Eighteen is the magical age where your mind bubbles with curiosity and it craves feelings and emotions more than textbook knowledge. Whatever restrictions were imposed on you earlier no longer exist, as now you’re considered to be an ‘adult’, mature and responsible enough to make your own decisions.

Now while this may sound appealing to the new adult, it’s actually a very confusing phase to be in. Life choices, career choices, and many other important decisions in life can’t be made on a whim, and it helps to have guidance in such times. Here, we have tried to list a few such books that have made a significant impact in the lives of many, and hope that their learnings shed light on your life.

• Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer: This non-fiction book contains a euphoric message asking readers to follow their dreams and passion, and highlighting the importance of living in the present without caring about any consequences.
• How To Win Friends And Influence People by Dale Carnegie: This book is about grooming your personality both mentally and physically, educating you on all the skills and traits you need to lead a good successful social life in any sector.
• Influence: The Psychology Of Persuasion by Robert Cialdini: This book is a great read for people who are in a profession that requires them to hack into people’s psychology, viz., sales and marketing. Well, it also helps people who wish to escape such tricks.
• Rich Dad, Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki: One of the earliest books I read on financial responsibilities and how you can make money work for you. The simple manner in which the author has explained assets and liabilities and imparted financial wisdom in this book puts any Economics class to shame.
• Zero To One by Peter Thiel: This book includes the author’s personal experiences regarding startups and businesses and how to make them successful and sustainable in a world of competition through research-driven guidance. A must read for a wannabe entrepreneur.
• Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson: This is the authorized self-titled biography book of Steve Jobs. It comprises the complete journey of the man who founded Apple making it the biggest technology phenomenon of the century.
• The Power Of Positive Thinking by Norman Vincent Peale: This self-help book has lessons and ideas that help people take control of their lives and change it in the best way possible.
• Demian by Herman Hesse: The story moves around its protagonist who is confused about the future & purpose of his life, searching for mentorship in others throughout the book to get important life lessons.
• His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman: This is a trilogy. The first part, Northern Lights, is a straightforward fantasy adventure about an uncontrollable irresponsible girl named Lyra, who inhabits an alternative version of our world. Her world has similar geography and culture as ours, but there is an intriguing difference that in her world, the Church is in charge of everything from education to the Military. The Subtle Knife (second part) introduces Will – a boy from the world we are familiar with – and his bid to escape after accidentally killing an intruder in his house leading him to cross Lyra’s at a sort of crossroads between worlds, and together they discover the eponymous knife – with a blade so sharp that it can cut through the invisible barriers between dimensions. The Amber Spyglass – the final installment, features a host of new characters including a scientist from our world who’ made a discovery that brings Lyra close to uncovering the truth about the formation of the Universe. We also meet the Mulefa – an intelligent race from another world on which evolution took a different path. The Amber Spyglass brings together all threads of the storyline from the first two novels, answers all the outstanding questions, and takes us on a journey unraveling countless worlds, the heavens, and even death.
• Inheritance Cycle by Christopher Paolini: It’s a young adult tetralogy of a world brimming with magic and power. An amazing fantasy adventure to lose yourself in.
• The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand: The story moves around its protagonist Howard Roark, who is an architect by profession but struggles to pursue his career goals through conventional methods without compromising on his artistic values.
• Gone With The Wind by Margaret Mitchel: The impact of Civil war on the life of the protagonist Scarlett O’Hara is depicted along with the characters who don’t stay longer in her life making conditions tough for her survival as the story progresses.
• The Ender’s Game series by Orson Scott Card: A futuristic story which revolves around a child named Andrew Ender Wiggin, who is chosen to fight with aliens in their final war, under government supervision.

“Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen.” – Albert Einstein

• Kane and Abel by Jeffery Archer: An interesting story about the two protagonists who only share a birth date in common and otherwise have a totally different life. Although the zeal for success make them rivals somehow and as the story proceeds further they get into a connection unwillingly.
• A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry: This story highlights the relationship between the Hindu and Parsi communities in India at the time of the nation’s worst political turmoil.
• Who Moved My Cheese by Dr. Spencer Johnson: It’s a self-help book, with four characters – two mice and two humans. These four characters interact with each other under different situations, and this interaction offers readers very important life lessons.
• Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle: These series don’t need any recommendation, as it is the most famous fictional detective novel in the world.
• And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie: A mystery that revolves around eight characters who’re invited to a faraway Indian island but are slain one by one under mysterious circumstances. Two more characters who enter the story at later stage expound the murder mystery.
• The Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Agatha Christie: This is a murder mystery of a widower Roger Ackroyd, who is about to be remarried but is killed. The woman who he was supposed to marry dies soon after.
• Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie: Another one from the master storyteller, based on a true incident and her personal experience on the Orient express. A wealthy American is stabbed to death in a train where there is no easy escape for the killer as a detective passenger aboard luckily solves the case.
• The Millennium Trilogy by Stieg Larsson: Start with the first one “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” is a powerful book which combines a strong story with haunting characters and a crusading message. The story focuses on Lisbeth Salander, a girl who is hired as a detective on a presumed murder case. Other than the case, the book explores Lisbeth’s dark and troubled past and features a vengeful sub-plot. As the story proceeds she meets a man whom she falls for, and together they solve an old murder case. In the second book “The Girl Who Played with Fire”, three brutal murders take place in one night and the accused is Lisbeth herself. Even after the accusation and knowing that the entire police department is after her, Lisbeth doesn’t surrender or cooperate and starts her own parallel investigation to find the actual killer. The third part “The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest” finds Lisbeth weak both mentally and physically as her unhappy adolescence memories haunt her again. While all the forces try to make her quiet, Lisbeth recovers to execute the plans she has for her enemies.
• The Clifton Chronicles by Jeffrey Archer: This focuses on the life of its protagonist Harry Clifton, whose father was killed in the war leaving a sense of desire in Harry to go fight in one himself. Harry’s life continues with usual ups and downs till he ends up in Navy and stares war in the face.
• The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown: Starts with a murder in the world’s most famous museum Louvre, the story takes many jaw-dropping turns which can change the way we see the history. The investigation of the murder is carried out by Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon, who upon deciphering clues related to the murder establishes that it indicates towards a greater historic conspiracy.  
• Angels and Demons by Dan Brown: The story continues from the previous part Da Vinci Code that is the Symbologist Robert Langdon is summoned to analyze a mysterious symbol seared on the chest of a physicist who was murdered. Robert discovered it to be of Illuminati and the mind-boggling conspiracy of the Illuminati organization is unfolded as the events take place further in the story.
• Digital Fortress by Dan Brown: Another story based on solving an enigma surfaced before the ultra-secret National Security Agency responsible for the protection of US communications. The NSA is capable of decoding any encrypted message in the world, however, things get critical when the agency is unable to decode an encryption on their own and has to rely on the help of cryptographer and foreign language expert, the two protagonists of the story. While decoding the message both of them discover layers of conspiracy that can topple the government and paralyze its functioning.
• The Lost Symbol: The story starts with Robert Langdon about to meet his mentor Peter Solomon, a 3rd-degree mason, but learns that Peter has been kidnapped by a named terrorist and also discovers his masonic connections. In the course of rescuing him, Robert has to work on the terms of the kidnappers with the help of capitol police disclosing the biggest disbeliefs over Christianity.
• Sons of Fortune by Jeffery Archer: The story revolves around twin brothers parted at the time of their birth and grown up without knowing this fact. As the years pass by both of them continues their education and career in the different fields, but circumstances arise when they stand against each other. During all this time they are unable to connect the dots that they are brothers even though there are many elements indicating it.
• Ella Enchanted by Gail Levine: A fanciful story about a 15-year-old Ella, who is gifted with a curse unknowingly. As time passes Ella’s curse make her life miserable and make it worse after her mother’s death. Ella realized that she needs to break the curse given by fairy Lucinda, however, after making many failures attempts to request Lucinda for curse reversal she finally gets a way to do it.

