One thing when it comes to school is that many of us often say that a large part of what we learned academically was simply forgotten if we don’t seem to have a need for it in our professional life. For example, I did learn things like woodworking at school but for the most part I never had a need to build my own shelf for example which means I pretty much am back to square one if I ever had the need to do it again. Language can be another example too where if you don’t use it in your everyday life then what you learned just kind of goes away.
But that made me think do you actually invest time and money to maintain all the skills have you learned throughout the years or do you simply let it lapse as there seems to be no need for it in your current lifestyle? I tend to try and do something a little bit each month to at least maintain a bit of knowledge for whatever it may be. For example, even with languages I would tend to at least watch a funny video or something in that language just to semi keep it on my mind.
But when it comes to skills that I had to learn without much choice I tend to not spend too much time trying to maintain it. Like saying for a person like myself keeping updated with the periodic table doesn’t seem wise in terms of my time and energy for the day. In those cases it feels like it is best to leave it.