1.) Working harder in college overall (better grades, doing more with my time, etc). While I do enjoy my current job it would have been nice to at least have had more choices out of college.
2.) Omitting the fact that I was on a particular prescription drug on an application for the Coast Guard. They didn’t want to have anything to do with anyone that had been on drugs to treat depression, and while I wasn’t DIAGNOSED with depression in High School, I was apparently proscribed a drug used to treat it (they were using it to treat ADHD for me apparently). Actually expanding on that, I should have told people I wanted to join the Coast Guard, instead of keeping a secret out of fear people would try to talk me out of it- I might have been more shrewd on the application. Getting medically disqualified was incredibly disappointing- I was trying to take my life in new directions and failing at every turn.
3.) Moving out of my parent’s house earlier. My mom had me absolutely convinced that unless you have a solid full-time job with excellent medical benefits, there is no way anyone can survive on their own without having to end up homeless at the first financial disaster. I was really convinced of this lie, and kept trying to find a full time job before moving. At the time I thought I was taking the smart approach, but when you get to be 25 and nothing’s really changed, its time to find some flexible ways of moving out. When I did move out, it was while I was working 2 part-time jobs with crappy health insurance I paid myself. I did fine on my own, and it was a lot EASIER when I was able to weather new challenges rather than fear them.
Don’t feel bad, it may not be over. I took guitar lessons for a couple of years beginning on my 14th birthday, and mostly sucked at it. But I took it up again during my junior year in college and got pretty good at it. I’ve been doing it off and on since then (I’m 50), and it’s going better than ever, although I now play almost exclusively classical guitar.
As for the experience when I was a kid, it might have been due to not having access to decent instruments. That’s a very common dilemma for aspiring guitarists of that age. They themselves, or other people who buy them guitars, usually don’t know any better.
Just hit “edit” to add: Oddly enough, my junior year in college was spent in Germany–that was the time when I really thought my study of German was going to take me into a different life. Well maybe it did after all. I don’t think I would have started playing guitar again if not for a fellow American down the hall who taught me the basics.
I’m not a “regretful” sort of person, but I do wish I had gotten physically active and stayed that way at a young age. I think my body would have thanked me for that.
Well, I’m only twenty-two, and I don’t think I’ve been around long enough to have any serious regrets, but as it stands, I still find myself regretting things all the same. Things I would do over again, given the chance:
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I would have thrown myself into the social world a lot earlier, instead of waiting until my last year and a half of college to finally get involved into the shenanigans my peers were already firmly esconced in. I’m just beginning to get comfortable in social situations, having emerged from a life of reclusiveness. I might have been a lot less lonely and self-absorbed, had I done so earlier.
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I would never have become a Christian, not because I’m a die-hard skeptic, but because when I became a Christian, it was for the wrong reasons. I was looking for validation and a psychological crutch, and eventually, it became a weapon against myself, a tool for funnelling my chronic low self-esteem into mock piety, and ignoring some genuine issues I had going on at the time.
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I would have listened to my instincts a lot more often, instead of relying on the advice of certain well-meaning, but misguided friends. That would have gotten me out of a lot more jams that I should never have gotten myself into. Turns out I have a good head on my shoulders after all; I wish I would have figured that out earlier.
But I’m young yet, and I am firmly of the belief that my mistakes are just as much a learning experience as my victories, so who knows? Maybe it was all for the better, anyways.
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I regret that I started smoking the week I graduated high school and didn’t quit until 30 years later. Stupid, stupid…
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I regret that I didn’t have more kids than just my son, and that I waited until I was 30 to have him. Then again, if I had kids when I was younger they may not have turned out like him and I may not have had him. But now I like the idea of having my own little tribe, and having the energy to deal with them all. Okay, maybe not the pregnancy and labor part.
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I regret that I stopped going hiking when I was 20 and didn’t start again until I was 45.
I was going to say dropping out of college in the first year, but I didn’t know what I wanted to do then. I got a job and found out I really liked business. I lost my virginity at 15, so I have no regrets there. 
This topic is so timely for me! I’ve got a lot of regrets (and I’m only 20–how pathetic), but just the big ones that are affecting my life right now:
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Going to college right after HS, even though I didn’t want to, and wasting a year of my life and $20,000 of my parents’ money because I wasn’t ready. What I really wanted was to do what I did this past year: live away from home and work, and take a break from school. I should have found a way to do that, or gone to community college (which is what I’m doing now that I desperately want to go back to school). At least if I’d done that, I wouldn’t have made such an expensive mistake.
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Being so worried about what was “normal” throughout my teens. I was too busy freaking out about how I didn’t go out enough or have enough friends to enjoy the social life I did have, which was just right for my personal needs. Now that my options for socializing are much more limited, I wish I’d appreciated my friends and acquaintances more. I also wish I’d known that I was attractive, and actually asked out some of the boys I liked, instead of–as usual–thinking they all hated me and thought I was hideous.
