Empower yourself and others to repair and craft – or: the gratification of DIY

Going back to a bit lighter and more practical topic this time. When I had a flat tyre on my bike, a friend showed me how to patch the inner tube. As this did not work sufficiently, I later on exchanged the tube by myself. While I am not the most handicrafty person in the world, I was proud especially about my second endeavour where I did the process by myself (okay, with a bit of help by an online tutorial). This itself is really not such a big thing but it showed me again that it feels really good to do something with your hands and directly see the effect you had. At another event, we were able to make our own bags for our smartphones from scrap materials which was fun as well and even easier than buying something (choice overload).

Especially, for those who are largely working laptop based like me: remind yourself of the gratifying effect of achieving something with your own hands regularly and express your admiration for people who work with their hands on a usual basis.

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There are so many more people needed to actually repair and construct things, not only for sustainability reasons. Partly, we can do more of such tasks ourselves and enjoy a different task than looking at a screen and thinking. Partly, as societies, we should communicate more about the value these people and jobs create and support young people to take up such professions. It’s not at all more honourable to go to university than it is to learn a craft, although it was kind of communicated like this at least here in Germany. I know several people whose parents urged them to study – even though it wasn’t their thing at all – who would have been much happier and probably also more successful if they had done something practical instead.

If you know how to create or repair things – like my friend did – please help others, not only by doing it for them but also by empowering and teaching them how to do it themselves. In the end, this is often more helpful. If you have fun in helping others in this way, you might become a volunteer e.g. in a repair café or even open one yourself if there is no such thing available in your area.

Source of header image: Bild von Juraj Varga auf Pixabay