yep! alot of this comes down to crap mentoring at home and in high school, i know that seems harsh but i think the education system and guidance for young people is really below where it should be ...if you can't get it (life training, good values) from your parents/family and you can't get anywhere with mentors at school or some form of help and elightenment at an early age then it can be troulesome for the future, its not always like that but think about how our beliefs and personalities affect our life ...
think about how the average parent goes about bringing up a child ..they can either allow each day to be an empty vessel of going through the motions or bringing up a child could mean teaching them alot while trying to be enthusiastic and optimisitc each day..how many people had cynical/negative/controlling minded parents growing up who were lost in their own worlds of work or self interest? do you realise how damaging that is to certain kinds of personas? ...i know its an excuse to deflect responsibility from ourselves, certainly i blame alot of how i handled situations in high school by running from problems ...but for me i felt like i was bullied at school and then at home by mean tempered family etc...there was little variety ....
so as you say if i knew what i've learnt now, especially through mistakes that i had to actually go through without prior knowledge or because i was ignorant and perhaps lazy minded, i would love to go back and do it over ...this could be an issue of late bloomers who mature later i don't know ...but it sucks and i have to give 150% just to catch up to everyone else i feel sometimes..