Age gives ordinary advice new meaning because consequences have supplied examples.

Familiar advice becomes real when you have your own examples attached to it. Be careful who you trust means nothing until you have trusted the wrong person. Look after your back means nothing until it goes. The words were always correct; they simply had no weight, because weight comes from experience rather than from phrasing.

When a piece of advice suddenly makes sense, write down the example that made it land. That pairing is what you can actually pass on, and it is far more useful to someone younger than the maxim by itself. Stories carry what statements cannot.