• The Catcher in the Rye by D Salinger: It’s a simple story of a teenager who recollects his last year and shares his experiences of it. While telling the story he realizes that he misses those days and his friends.
• The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky:A story based on the life of a 15-year-old protagonist Charlie, who is a wallflower (aka shy). The story starts from Charlie writing a letter to an unknown person telling about his life, mostly about his experiences in first year of his high schoo. Charlie shares his painful memories, his romantic encounter, his friends and exposure to alcohol and drugs.
• The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adam: This fantasy novel is centralized around is protagonist Arthur Dent. Arthur’s alien friend Ford tells him about the Apocalypse on earth and take Arthur to space where they the meet Ford’s friends looking for a new habitat planet.
• Animal Farm by George Orwell: The basic plot here involves animals taking over control of their lives. Animals of the Manor farm are having a miserable time under their master and therefore decide to rebel under the leadership of Boar. However Boar dies soon after initiating the rebellion, and the movement is further carried forward by the pigs, capturing the farm from humans but soon enough a fight of supremacy starts among themselves.
• House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski: This fantasy has protagonist Johnny Truant, a tattoo parlor employee who ends up in a deceased old man’s house for stay and found a manuscript written by the old man. But soon Johnny becomes obsessed with the manuscript as it was a documentary based on other universe connections through a house.
• Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen: The story primarily revolves around its protagonist Jane bennet who has three sisters along with her parents. Her parents are in dismay over her marriage and looking for a man for their daughter. Soon enough they meet a man suitable for Jane, however, this meeting engages many more characters in the story followed by many twists and turns in the story.
• The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexander Dumas: The book is about Edmond Dantes, who is wrongly accused of aiding exiled Napoleon Bonaparte, and is imprisoned for 14 years till he escapes from the prison. While escaping the prison with the help of a dead man, Edmond also found the vast treasure on the island and becomes affluent. Now the only purpose of Edmond is to avenge his 14 years of time spent in prison because of false accusations.
• To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee: The plot of the story is inspired by some real-life incidents. The protagonist Scout, who is a 6-year-old, lives with her father and older brother in Maycomb Alabama. Scout’s father Atticus is a lawyer appointed to defend a black man Tom, who is accused of raping a white girl. But the residents of Maycomb were against Atticus defending a black man and soon after the conviction, Tom died trying to escape from prison. The bitter truth surfaced later in the story causes violent incidents for Scout and her brother.
• Lord of the Flies by William Golding: During war, a plane carrying a group of British schoolboys is shot down over the Pacific. The pilot of the plane is killed, but many of the boys survive the crash and reach an uninhabited island. Among the boys are Ralph and Piggy. Ralph is confident and able to lead the boys, while Piggy is geeky and intelligent. Ralph, with Piggy’s help, ensures the boys’ survival on the island while hoping someone helps them all. However, due to some misunderstandings among the boys, they get one of them killed and the story further start taking turns.
• Frankenstein by Mary Shelley: The story starts with Captain Walton, a failed writer, finding the protagonist Victor Frankenstein in frozen condition while his exploration of North Pole. Saved by Captain Walton, Frankenstein shares his story with him. He was an expert in sciences and had an interest in imparting life to non-living matter. He gave life to a corpse but soon realized that he has created a monster instead. Repulsed by his own creation, Frankenstein flees to places far from it and later comes to know that the monster he had created is making chaos in his life.
• Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte: Jane is an orphan living with her cruel aunt. As Jane grows up she finds people around her are unpleasant and taking her far from the realm of happiness. She opts for different professions to learn new experiences, and during work, she meets the love of her life, Rochester, and soon decides to marry him. But on the wedding day itself the truth about Rochester unfolds making Jane leave the place. In this time of distress, Jane finds support among some good people and one of them coincidently turns out to be her cousin, offering her to be a part of his life.
• A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens: The story is of two cities – Paris and London, before and after the French revolution. The focus of the story is around Charles Darnay, who is exiled from the French nobility. The book contains three sections, each of them depicting the events in the life of Charles affected by the French revolution.
• Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens: This story is about an orphan Oliver whose mother died right after his birth. Initially, Oliver is taken to an orphanage where he is treated terribly. Then he flees from the orphanage to London and comes in contact with pickpockets and thieves. During the stay with his thieving friends, Oliver gets accused of stealing and charged falsely but is rescued by a bookseller who takes him to his home. However, this is not supposed to continue for a long time as Oliver’s pickpocket friends are not in the favor of this and start making efforts to get him back.
• David Copperfield: Another story from Charles Dickens framing about the events happened in his life. David lost his father after 6 months from his birth and at the age of seven, his mother remarries. Due to David’s resistance towards his mother’s marriage, he was sent to Mr. Peggotty, the housekeeper who treats David pleasantly and introduces him to an adopted family. Thereafter things go up and down in David’s life – he finds love but loses his mother and baby brother. As the years pass by and David grows up, the reader understands that life is a beautiful bouquet of negative and positive experiences.

