If it's true that chance favors the prepared, then it's equally true that preparation is everything.

Preparation centers on your mind. You keep your mind working through lifelong thought. It's never too late to start, but you have to maintain it once you do so. The ancient Greeks espoused a philosophy based on the constant quest for truth. That's what all human beings at all stages of history need--including each one of us today. Reason, facts and logic are the way to truth. We're all capable of thinking, reasoning and using the facts at our disposal at honestly figuring out the truth. Fitting in or faith are not what matter. Truth does. Fill yourself with knowledge and you will never feel a compulsive need for faith or fitting in with the crowd. Faith deliberately steers your mind away from truth and reason. Fitting in encourages you to follow the way of the masses--masses who either have no idea what they're doing, or, if they do, got there through the same kind of thinking you possess the capacity for yourself.