Life Lessons or "Why didn't my mother tell me this stuff?"

We begin each new year with resolutions, hope, vision boards, new journals, and a determination to write in the journal everyday. We vow to change our life, to be a better person, make more money, find love, exercise more, drink less and the list goes on. We look towards the future, the NEW year, without revisting the past. Let's start the journal, the to do list, and the resolution list with the lessons learned. A reminder to ourselves not do that again!

These are the first three Life Lessons in a list of ten by Amy Bloom. I can across them while reading an old issue of Real Simple at a local coffee shop. And, yes, I did rip them out of the mag. and  no I have not resolved to stop doing that. I will post the next seven over the next two days, these are the things my mother should have told me.

Events Reveal People's Characters: They Don't Determine Them:
Not everyone with divorced parents has terrible relationships. If two people are hit by a bus and crippled for life, one will become a bitter shut-in: the other, the kind of warm, outgoing person (cheerful despite everything) whom everyone loves to be with. It's not about the bus, and a dreadful childhood is no excuse.  You have the chance to be the person you wish to be , until you die.

Lying, by omission or commission is a bad idea. 
I cannot shake my dependency on the white lie, because I was brought up to be nice. And I've never figured out the nice way to say "I'd rather stick a fork in my eye than come to your house for dinner." But the meaningful lie, the kind that involves being untruthful or deceitful about important stuff to those you love, is like poison. Telling the truth hurts, but it doesn't kill. Lying kills love.

Sex always gives you an answer, although not necessarily the one you want.
It's possible to have very good sex, a few times, with a person who shouldn't be in your life at all.  Have fun, and hide your wallet and your BlackBerry. On the other hand, it's unlikely that a grown man, however nice, will become much, much better in bed that he was the first five times you slept with him.  And if you sleep with a man who is unkind to you,  there will be more of that: long after the sex is humdrum, the cruelty will be vivid.