfish care he received for many years from his parents, should begin to transfer his load from their shoulders to his, as soon as he possibly can.