If I'd Only Known Then What I Know Now...

Doesn't this always happen? We look back at some of our decisions, slap ourselves on the forehead and say, "What was I thinking?" Let's say you just sold your house, car and furniture and spent a year of your life trying to counsel people that the world was going to end on a certain day...and it didn't. After the initial shock wears off, you would HAVE to wonder what made you act that way (right before trying to figure out how to get your house and car back). I believe faith is important, but there are times when it would be better to know about something ahead of time: and it's not always just about major things like planetary destruction. sometimes little bits of prior knowledge can be life-changing as well...like knowing about nasal spray for airplane travel, for example.
I recently deplaned after twelve or thirteen hours on a plane, had a nice rest...and woke up with a cold. Damnably bad luck, you might think. I thought to myself, "Well, at least I didn't get sick on the trip," and I felt fortunate having put a positive spin on a miserable couple of days. At this point, my globe-trotting son noted that there was a special nose spray made of lavender or something like that which would alleviate the post-flight sickness by keeping the nasal passages moistened on the long plane rides. "I use it all the time," he noted. However, it seems that he "forgot" to give it to me even though I saw him the night before I left on the trip. In his defense, I think he feels that if hHE knows something, it's common knowledge. I know differently...now. Of course, the chances on my taking another extended flight are somewhat remote, but at least I have that knowledge in the memory bank.
And now that we've dodged one end-of-the-world scenario, we can all look forward to the Mayan prediction of destruction in 2012, and we cannot afford to become complacent. Otherwise, as the world implodes, we'll all be saying, "Boy! If I'd only known this was coming!"