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Not advocating enough for myself, and accepting whatever labels the “professionals” threw at me. No, I don’t have Asperger’s Syndrome, but thanks for making me lose all confidence in my ability to interact with other people for years–it was really good for my development. I’m pretty sure that I have some kind of learning disability, though, and thanks to all the adults who assumed they knew what was wrong with me, I have no idea what my problem actually IS or how to overcome it.
Wow, long post–but I’m glad I got a chance to talk about this; it’s been on my mind a lot lately.
Three biggest regrets RIGHT NOW?
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Participating in the conspiracy theory thread
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Participating in the conspiracy theory thread
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Participating in the conspiracy theory thread
Just one really big one.
I’ve said it before, and I’ll keep saying it until I’m dead.
Kids, no matter how close you think you are to a friend/s, no matter how much you think you know them and trust them, no matter what you’ve been through before or how long you’ve known them:
DO NOT GO INTO BUSINESS WITH FRIENDS.
If you think about it, someone, somewhere, has said this out loud in front of you, and it’s easy to dismiss out of hand. It’s easy when you come to that point to say that it won’t happen to me. You are wrong.
Certainly, not everybody turns out to be a raging psychotic asshole, but the absolute best case scenario you could hope for couldn’t be 1/10 as satisfying as if you’d done it on your own. The worst case scenario is that it destroys your life, makes you angry, bitter, distrustful, and tired.
I cannot stress this enough. I will keep on it forever. Please don’t do it.
The only satisfaction I could possibly get out of it now is to somehow perform a miracle and be successful on my own, thereby living well and serving the revenge as a cold dish with a side of cilantro. If that happens, it will no longer be a regret, but a lesson learned, and I can go on and be happy.
Hell, don’t even share a dorm room with them when you go to college.
as_u_wish, you and I together could almost make one whole unregrettable (heh) person! 
Thanks to everyone that’s participated. When your not being able to see the forest for the trees, it sometimes get to know that you are at least not alone. And, like Faruiza’s advice, there’s a lot of good stuff to be learned from some of this. Perhaps we’ll have less to bemoan in the future.
Inter Alia, welcome to the boards and thank you for posting in my thread. I’d like to offer you a small glimpse of the other side (for lack of a better way of putting it), as I stay suicidal a large majority of the time. Unfortunately, I believe that if someone is determined to kill themselves that anything anyone says or does can’t alter that fact. No matter what, I’m sure you did the absolute best you could under the circumstances and that your brother is blessed to have you.
And I’d like to extend my condolences. I hope things have improved for you in the interim and that you find it within yourself to forgive yourself. You deserve it.
I don’t do regretting.
Seriously, I don’t. I fully one hundred percent forgive the mindset of the time for any decision I make.
But if I did…
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I’d regrett not putting in the required effort while I was at University (I am intelligent enough to have easilly achieved a 1st with hons)
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I’d regrett letting my feelings known to someone two years ago.
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I’d regrett not letting my feelings known to someone currently.
[ul]I wish I had been friends with the girl next door to me when I was a teenager. She was blind and made me uncomfortable. When she played the piano she was always giggling. I should have been friends with her.
[/ul]
[ul]I wish I had waited instead of getting married three days after graduating from college. I mean, I loved him and all, still do, but I really needed him to rescue me from my crazy family. It has worked out, for almost 27 years now. But still. It wasn’t right. And now he won’t buy me a new TV.
[/ul]
[ul]When I was in college and the choir sang in Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony with the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra, when the tenor sitting next to me sneezed and needed a Kleenex, I wish I had given him one. Of course I was well-supplied, as always. Sorry, guy who sneezed in Fort Worth.
[/ul]
Three of my top regrets:
[ul]Staying in a dead-end relationship for 9 years (including all 4 years of college, and the 5 years thereafter), and letting him walk all over me for so long. I’m sad when I think about all the opportunities I missed. I could have met someone special, be married now, with kids, and possibly happy.[/ul]
[ul]Not trying harder in college. I could have gotten straight As if only I had put some effort into it rather than being depressed and lazy and partying too hard with the wrong crowd (and being with Mr. Dead-End from above). I also somewhat regret my choice of major in college - I could have a career which I enjoy more now.[/ul]
[ul]I regret not getting over my shyness in high school, and wish I could have been more social and made more friends. I wish I hadn’t wasted so much time with a boyfriend who was a quintessential loser. I wish I realized that I was WAY too good for him, and probably could have dated anyone I wanted to, but my self esteem was so low (due to my older brother - Mr. Popularity and captain of the football team - treating me like I didn’t exist).[/ul]
I have to limit it to 3? This’ll never work.
Ok, top 3–which change from day to day.
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getting married at 24 and staying married as long as I have.
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turning my dad, a doctor, down when he offered to fund me through med school.
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lacking the courage to do something with my writing/art.
come back next week, at least one of these is bound to change.