Kan Själv

2025-04-11

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A while ago, I was told “kan själv” is a phrase Swedish children use, meaning roughly “I can do it myself” when they’re in that phase of life where they just have to prove they can do everything by themselves. While it is pretty amusing, I think there’s some value in applying this mentality to our adult lives.

Over the last couple months, I started learning a lot of new skills. Every time something new comes up, it’s because I can't find anything suitable for what I need or want.
While I could certainly go to someone skilled enough to do it for me, usually at a price, I’ve found that it is a lot more valuable to do it myself and actually learn how to do it or, in other cases, to make something truly the way I want it to be.

A few examples of this:

A few months ago, I was looking for a dress shirt . I found one but the sleeves were a bit too tight for me so I turned it into a short sleeved shirt. I had never really worked with fabrics in my life and the hem is definitely wobbly but at the same time, it just works! Even if it’s far from perfect!
Doing this has allowed me to have confidence to mend a number of items that were in dire need of it and, honestly, it has become a new hobby for me and I’m excited to start new sewing projects!

I’ve also been cutting my own hair for the last year. I frankly have no idea what I’m doing when I do it, but the results look and feel alright. They’re probably just better than a lot of haircuts I’ve gotten from professionals now that I think about it. There’s just something about being able to get what you want with no chance of being misinterpreted.
Everytime I do it, I get better at it. I notice some things I could be doing differently, I get better tools, etc.

And most recently, I started working on learning to draw using my left hand. I started doing this because of chronic pain I’ve been dealing with in my right arm. While I can use it, it has consequences. I’d rather not have to deal with those consequences but I still want to draw. So starting from scratch without any of my lifetime of muscle memory is pretty much my only option.
This one has definitely been a huge test of my patience, I assume because I have something to directly compare it against: my skills with my right hand.
It feels very discouraging at times, but it is heavily contrasted by the fact that I can actually see improvement. It takes me a lot longer and feels very awkward, but I am eventually able to achieve what I want.

I apply this same idea to a lot of things in my life nowadays. There’s a surprising amount of things you can do by being just a little bit resourceful. I’ve made and done a lot of things that I thought were out of my reach when all I actually needed was a little push.

Come to think of it, this entire website is something I made myself. I considered using templates when I was starting to make it but I quickly realised that it wasn’t going to work out for me, which lead me to making it all from scratch. I couldn’t have done it without the guidance of my wonderful friends who are admittedly a lot more knowledgeable about web development than I am, but I can still proudly say that I made most of it myself :3
One of the consequences of doing it all by myself is that I actually know what everything does and how to make adjustments to fit my needs. That wouldn’t be the case if I had someone else do the majority of the work for me.

All that is to say: Do it badly. Don’t worry about it being perfect, as long as it does what you need it to do. In most cases, anything is better than not doing it at all.