Age specific advice: There will be rough patches, especially probably the hormonal middle school years, but get through them and life will keep getting better.
I had included a happiness rating for each period at the start, on a scale of 1-10, 10 best.
3 Early childhood: I was happy enough, even if my mom was a fair bit crazy and gossiped on the phone and ignored her kids.
3 Elementary school years: I was happy and played with my brothers a lot and friends at school and church.
0 Middle school: this was by far the worst time of my life. Very high ups and very low lows. Lots of hormonal stuff out of control. Extremely depressed many times. Parents got a divorce, I had no friends. Bad times.
3 High school: second worst time of my life. I was living with my grandparents and was much happier than middle school and had some more friends. Hormones not quite so crazy. No girls though.
4 College: at the time, I thought it was the best time of my life, but now I see it as the third worst time of my life. I had tons of fun, but got into alcohol and almost destroyed my life. Lots of friends, but no work or purpose. Some girlfriends.
5 Early twenties: at the time, I thought it was the best time of my life, far better than even college… but it was the fourth worst time of life. Not sure if fourth worst should even be a thing? Haha. Anyways, I was making good money compared to my friends as an intern then as a business analyst at Visible Technologies. Drinking way too much, but less than college. Lots of girls, lots of friends.
7 25-30: I started my business Coalition Technologies. Worked extraordinarily hard for an extraordinarily long time. Started to make real money, went through tons of stressful but very educational experiences. Mostly happy, but had a bad girlfriend who lived and worked with me and was emotionally attached to.
8 30-35: I met Laurel and we got married and did lots of traveling together. We did lots of healthy exercising and eating and lived a very good happy life. Coalition scaled up into a big professional organization making big money.
9 35-40: We had four kids and life became all about them. Happiest time of my life so far. Have not had to work nearly as much on Coalition as I did early on.