Read 1632 by Eric Flint, deeply embedded in it is a lesson about the infrastructure that keeps modern society going.
It's important to understand mappers and packers, and figure out where you are on that continuum. https://wiki.c2.com/?MappersVsPackers
Learn what capability based security is. Computer security is a solved problem, has been since the 1980s, but the solution hasn't been widely adopted yet.
Know that this is a time of immense abundance, we have access to things that even the King of France couldn't afford, like antibiotics and modern medicine, but don't try to keep up with the Joneses, that way lies ruin.
I'll tell you what I would tell myself if given the chance: Learn to take (calculated) risks and to be free of the weight of the judgement of others. Learn to do the baseline things that keep you healthy in body and mind and maintain them.
As for reading, I don't think any one book will affect everyone the same way or have the same impact, but do read. Don't be afraid to read things that make you uncomfortable. In fact, embrace discomfort in reading and in all aspects of life.
Wow! Thank you so much will follow and learn
Faust from the West.
Three Kingdoms from the East.
See the reading list on topics of interest in the podcast "In our time." Thumb nail sketches of powerful people is a work by a Greek tutor transmitted somewhere in there.
Read to learn but read to enjoy too. Sometimes you learn more not trying to learn.
50 to 100 Infinity Within by Reggie Hilliard. Thanks me later
Thanks! will add it to my reading list
Read and learn about what you find interesting.
If I could tell myself something at 16 it would be: Do what you want. Not what others want of you. Go after what you want, regardless of whether you think it will work out, or make you rich, or make your parents happy, or make your friends happy, or what religion says you "should" do, or what anyone says you "should" do.