“I read a book one day and my whole life was changed.” – Orhan Pamuk

• The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson: A mystery inspired by the concept of split personality. The protagonist John Utterson is a lawyer by profession, who starts investigating the involvement of his friend Dr. Jekyll in various criminal activities. However, initially, he concludes that Dr. Jekyll is doing all these activities under the pressure of a person Mr. Hyde. Further investigating the whole case, John has a shocking revelation which entirely changes his perception of the case.
• The Room on the Roof by Ruskin Bond: A simple story of a 16-year-old orphan Anglo-Indian boy named Rusty who lives with his English guardian Mr. Harrison. But Rusty was not happy and want to run away from home, finally escaped one day. He met some new friends who were all Indians and one of them make Rusty teach a boy named Kishen, who lives with his mother. Rusty developed liking for kishen’s mother Meena, although it does not conclude to anything.
• Malgudi Days by RK Narayan: This book is a collection of 32 short funny and witty stories that happen in the fictional town of Malgudi in South India. Each of the stories depict a different aspect of life in a village, of how the people deal with the smallest of the issues that for them is a matter of great consequence. These stories are extremely imaginative and funny.
• The Palace of Illusions by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni: This book is a recasting of the Indian epic Mahabharata from the perspective of Princess Panchaali. The story includes the journey of Panchaali right from her birth to the end of Mahabharata, showing her changing perception in different circumstances. The main focus of the story is about how the desire for vengeance, occur after losing respect and prosperity in a gambling match, of Panchaali lead to an epic battle of Mahabharata.
• The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri: Initially the story depicts the struggle of a Bengali couple living in America far from their country and culture. The protagonist is Gogol, son of the Bengali couple, who struggles over his unique name throughout the story. There comes a time when he gets involved in his own life and gets detacthed from his family briefly, but after an unfortunate incident comes to know the importance of his name and family.
• The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini: Amir and Hasan are two good friends, economically poles apart in Afghanistan. Jealousy makes way into their friendship, and Hasan, who is a servant at Amir’s place, is made to leave. Years pass and Amir has moved to America, where one day he learns a bitter truth about Hassan. Everything aside, he sets off on a mission to Afghanistan, that is now infested with Taliban and hopes to make everything right once again.
• A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini: This is set around two women, Mariam and Laila, who live in Kabul, Afghanistan. The book depicts the relationship between the two and how it gets affected due to some drastic events that occurred in their lives.
• Mrityunjay by Shivaji Sawant: A perceptive story based on one of Mahabharata’s unsung heroes, Karna. In the conventional sense, Karna his perceived negative since he teams up with the bad side. In this book, Karna’s side of story is told which makes the reader wonder if Karna is indeed a villain or an unfortunate hero.
• My Gita by Devdutt Pattanaik: The conversation between Krishna and Arjuna during the epic war of Mahabharata has called in for many interpretations, and through this book, the author has tried to simplify the Gita as per his understanding.
• The Calcutta Chromosome by Amitav Ghosh: Antar is an employee of Life technologies in New York. He is curious about his disappeared colleague Murugan in Calcutta India. On the other side, Murugan himself is curious to find about the malaria research of Ronald Ross. These two stories flow parallel and when they intervene, a third parallel story starts in the book.

