Time as he grows old teaches many lessons.

Some things cannot be learned any faster than they happen. No amount of reading or advice delivers what you find out by watching a decision play out over ten years, or by being wrong for long enough to notice the pattern. This is frustrating when you are young and sustaining later, since the one thing you keep accumulating is the very thing that cannot be shortcut.

When an older person tells you something that seems obvious or unnecessary, write it down rather than dismissing it. And be patient with your own understanding, which is arriving at the speed it arrives at.