Meditations by Marcus Aurelius. I think whether you're an emperor who controls most of the known world or a kid graduating HS and figuring out what you want to do, Meditations is deceptively powerful. It has the ideas of treasuring your most precious resource.. time. Don't worry about what others think too much, stick to your ideals and code and do what needs to be done even if (it usually will be) it is extremely difficult. We are not as special as we think or our parents tell us, we are not a super hero of the story nor do we typically have innate gifts which will lead us to a blissful life free of hardship. We have weaknesses and strengths which can be developed and honed for good or ill, we will waste time and we will probably believe in the wrong things and be fallible in almost every way.

The beauty of what Aurelius really highlights is that all that is normal, its ok. No really, you are a hot mess is step 1. When things don't work out as in a fairy tale we shouldn't be super surprised. An when they do, we should really cherish it and enjoy it and share it. I think the most positive and encouraging thing you can share with someone is... life is made up of all the little "now" moments but you have to look into the future at where you want to end up if you want to improve the quality of those moments. insert future gratification principle here. So he said, be careful what you spend your time doing, you won't get another moment of it and it will make you who you are. If the cleverness of that doesn't make you smile, well you should probably read the book, its worth your time.