18. Your life is before you. Be careful of the choices you make now that you could regret later. This regret is the subject of an old poem whose author has been forgotten. I hope you’ll never have reason to apply it to yourself. Across the fields of yesterday, He sometimes comes to me A little lad just back from play— The boy I used to be. He looks at me so wistfully When once he’s crept within; It is as if he hoped to see The man I might have been.

When you strip away all the layers one by one, not much remains to “discover.” You will never find real meaning among your selfish interests, feelings, and aspirations. The answers do not lie within you.

A guy never has a right to force a woman to have sex with him under any circumstances. She should be able to say no at any point, and he must honor that denial. It is criminal that so many girls and women are raped today. Fully 60 percent of all females who lose their virginity before age fifteen say that their first sexual experience was forced! That is a tragedy with far-reaching consequences.

16. Christians should never consult astrologers, psychics, or those who practice witchcraft (see Isaiah 47:13-14). They are usually phonies who only pretend to have extrasensory powers. But in some cases, they are working in cooperation with Satan. Rather than tamper with this evil world, the one true God wants us to bring our needs, problems, and decisions to Him. He has promised to lead us into all truth (see John 8:32).

38. “A wet bird never flies at night.” (My grandfather said that to me when I was a child and warned me not to forget it. I remember his words but never did figure out what he meant!)

But we must understand that emotions are unreliable and at times, tyrannical. They should never be permitted to dominate us.

Even in that difficult hour when he knew death was imminent, he never indulged in self-pity. He knew intuitively that a person is only a victim if he accepts himself as one.