DEAD FISH

As I am reading the page called "Only dead fish swim with the drift," I can see many clever sentences, told by many clever people. Those people were succesful in their lifes, let's say more succesful, than others. Yes, they had their problems, yes, they had their bad times, sure they've done something wrong. However, above all, they knew, what they were doing.
Still, a question comes to my mind. If our world has or had so many people talking this clever shit, why the people, who heard these words, aren't perfect? Why they keep on making mistakes explicitly stated in those words? Why can't we learn?
I am not sure, where is the problem, why we couldn't pack these advice in some book of reference and have at least one printed copy in our homes and take it out whenever we aren't sure, of what we are doing, or where we are going, or just simply when we're in trouble? Why don't we read it before we go to sleep? Why isn't it a mandatory reading at school?
I don't know if I can always follow these rules, if I can always make my mind according to these words, if I can just push back my animal instincts, human instincts and just let go...
There was one thing I read a long time ago, Illusion. It gave me much at the time I was reading it. And it's still my "handbook." There was this one sentence: If you seek for advice, just take a book, open it, whereever you want, ask yourself the crucial question, and look into the book. The advice is there. I tried it a few times, it made sense. But now, I am just afraid to see, what's written there. Because when it's written, it can't bee unwritten. And does this mean, that if I know, what answer I don't want to hear, I can find the right answer, the thing, I really want to do? I don't know. I might open a book...