The main thing that has helped me make relatively wise life decisions (thus far, for a relatively young person) has been the understanding that everyone, including myself, is capable of real evil and that this capacity remains intact no matter our age, gender, or intellect.

I've found it weird how alienating it can be, too. Though I've gotten a lot more practice in the past year with people literally or metaphorically patting me on the head and patiently explaining for the thousandth time that people are just incompetent and scared and don't want to lose their job.