Ever since I’ve been exposed to three things, I’ve come around to the belief that most things in life are skill issues.
Those three things are Art of Accomplishment, Ultraspeaking, and Math Academy.
AOA made me realize that emotionsz can be worked with effectively and skillfully, and downstream of discovering AOA, things that I once thought were too esoteric or I did not even know about such as somatic work actually exist, I just had to find them.
Ultrapseaking drilled into my brain that speech is a skill. This then hit me like a ton of bricks because it helped me fully grok the importance of intentionality in skill building. This then helped me realize we can be intentional about improving anything at anytime, and it can happen, even if bottlenecked by circumstances determined by third parties. Yes obviously there are limits to this, but if you show up in everything you do with the intention to improve (whatever that may mean for your context) on it, it all comes down to skill issues.
The third thing that really nailed this belief into my head, was Math Academy. Their pedagogy is both inspirational and obviously intentional. The emphasis on deliberate practice is so obviously intentionality coded that the two go hand in hand. Deliberate practice IS ~75% of the work, and this is a practice not separate from your source of agency. What I mean is that intentionality is cultivated through a greater presence of agency which then leads to a greater habit of deliberate practice with all skills if done in the right way. Math Academy’s pedagogy stresses rules within learning that are clearly imperative and can be applied across ~all domains. This is what leads to talent development with purpose and non-chance.
Reactivity to emotions can be worked on, showing up in relationships is a skill issue, healing our nervous systems is a skill issue, working with people we dislike can be improved, and so on.
Upstream of this is a sort of disbelief in agency. Perhaps this disbelief is a Part of ourselves that is protecting us because if we had to face this truth, it would result in negative or hurtful emotions. This too is a skill issue (see AOA). Starting to grok that ‘everything is a skill issue’ was probably downstream of me healing and working with the Part(s) of me that kept my Being away from these difficult emotions. Now that I can skillfully love and embrace all emotional experiences, this fear/protector of agency no longer stands in the way.
Another thing I want to make clear is that in no way should this belief breed shame. No, I do not yell ‘skill issue’ at the guy stuck in poverty or the person who is obese and can’t seem to lose weight. One, because third party circumstances are still incredibly impactful. And two, this belief does not give one the right to live unwholesomely. In fact, this belief should encourage you that cultivating compassion and metta is a skill issue as well, and that pushing people with love rather than shame is a state that we can live in as long as we are intentional in our cultivation. This belief should help you realize that if the person is not aware of this type of agentic thinking, it is a matter of dealing with Parts, difficult emotions, and hard truths. Dealing with these things cannot be done with shame or hatred or malice.
The resources are out there, you just have to find them. Now with tools like Deep Research and GPT5 web search, it has never been easier. Get out there and be intentional.