Here are 40 lessons I’ve learned — most are personal, many learned the hard way. I tried to avoid the lessons most of us already know (“Murphy was an optimist”), and they are presented in kind of random order. Please feel free to add to them with your own life lessons.

1. Don’t pee into the Grand Canyon. The wind blows up.

2. Don’t ever say, “Things can’t get any worse.” They can, and expressing that almost guarantees they will. Possibly much worse. Same with, “This year has to be better than last.” Right.

3. Don’t ever get out of an airplane that is not firmly planted on the ground.

4. Don’t try to swim against a rip tide. You’ll probably die if you do. Just stay calm and go with the flow and you’ll likely live to tell about it.

5. Don’t drive into moving water. Don’t dive into water where you can’t see what is beneath the surface. Respect water in general.

6. Be careful what you wish for. You just might get it. (Okay, this is a bit of a cliche, but I learned this to be all too true. Same with the next one.)

7. No good turn goes unpunished.

8. Bend down and pick up pennies and other small coins from the ground. If it’s good enough for Donald Trump to do you can do it, too.

9. Take off and land into the wind. And if you’re going to fly, it helps to have wings and a motor.

10. Come about smartly. Doing it half-assed and getting caught in irons is both embarrassing and hard to recover from.

11. Don’t trust people from Connecticut.

12. If someone tells you that 90% of a certain people are thieves and liars, they are probably underestimating. Even grossly underestimating.

13. All generalizations are false, including this one.

14. There are only two races: Male and female. Thank you, James Moody, for that one.

15. In a relationship, as in driving, there should only be one pair of hands on the wheel at a time.

16. Don’t ever be first to tell a woman that you love her. Let her say it first if she wants, but still don’t say it back. It just complicates things. Save it for another time, and just show her instead.

17. Don’t go to bed angry. Well, maybe sometimes it is better to just shut up and deal with it tomorrow.

18. If you don’t want to be seen, close your eyes and pretend to be invisible. It often works and if it doesn’t you’ll know soon enough.

19. Red next to yellow, kill a fellow. Red next to black, okay, Jack.

20. Electricity is the work of the Devil.

21. God made the country, Man made the city, and the Devil made the small town.

22. Live your dreams. Don’t forget them. Write them down and remind yourself of them if you have to.

23. Check your oil. Frequently. No, run bearings and other parts don’t regenerate.

24. If you try to please everyone you’ll wind up pleasing no one, least of all yourself.

25. Don’t let what others might say stop you from living your life. The neighbors are going to talk anyway, and if you don’t give them something to talk about they will just make it up.

26. If you want to hide something, hide it in plain sight. It’s the last place most people will look.

27. If something happens, look for the most obvious explanation first. It’s usually the correct one. Occam knew.

28. If you want to be something, don’t want to be it. Just be it. Iris knew, almost too late.

29. Remember, the glass is neither half empty nor half full. Besides, you ordered a cheeseburger.

30. Don’t let the perfect get in the way of the good enough.

31. Always pay yourself first. Unless they are going to turn off the electricity.

32. Don’t panic. Whatever it is, stay calm and don’t panic. Panicking will only make things worse.

33. When attacked, keep moving. If you survive the first 30 seconds of the attack you’ll probably live.

34. If you hear a noise in the dark, don’t just lie there quivering in fear. Get up, turn on a light, and go look. It’s probably nothing, though if it is something you might as well know. See previous lesson.

35. Don’t go under a single tree in a lightning storm. There is safety in the forest. Some, anyway.

36. If you want to know something about someone, just ask. It is amazing what most people will tell you about themselves when they are asked. A good journalist knows this.

37. Don’t suffer fools gladly, but be gentle with them anyway. They probably can’t help themselves and they still can be dangerous.

38. If someone shouldn’t be allowed out without supervision, you don’t have to be the one to provide it.

39. You just can’t reason with Hurricane Season.

40. Just do it. Just friggin’ do it.

And here is a bonus lesson:

41. Life is full of lessons. You don’t realize that until you start to think about them. Ignore them at your own peril.

#       #       #