What’s the most underrated life skill?
There are so many incredible answers floating around the WordPress landscape to this prompt—patience, kindness, taking a pause, active listening, and I loved reading every single one of them.
But if I had to add a little spice to that mix, I’d say the ultimate underrated skill is not judging each other (or ourselves), combined with having trust in life.
We are judging all the time. Everything we see and experience passes through our personal filter and immediately gets labeled as ‘good’ or ‘bad’—we rarely just observe the world around us. And when life throws us into turmoil, it’s so easy to lose faith.
When we combine all those mentioned skills with this perspective, the full recipe for navigating life looks like this:
Patience: Giving things time to unfold.
Kindness: Leading with care.
The Pause: Giving ourselves space before responding and reacting.
Active Listening: Truly hearing what others share and asking follow-up questions to ensure we understand them correctly, rather than just waiting for our turn to speak.
Curiosity & Playfulness: Dropping judgment, asking questions, and keeping things light (which, let’s be honest, is often much easier said than done).
Trust in Life: Believing that life is actually good, and that all the challenges, and often the bullshit we have to deal with, are simply helping us grow and evolve as human beings.
Under the heavy demands of adulthood, holding onto levity and a beginner’s mind can feel almost impossible. Yet the body offers our most grounded, immediate gateway back to that spirit of open wonder.
I am Parisa Radpey, the writer of these pages and founder of Dhyana Donya Movement & Health. You can read more about me here my background.
Some patterns can’t be thought through. Only walked through. Curious what I mean? Read The Silver Route — now on Amazon.
How do I work with people? Read Free guide
I would love to understand the people I am creating this work for a little better. If you have a few minutes, take my short survey here — it truly helps me understand the needs of real people and what they face on their journey, so I can shape my work around what I hear, rather than simply assuming what might be needed.
You can also find me across social platforms, or let my Spotify playlist move what words can’t. And if you want more, I also write for Wise and Shine Zine, and my latest blog post is called Listening to the Heart: The Story Behind Lau Suna.