And speaking of Self Reliance Exchange, there’s another excellent article there about gaining the knowledge to do many things yourself. The writer (DDFD) uses the example of his car, and how you can learn a lot about your car and how it works just doing some of the basic maintenance. He still leaves some of the more specialized tasks to professionals for safety reasons, but there are many maintenance tasks that can be done yourself.

This article hit home a bit for me, as this is one area I’ve given myself a pass on. While I know I could learn car maintenance, I’ve avoided it by promising that I’ll just learn some skills that mechanics need so I can barter. But DDFD’s argument that you can learn a lot about your car by working on it makes sense. I really should do more of that.

It’s not easy. I like my mechanic. I want to make sure he’s still around when I need him. But would it kill me (or him) if I did a few of things things myself at least a time or two? Probably not.