Most of my life I envied men who could service their cars, do carpentry, repair their appliances and maintain their homes with skills they were taught by heir fathers. My friends worked with their fathers to build sheds and treehouses, change the oil and brakes in the family car, do repairs around the house and perform other skilled labor work that I couldn’t do.
I never learned any of these things because my father disappeared from my life when I was 5.
Over the years, as a renter and a homeowner, I picked up some skills out of sheer necessity. Mostly, it was because I couldn’t afford to pay a professional and had no choice but to DIY a solution.
I’d fumble my way through the Black and Decker Home Repair Book and the Reader’s Digest Fix-It-Yourself manual to get a clue about how to proceed. Invariably, whatever I was working on never matched what was in the manuals. I’d end up kludging together a fix that may have solved the immediate problem, but not in an elegant or efficient manner. (It got better when I started making more money and could hire a professional to do it right.)
Often, when looking at the results of my DIY efforts, I’d think, “I wish I’d had a father who taught me how to do this right.”
Not anymore.
I have something better.
I have YouTube.
From YouTube tutorials I’ve learned how to replace interior and exterior trim, install dog doors, replace broken car door locks, paint/patch and sand, refinish furniture, troubleshoot my furnace, fix plumbing leaks, do electrical work and much more.
In fact, I credit nearly all of my DIY successes to YouTube and my willingness to “give it a shot” and make mistakes.
I still believe my life would have been better with a father in it. But, since those weren’t the cards I was dealt, I’m grateful for YouTube.