The best things in life may be free, but that doesn’t mean they won’t take time, sweat, and perseverance to acquire. To ascertain which talents are worth the investment, one Quora reader posed the question : “What are the hardest and most useful skills to learn?” “You can be the most disciplined, brilliant, and even wealthy individual in the world, but if you don’t care for or empathize with other people, then you are basically nothing but a sociopath,” writes Kamia Taylor .