I know this was an old post, but I've been thinking about this question for quite awhile now. I have decided, yes, there may have been one thing that could have saved me.
For me nothing any sane person would have listended to would have worked - your family members have it, so will you. It will stunt your emotional development. It will ruin your friendships and personal relationships. It will give health problems in new and creative ways. I was young and couldn't be told anything, and still have a hard time accepting lessons that aren't learned in the hardest of ways.
The way to have saved me? Probably invoke my skepticism from the very beginning! If I had come across this bottle I would have probably read it, LMAO, and then just passed right by.
This bottle will:
- Make you better looking
- Make you less awkward
- Make you some good lifelong friends
- Make you better with the ladies
- Make you smarter
- Make you a better conversationalist
- Make you more confident
- Make you a better interviewer
- Make you able to have "moment of clarity"
- Make you able to excel at your job
And so on! I think you get the idea. Had I seen that bottle... I may never have touched the stuff because I would known what an absolute lie was stuffed down in that bottle. No reasonable person would ever have listened to such nonsense presented in such an absurd way - at least I wouldn't have.
Unfortunately, little by little, at one time or another I came to believe those things, until I deluded myself into believing I wanted it... needed it. To this day, I can't help but feel that certain situations wouldn't be improved with just a little bit of the good stuff, while every reasonable remaining brain cell (and there aren't many left) is screaming "No!" And sadly, how often they get drowned out now.
Here's to chipping away all of the nonsense and getting back to reality.
EH