Lefties, how have you adapted to the right-handed world?
“Think,” I told myself while driving home today. “He obviously twisted the tie as a right-hander. Which direction do right-handers twist?” Without looking, with one hand, I undid the twist-tie and grabbed a fig bar. This got me thinking.
As a left-hander, each day is a mini-struggle. It takes three tries to awkwardly swipe my debit card with my right hand. All machines are set up for right-handed people.
Even cars are set up for right-handers. For nine weeks, my right arm was in a sling after shoulder surgery. I had to start and shift the car with my left hand. Try it.
I grew up in a family of six, highly intelligent, hilarious, left-handed artists and musicians. My daughter Claire and her dad Terry are left-handed. All of our kitchens are set up the same way. Drinking glasses and silverware are on the left.
For sewing, I have left-handed straight shears and pinking shears. But only right-handed pinking shears can be sharpened, not even at the factory. So, I demote dull pinking shears to crafts, and buy expensive, new ones.
Benefits of being left-handed:
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When we throw a frisbee, it rotates in the opposite direction. People can’t catch it. The frisbee bounces off their hands. HA!
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Claire and Terry are excellent tennis players. When they hit a tennis ball, it rotates in the opposite direction. Opponents have trouble returning their serves. “I HATE playing Wenatchee!” a girl sobbed, running off the tennis court after being trounced by Claire.
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We become great problem-solvers.
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We are more creative, artistic and musical. I still play flute.
Alas, I read that left-handers die seven years earlier. (Don’t believe everything you read on the internet.)
Here’s my theory: It’s from all the ink we absorb, dragging our hand across the page. Or from being curled up like shrimp in those stupid, right-handed desks in school.
In defense, my left-handed mother became ambidextrous. How do you manage?
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40 comments (26 - 40)
Feel free to reply to any comment by clicking the "Reply" button.You just adapt or modify things to fit your left-handedness. You have to.
Incidentally, studies indicate that left-handers tend to be more intelligent. Word association centers in the brain are associated with intelligence. Right handers only have word association centers on the left side of the brain. Many left-handers have word association centers on bOTH sides of the brain. Unfortunately, others studies have indicated that left-handers suffer a greater incidence of depression.
wordywalt
Level 9
June 5, 2018
1
Thanks for your insight. It's tiring to be constantly adapting, trying to make things work.
Right-handers don't have to puzzle out how lefties turn a twist-tie. Righties twist it in the opposite direction. Untwisting it while driving without looking (focus on driving), I had to think carefully:
- Which direction do I twist a twist-tie?
- Right handers do the opposite.
- To untwist, turn in the opposite of the opposite direction.
And people wonder why I'm high-strung.
I write with my left hand, but my handedness has never been a thing. I always use strictly right handed interfaces with my right hand, and it needn't be a big concern for me. Adapting to a right handed world with a sense of "let's just do it and do it correctly" has been just fine as a means of survival.
DZhukovin
Level 7
June 5, 2018
1
I like to add that one might think the Nuns did it and tried to make me right handed but I’m a Jew and we are already a bit neurotic and no trendy me want to add to the neurosis. But my mother was lefty and mad to switch and my older sister is lefty dominant and then there’s confused me other wise we might have had 3 lefties in one primary family can anyone tell me those odds (speaking of the devil). Pls. Not in medicine you left eye is referred to as ocular Sinister and in many Islam cultures you can only eat with your right hand.
Millerski25
Level 6
June 5, 2018
1
Right-handed and wish I had made more of an effort towards being ambidextrous in more activities. When I first began using a computer mouse,I concentrated on using my left hand in order to keep my right hand free for the number keyboard. It is the only activity at which I am completely comfortable using either hand.
Also, I am a rarity in that I have "cross ocular dominance" meaning that I am right-handed, but left eye dominant. Until I figured that out by accident when I was well into my adulthood, I had lots of trouble doing anything that required aiming, because, like other right-handed people, I was using my right I for aiming. No wonder I could never hit a target.?
MikeEC
Level 7
June 4, 2018
2
I'm a right-hander and I love throwing frisbee with a left-hander. also studied a lot of Art in school. in art classes left and right handed students numbered about 50-50.
hankster
Level 9
June 4, 2018
2
There are more left-handed artists. Only 10% of the general population is left-handed.
@LiterateHiker in the classes I was in, where a show of hands was asked for regarding left or right handedness. it was always right around 50 50. interesting tho.
I can do anything with my right hand that I can with my left except write. In fact using left handed desks is uncomfortable for me because I'm so used to using right handed...everything.
I did get some really quality lefties shears in beauty school though and it was like Cinderella slipping into her slipper....amazing.
LadyAlyxandrea
Level 8
June 4, 2018
2
I have even started instinctually shaking hands with my right hand
I’ve learned to do some things with my right. Like I swipe my card with my right. I also throw with my right since that arm is stronger because I carry everything in it to keep my left arm free.
Most other things I’ve just learned to deal with since it’s been a life long struggle.
MoonlitLife
Level 5
June 4, 2018
2
@MoonlitLife
Agreed. It's been a lifelong struggle. Well put.
