What's the one thing you wish you'd learned earlier in life?

Took me until my third year in freight forwarding to realize that every customs form has a hidden second meaning. The gaps tell you more than the filled fields ever do.

Forty years on a wrong knot—that's about the time it takes to admit the reed stops in the back pews were always going to drift sharp. Boots, pipes, same story: you learn to live with the error before you see it.