• The Living Vedanta by K. Chaturvedi: This book throws light on the life of Swami Vivekananda through a collection of letters from the Vivekananda himself and from various people in his life. A stunning revelation of Swami who preached Vedanta and various other lectures, his gripping flow, and command of language and his magnetic personality makes you read the book and it most definitely enlightens you.
• Raavi Paar by Gulzaar: This book by the famous Indian poet and lyricist is a collection of short stories and each story depicts a different emotion. The stories are simple and dipped into Indian culture and history, connected through not by characters or story link but by the universal fact that the core of all the stories is the human mind. As you read the book you can feel and touch the emotions expressed in each of the stories.
• The Secret by Rhonda Bryne: It is a self-help book, based on the theory of “law of attraction” and power of positive thinking, According to the book you can achieve everything in your life it may be happiness, success, prosperity, relationships, satisfaction etc.
• The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank: A young girl and protagonist Anne is 13-year-old jew living in Germany, she got a diary as a birthday gift, the most awaited among all the gifts. She started writing letters to her imaginary friend kitty, right from her birth and background. Anne and her family soon shifted to Holland although she and her family could not escape from the Nazi restrictions on jews. Anne took those restrictions as a part of the routine in her innocence but she did not know what is coming for her and the other jews in the future.
• Fooled by Randomness by Nassim Nicholas Taleb: This book is based on trading and share market trends, it mostly focuses on the role of randomness in both trading, financial markets, and everyday life to avoid becoming a victim of your own superstitious beliefs which can make you take foolish decisions.
• Think and Grow Rich by Napolean Hill: It is a self-help book which is a compilation of thoughts of some very powerful and successful people. The book not only teaches you how to train your thoughts and beliefs to accumulate riches, but it also takes you on a fantastic journey that discloses how millionaires like Thomas Alva Edison, Henry Ford, and Andrew Carnegie achieved success. It showcases the importance of thoughts when mixed with zeal and perseverance, can change everything in life.
• Blink by Malcolm Gladwell: Another self-help book which focuses on the idea of “thin slicing” that is the ability to use the limited information from a narrow experience to a conclusion. The book favors the idea of spontaneous decisions that are better than the planned ones, the idea is explained along with many examples from science, Pharmacy, sales, advertising, gambling, speed-dating, tennis, computer games, movies and popular music. Further, the book shows the comparison between the decisions taken on snap judgments and the decisions taken on analytical data based.
• The Leader Who Had No Title by Robin Sharma: This is a book on the leadership that is how to get inspired and become a leader. A fictional character is used in the book to portray the success and leadership in business and life. This character is very frustrated with his life and is completely directionless, but his life changes when he meets a wealthy guy who takes him to meet some pivotal people and make a way for leadership.
• Chicken Soup for the Soul by Jack Canfield and Mark Victor Hansen: This book focuses on teenage years which are the most memorable and toughest years of one’s life. It contains the real life stories of people in different circumstances and how they have dealt with it. It enables to face each of life’s challenges with confidence and hope.
• Pulling Your Own Strings by Wayne Dyer: Another self-help book focusing on to avoid victimization that is steps to avoid being a victim. As the name suggest the book take you through the ways which can teach you to take control of your life and stop others from pulling your string.
• Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell: This book comprehends the story of success through showcasing different case studies of different cultures and time periods. It breaks the conventional thinking and approach towards the success, that is success does not depend on single factor but on multiple factors. All these factors are listed with supporting stories.
• The Grand Design by Stephen Hawking: The author of the book is the most renowned physicist of the century. Through this book he explains the theories about the universe in a brilliantly simple way.
• Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman by Ralph Leighton and Richard Feynman: This is an Autobiography having a collection of the reminiscences of Richard Feynman. The book depicts the other side of him apart from the role as a scientist, including his sense of humour, cracking jokes, interest in arts and music and participation in different social groups where people have a different field of interest. It shows the other aspect of his life apart from what he is known for.
• I’ll Give You The Sun by Jandy Nelson: A book based on relationship and lives of two protagonist who are fraternal twins and best buddies till the time they did not enter the puberty. As soon as they gear up for an art school, a sense of competition started among them and along with it both faces the family and relationship crisis in their lives but recover slowly through supporting each other.
• It Happens For a Reason by Preeti Shenoy: An interesting story explaining relationships, discovering some bold aspects of friendship as they come along inching towards our dreams. The story revolves around the eighteen year old protagonist Vipasha known as Vee to her friends, decide to be a single mother keeping her modeling career at stake and breaking all the ties with her family and boyfriend. Although the decision was bold, there was more to face for Vipasha which she was not prepared for.
• The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho: This is the story about a shepherd boy named Santiago believing a recurring dream to be his destiny and he must meet with it. To follow his dream the boy started his journey. Early into his journey, he met a king, who tells him to have a personal legend (in simple terms dream or passion) and the whole universe will conspire in helping Santiago to achieve it. As the journey proceeds Santiago find his true love, however, he chooses to continue his journey to pursue his dream and meet the alchemist who teaches him everything about the personal legends.
• Eleven Minutes by Paulo Coelho: The story moves around a young girl Maria from Brazil. Maria already has gone through a heart broken experience and decided to travel to Switzerland trying her fortune there. However very soon she gets fed up with her work and landed in a brothel. The real change comes into her life when she meets with a painter with whom she falls in love and understands the true meaning of life.
• The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran: This story is about a young prophet named Almustafa living in Orphalese for last 12 years and decided to return to his home. But the people of Orphalese want him to stay and speak to them some more words of enlightenment and wisdom on love, marriage, self-knowledge, teaching, friendship, good and evil, prayer, pleasure, beauty, religion, death and etc. Almustafa leaves the town with a promise of returning back.

