The Best Advice I've Never Had

They were talking on the radio today about bad advice that people have been given. It was a bit too early for me to concentrate on listening to a grown up, but I do think that someone had been told to rub onions on their breasts in order to make them grow, and somebody else had been told that if they have hair on their legs they should wear the tightest skinny jeans possible and that the chafing of jeans on skin would remove hair.

But there's worse when you think about it. I was told to do things like: marry a nice man and don't give up your little jobeen, and make sure you get a mortgage, because there's nothing surer than this: house prices will never come down.

Luckily for me, I'm way too stubborn to take advice, so most of it was lost on me. I was wishing though, that I'd been told a few things that I had to learn on my own. It might have saved me years.

First of all, nobody told me that work is the very same as school - the managers are the teachers and the M.D. is the principal. The rest of the workforce are the students, and where there is a divide of operators and staff, well you could say the staff are the borders and the operators the day students.
You still sneak off for a  cigarette, and not having your projects in on time is what used to be homework.
There will be random teachers/managers pets, rebels, people always out sick who might be at risk of getting expelled/fired and there will always be the know it all bright sparks, the tell tales and those who will cover for you so that you don't get caught at the back of the bikeshed.
Today is my first day back at the day job after a few weeks holiday and it feels a bit like that old feeling of going back to school. On the one hand you're dreading it, and on the other you have the nice new books and the clean desk and the feeling of a new start. And just like school, I was dying to get my teeth back into it but once I did I got back that age old feeling of worrying that maybe this year everything will be way too hard.

I never knew that no matter how bad you look in a photo, if you see it a few years later you'll think that you actually didn't look all that bad at all, and wish you were that skinny now, even though back then you thought you were fat.
Of course I do get advice too, mostly from my teenage kids without whom I never would have known that I am too grotesquely fat and ugly to be seen with them in public, that I know nothing, have terrible tastes in music, clothes, furniture and shoes (which is a good thing to know, seeing as I have no money left to buy anything for myself once feeding their needs at the Abercrombie & Fitch Store).
I wish someone had told me this, though: if you reach middle age and discover you have not fulfilled all of your dreams, hopes and aspirations, don't worry, because it also won't matter. If I'd known that I wouldn't even have tried.
Well on a totally different note, I'm thinking of starting up a Charasmatic Religion. It's supposed to be the most lucrative business to be in these days. Any good advice?