I was born doing some things lefty, some righty, some bothy. My father was the same. ☺
Sticks48
Level 9
June 4, 2018
2
@Stick48
Lucky you. Wish I was ambidextrous. I am so strongly left-handed, I reach across my body to pick up something on the right.
@LiterateHiker lt has it's advantages. It made learning to play drums easier.
@Sticks48
I play flute: jazz, blues and classical music.
@LiterateHiker We had a sax player who played flute really well, and a guitar player that played well enough for 2 or 3 songs. I love jazz flute. Do you play now?
@Sticks48
Of course I still play flute. My father was a professional jazz trumpet player in Detroit, from age 14 - he lied about his age to get into the Musicians Union- until 51 when he died of cancer. Over 300 people attended his funeral who we didn't know. They were his fans.
All four of his kids played instruments. Growing up, our house had two trumpet players, one flute, two oboes and a piano player. People loved coming over.
I grew up on a lake in Michigan. On Sundays in the summer, my parents invited as many as 95 people for sailing, swimming and barbecues. Dad's jazz band member were there with their families. After dinner, the men rolled out the downstairs piano onto the cement patio facing the lake. Dad put it on wheels. We had a piano upstairs and downstairs.
While the band played swinging jazz music, boats arrived and dropped anchor, listening to the music. Kids ran around wildly and collapsed on the grass, delirious and dizzy. It was a magical experience.
I got to sit in with the band in my pajamas. At the Univ. of Michigan, played in Jazz Workshop for two years in the Afro-American Studies Dept. I had the only white face. That was fun.
At the Univ. of Michigan, I taught flute lessons to earn money. Then I got a scholarship that paid for my last two years of college.
Gave my old flute to a beginning student and bought a better one.
@LiterateHiker Cool. I had stepfather who played trumpet. He had a big band and played trumpet in Doc Severnson's touring band. I love big bands. Count Basie is my favorite. My mother got to see Sinatra with Basie at the Sands. That l would loved to have seen.
I’m ambidextrous for the most part. But, I throw with my left hand and bat right handed. 
RawLuv
Level 4
June 12, 2018
1
Oh, I didn’t answer your question regarding adaptation. I chose which I prefer. If it’s not to my liking or wanting, yet realizing it’s for my betterment, then I make it my priority to adapt. Otherwise, I just be me.
I think I wrote you saying I would research sharpening pinking shears. The reason no one will sharpen them is because it is much cheaper to just by another pair. It would take someone by hand with the correct tools to do this, the tools are not cheap. It would also take some time as each side of the teeth has to be sharpened equally at the correct angle. Thanks for the research I had to do found it interesting.
dalefvictor
Level 8
June 8, 2018
1
Do you flip back-and-forth between both sides of your brain?
As a left-hander, I use both sides of my brain. Creative, artistic and musical ( flute), I am also analytical and organized. As a result, I see the big picture and have an eye for details.
Like my mother, I am a great problem-solver. "I need to sleep on it," I told customers when presented with a knotty problem. Often I awaken with the best solution.
Over the years, I have only met one other person who uses both sides of his brain. Mike Cassidy, another leftie, was my editor for the Wenatchee Business Journal. For eight years, I wrote a popular monthly column. Mike was great at writing headlines. W enjoyed brainstorming.
"I flip back-and-forth between both sides of my brain," Mike said. We both generate multiple options when confronted with a problem.
LiterateHiker
Level 9
June 5, 2018
0
I'm ambidextrous and have been practicing since a long time.
Are you right footed. I'm left footed. I can use both feet though ambipedtrous?
It should be a requirement in school that everyone learn to use both hands.
AstralSmoke
Level 8
June 4, 2018
1
Such requirement would be silly...since a person is lefty or righty is a Mother Nature's decision.
Last month, I developed a severe, painful, spasming shin split on my left leg only. That's because I lead with my left foot.
It's my own fault. I love taking photos while hiking. The women I hike with are fast, especially on the descent. So, I've been running to catch up, with my pack and camera bouncing wildly. I'm not nuts. I only run on smooth areas of the trail. No tripping hazards.
Descending steep trails, running downhill caused the severe shin split. "You need to stop running with a heavy pack," the doctor said.
That's easy to say. Those women flow downhill like a flash flood. "You need to keep up," Karen said. I'm slower on the descent to prevent falls.
@LiterateHiker I haven't met many left footers (that I know of). You're a complete lefty!
Shin splits can be the worst. Seems to take for ever to heal.
Yes, stop running with a heavy pack and no t
ipping please!
@LiterateHiker, @DUCHESSA I'm not always completely serious.
@AstralSmoke Well, then, don't say things that are ridiculous.
@DUCHESSA It's difficult to disagree with you. I do think it would be beneficial if everyone used both hands. It builds new brain interstates and allows one to think differently. Beneficial!
@AstralSmoke Like most lefties I use both hands to do things around...it may be also beneficial for you to use both hands....and I am not talking "for writing".
I think a lefty mate marching on my right should enjoy holding hands. ..I would....as for longevity the best men are still dying 7 years earlier SINGLE as single women out live us....mated our years are equal in life expectancy. ...hopefully a lefty will choose me so we both beat the grim reaper 50 more years in love @ 116, I would still want 50 more
GreenAtheist
Level 8
June 5, 2018
0
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