I've been to fair number of retreats in my day for numerous different things. A lot of these retreats had absolutely nothing to do with each other. There was my confirmation retreat, an NSLC summit in Washington DC, Manresa at Xavier Orientation, and SGA's summer retreats. However, on multiple retreats my fellow retreaters and I were given the same cryptic leadership building icebreaker. I have an idea of what the purpose of it was...but how well it accomplishes that is up for debate. What the ice breaker consists of is your group getting a list of people who are holed up in a fallout shelter after some cataclysmic post-apocalyptic event. Leaving the shelter and exposing yourself to the atmosphere will lead to death within a day or two. However, the problem is that you've got about eighteen people on your list and the fallout shelter can only operate under the oxygen, food, and space constraints with eight people. So, this means that you and your group have to play God and pick which of the unfortunate survivors get tossed out into the doom.
It gets fairly testy because everybody has different qualifications for what makes somebody worthy of being saved. You can't throw the kid out because then you're just an inhumane monster and nobody will respect you for the rest of the retreat. Then there's always that hippie chick who demands that you save the dog and everybody with a brain and respect for human life wants to punch her in the face. The trick is that there are certain people that need to be saved in order to ensure the survival of the group. There is usually some stipulation that the shelter doors require two full-grown men to open them...so this keeps the chivalrously-inclined from just saving the women and children. Catholics always want to save the priest because we think that's what God would want us to do. But the atheists argue that he won't be willing to re-populate. There's also always a doctor, but he's usually got an invalid shrew for a wife and will refuse to stay without her. This makes you question whether you want to burn another spot on somebody everybody could do without just to have the pretty necessary services of a doctor in your shelter. What this ice breaker does is it offers you a peak into what other people's values are. However, what most people fail to realize about this ice breaker is that people's values tend to conform into a system that would allow themselves to stay in the bunker should your group find yourself in this scenario and you actually had to make cuts.
People place a higher value on skills that they bring to the table. Even if you consider yourself a martyr and are willing to sacrifice yourself for the life of somebody else...you still want to go out knowing that you were wanted in the bunker. Everybody wants to be a hot commodity. Everybody wants to make the fallout shelter cut. Making the fallout shelter cut is what the third pillar of the Lush Life is all about. It's called the Know-How. And anybody who is living the Lush Life has it in copious supply. There's a reason the doctor is a hot commodity in the fallout shelter paradox. He has useful skills. Lawyers have skills and astronauts have skills, but in post-apocalyptic futures their skill sets kind of become obsolete and useless. The Know-How is about acquiring skill sets which translate to all sorts of situations, both likely and unlikely. These could be changing a tire, administering CPR, or cooking a turkey.
Of course certain skills are more important than others when we put The Know-How in perspective. For instance, let's take multiplication tables or long division and picking locks. You've got to be thinking that you'll use math skills a lot more often than lockpicking...so therefore math is more important in regards to The Know-How. WRONG! WRONG, Sir! You see, tons of people can do long division. If you're in a group of five people (assuming most of my readership has completed high school) then the odds are that at least four of your party will know basic math. Your math skills are not a commodity because you are replaceable. Your skill set is not unique. Of that same group, I would wager that not more than one can pick a lock with any sort of craftsmanship. So if you have that skill in your arsenal...then you have The Know-How. What this means is that your ability to have the Know-How is reliant on the shortcomings of others. As you surely already knew, this means that other people's stupidity and lack of experience is beneficial to you. We as humans should be striving to create a better society where people are empowered and self-reliant. However, while we're getting there it is important to stay ahead of the curve by achieving the Know-How.
The Know-How is all about having skills that make you important and necessary to other people. It doesn't matter what skills you have that are beneficial to yourself...it's all about your value to others. People spend their effort trying to make sure that they aren't being "used". Nobody wants to be anybody else's puppet or lackey. This is highly counter-productive. This makes you worthless. Having skills that are useful to others is essential for your own happiness. The trick to avoid being "used" in the sense everybody seems to like to avoid is to have a flow of value which remains steady, and to always have your hand on the faucet at any given point. Show people that what you bring to the table can go away at any point if they step out of line. For instance, if you have concert tickets that are in hot demand, your leverage is very short lived. As soon as the concert date is passed you no longer have a hot commodity. Even money or good-looks does not constitute the Know-How. The Know-How is about having skills that only Alzheimer's can take away.
Let's be serious though. Everybody has something that they know how to do well. The trick is to live your life in a way that your skills will come in handy. Put yourself in a position to show the world what you have. This should work in two ways: you should be tailoring your skills to the world that you live in, and you should be tailoring the world to match up with your skills. If you live in an area where certain skills are at a premium, then learn those skills. If you live on Cape Cod there is a great chance that everybody knows how to sail. But if you work to make your sailing skills superior to everybody else's then you will have the Know-How. The same goes for hunting in Montana, robotics in Tokyo, beer drinking in the Czech Republic, and oral sex in Paris. However, one must also try to seek out opportunities to use the skills that one already has, even if they are not at a premium in one's community. Go and find the places where your skills are most useful. If you are awesome at the Heimlich Maneuver, I highly recommend frequenting the Red Lobster. Live a life that allows you to put what you know to good use.
However, aside from adapting your skills for your environment and adapting your environment for your skills: there is one other very important factor in ensuring that you master the Know-How. This consists of making sure that your Know-How doesn't become obsolete. We already discussed how being in a fall-out shelter during the potential End of the World can render some skill sets useless. While maintaining a set of skills that could come in handy during the Zombie Apocalypse is definitely something to strive for, this scenario seems marginally far-fetched at present. What is significantly more likely is that your skills will be phased out as technology develops. Programming a VCR used to be a handy skill...now it is absolutely worthless. Even standard trivia intelligence is no longer at a premium with the wide-spread use of smart phones which tell your friends what you used to tell them. These days it's important that your skills and knowledge be task-oriented. Knowing facts can be replicated by others. Learning how to do something takes time and where others lack motivation, you will gain an important skill.
I give a lot of compliments to various people whom I respect and admire. I'm not shy with them. People will hear these compliments as they please and depending upon what characteristics about themselves they value they will be flattered by the compliment accordingly. Some people would prefer that I call them attractive rather than smart. Others might want to be considered generous instead of strong. The real question to consider when you receive a compliment is what does the giver of the compliment value. In my case, the greatest compliment that I can give to somebody is when I call them "high-functioning". It means that I think that they are the total package, that they are at the center of a cult of personality, and that as far as I am concerned to date...they operate without fault. High-functioning people are the people who have it all. Everybody wants them on their team because they bring so much to the table. That is the Know-How in a nut shell. It's about being the #1 Draft Pick in the fantasy draft of life. The Know-How can be learned in books and magazines and even on television, but the best way to achieve the Know-How is through hands-on, real-life experience. So, go out there and get bust learning or get out of my fallout shelter.
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