1. Have children. The rest of life is b.s., all the achievement and the wealth. At the core, we’re just animals, looking for love and inspiration. No one will be remembered.

2. The older you get, the wiser you are, but with baby boomers trying to emulate the young, ageism is rampant in America. If only oldsters would own their wisdom. But then they’d have to own the lines in their faces and their lumpy bodies.

3. Obesity kills. You can ignore Gwyneth Paltrow and Jennifer Aniston, the skinny-minnies, the fat police, the people who want you to make you feel bad so they can feel better. But the health consequences of excess weight are undeniable. Blame computers, blame the government, blame food producers, but we need a national campaign to get everybody up and moving, for their own benefit.

4. Exercise makes you feel better. Don’t go run a mile if you’ve been on the couch, work your way up and find something you enjoy, otherwise you’ll never continue it. But exercise gives you both an endorphin rush and perspective, it’s a great respite from your regular life.

5. Travel gives you perspective. Sure, it can also be enjoyable, but one problem we have in the U.S. is few have been anywhere else. You may rail against the Canadian health system, but all my buddies up there are lovin’ it.

6. Don’t be afraid to complain. It’s the upbeat nitwits that bother me most. Woody Allen famously said life is about the horrible and the miserable, we’re all trying to get along, if you keep telling me your life is great and you’ve got no problems, I’m gonna tune out.

7. College isn’t about what you learn in class, but what you learn outside of it.

8. Great teachers are few and far between.

9. Pursue your interests. As soon as somebody says you’re spending too much time on something, you’re on the right track.

10. People love story. That’s the essence of novels and TV and movies. That’s why reality TV shows have scriptwriters.

11. It’s more fun to see a movie in a theatre, but it’s an untenable proposition because everybody there thinks they’re entitled to talk and text.

12. There’s more insight and truth in the lyrics of Joni Mitchell than there is on the best of TV channels, even HBO.

13. If you need a new car to feel good about yourself, you need a psychiatrist more.

14. Phony rules in America. Everybody’s trying to put up a front to please someone else. But behind closed doors this is never true. Politics, business…ehh. If only they ran more like the home.

15. People can’t keep secrets. Tell one person, you’ve told them all.

16. Satisfaction is unexpected. In other words, it’s when you’re driving down the highway or walking down the avenue that you’ll suddenly realize you love your life.

17. If you want to feel good, help another person. Solving someone’s computer problem gives me more satisfaction than just about anything.

18. Everybody says they want shorter, but what they really want is something that rivets them, they’ve got endless time for great.

19. People don’t know they’re being judged by the spelling mistakes.

20. Change is hard, but always worthwhile. In other words, the cliche that after being fired or dumped you’re gonna end up in a better place is true. But what they don’t tell you is how long it’s gonna take to get to the other side.

21. People need to put you down to feel good about themselves, it’s a demonstration of insecurity and weakness.

22. Don’t be afraid to say you don’t know something or need help. This draws others to you.

23. The high of success is very brief, it fades and then…what are you gonna do next?

24. When you’re young, you want to be a child star on television. When you’re old, you’d never let your kids be on TV.

25. A tan is cool when you’re young, bogus when you’re old. That’s the first sign of aging, the toll the sun has taken on the skin, if only young people knew this.

26. When you’re in college you think you know everything. The older you get, the less you think you know, even though you know tons more than the youth.

27. Persistence and perseverance are the key to life. If you give up when it gets hard, you will accomplish little, you’ll get nowhere.

28. Relationships are hard. Anybody who tells you they’re easy is lying or has a bad one.

29. If a couple tells you they never argue, they’re headed for divorce. It just means one person is not speaking their truth, and when they do…

30. The older you get, the less susceptible you are to hype. One time only events…seem to happen all the time.