• And The Mountains Echoed by Khaled Hosseini: It is a family drama story that analyzes the factors that lead to pulsating from one action: a poor family sells their daughter to a wealthy couple in Kabul. The story continues up to 4 generations and a span of 50 years, and later all the pieces come together to become one.
• Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse: The story takes place in Nepalese district of Kapilvastu, and revolve around the protagonist Siddhartha. A boy who leave everything in search of spiritual illumination along with his best friend Govinda. Both of them get acknowledge with the teachings of Buddha, however, Siddhartha does not follow the Buddha completely and hold a different opinion about him. As the story further proceeds Siddhartha goes through the family phase of life and afterward finds the spiritual knowledge.
• The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon: The story revolves around the protagonist a fifteen-year-old boy with autism spectrum condition. One day Christopher discovers the dead body of a dog, who belongs to his neighbor. Looking it as a mystery Christopher decides to solve it while solving the mystery he came to know that his mother is alive which according to his father had died 2 years ago. All the secrets unfolded during the investigation of Christopher.
• The Day of the Jackal by Frederick Forsyth: It is a fictional novel based on the assassination of French president after World War II. The protagonist jackal is a professional assassin hired by French terrorist to kill the president after many failure attempts of killing. The story brilliantly depicts the assassination done by Jackal.
• 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea by Jules Verne: It is a classic science fiction novel, story of which revolves around an expedition conducted by US government to destroy a sea monster. For this expedition, three experts from different fields are brought aboard who are also the protagonist. During the expedition, they found that the monster is not real and it’s a submarine, which is controlled by someone else and further the mystery resolved.
• I Am Malala by Malala Yousafzai and Christina Lamb: The true story of Malala Yousafzai who fought for her right to education and was shot by Taliban.
• Make Good Art by Neil Gaiman: It was in May 2012 when Neil Gaiman delivered his commencement speech at the University of Arts, Philadelphia, in which he shared his thoughts on creativity, courage, and strength. He encouraged his audience to make and break things, make mistakes and learn from them, and most importantly, make good art.

There’s definitely more to the list, but here are a few you most definitely need to read:

• Harry Potter series
• Game of Thrones
• Lord of the Rings
• James Bond
• The Godfather
• The Three Musketeers

(..and watch too – most of these have been adapted into TV series and movies and the production value is just too good). Do let us know if there’s a book that inspired you in your late teen years, or rather any point in life, and why. We would love to read your thoughts and stories in comments below.