Hell, no. I love the guy I am today and I’m only that way because of my past. It was a terrible fucking adolescence, yes, but I worked hard to learn from it and change it into an amazing present. I suspect the future will be even more awesome.
Oh hell yeah, if I get to keep the knowledge of at least a general outline of my life as it is now. I will admit that I was an insufferable little kid, so maybe I could try to learn social skills a little earlier. I think that I probably should have run away a couple of years earlier (because nothing else would have made my parents admit that they’d been far too strict with me), and I should have been more assertive with my parents. If my parents told me that I couldn’t do something, I didn’t nag or whine, I just accepted it. However, my younger sister and brother did protest and nag and whine, and THEY got to date before they were 17 and a half, and got to go to the mall unsupervised, and got to do a lot of stuff that I was never allowed to do. I’d have taken different electives in high school, for the most part, and stayed in college instead of dropping out to get married. And I never would have carried a child to term. That messed up my health permanently, and I was never cut out to be a mother anyway. I probably wouldn’t have married the man that I did, if I got married at all, but I certainly wasn’t mature enough to get married at 19. The only reason I did it was to get out of my parents’ house. I should have moved out and either worked and saved for college, or taken a few scholarships and worked part time.
I have lots of regrets, and I would like a do-over.
Personally, I wouldn’t change anything. The outcomes would be the same. However, financially, I’d withdraw my money from the bank and invest in Microsoft, Yahoo and Google, move to Montana (my nearest neighbor would be several miles away, but never fear when there’s the helicopter on site) and live off of that money.
Yes. I had an operation go very bad in 03 which led to many years of painful operations.
I would redo the operation, but with a different doctor.
This. I have a three year old son. There are a few moments in my life where, if I had done things slightly differently, my path would have changed significantly. For better or worse of course I do not know. But I know it would have changed a lot.
But I would never risk that for losing my boy.
Echoing what a few others have expressed, I do not live my life with any regrets, but that having been said yes, I’d love to go back a long way armed with what I know now.
The essential problem of life is simply that the two best things you can have are youth and experience, and you only get more of one while you have less of the other. To be able to combine the two would be truly wonderful. I’d probably set the dials for when I was 11 or 12 years old. My main goal would be to live my life for me and the way I see fit, rather than endlessly trying to suit other people’s view of how I ought to do things (a task much like trying to chase the horizon).
This inspires me to change my answer slightly. I wouldn’t want to do it all over again, but I wouldn’t mind going back to 2000, cashing all my options, and putting everything into cash - and then into Google. This is after my kids were well along, so I wouldn’t lose everything I love.
There are a couple of points in time I would be quite happy to go back to and change from there on.
Oh, Hell no!
- i have a firm belief in Murphy and the law of unintended consequences (better the devil you know)
- I think it’s just as well that I had no freaking clue I was gay until I was out of college and gone from southern Indiana. Life was oppressive enough as it was.
- In general, I paid my dues once and am not about to pay those diues again.
- Yeah, life would have been more interesting if I had cashed in my stock options before the 2001 crash, but see 1)
I’d be a better father to my son while he was alive.
I would go back to the teenage years and when my friends bought a pack of Marlboros for $1.55 out of the machine in the barber shop after school, lit up, and said, “want one, Sali?” - I would say “NO. NO Thanks.”
me too.
Also I wouldn’t have let my jr high school math teacher get away with just passing me with a C even though I didn’t understand the material, he wasn’t doing me any favors.
Depressing post of the year award. 
Interesting responses everyone, especially the comment about youth and experience.
Have someone suggest to my parents that the local high school was a HELLHOLE, and I should go to a school for the Deaf for jr high …or even elementary
be able to go to my summer camp sooner, so I would have had more years there.
HELL no.
Everything that has happened in my life has led me to where I am now and I cannot imagine giving up my children and family for anything. Heck, I’d live through all the shitty stuff a hundred times over just to guarantee I end up exactly where I am right now. The consequences of going backward are too great.
For an interesting (fiction) book along these lines, read Replay.
My answer partially depends on what happens to me after I’m done in my "do over’ period. Do I jump back into my present day body, and my past-body would keep on doing the things it did the first time through? Or would by past-body remember all the things I know and keep making changes? If it’s the first option, then I’d be fine. I’m lucky in that most periods in my life are easily segmented and have nothing to do with each other. For example if I re-did my high school years, that period in my life had absolutly no effect on anything else. Once I left high school, I never went back, never saw any of those people (except the odd reunion), and never interacted with them. So going back to that period in my life with all I know now wouldn’t really effect anything other than how my high school experience was. Assuming I didn’t get anyone pregnant or anything, I don’t see a down side. The same with my years in the Navy. As long as I kept the same duty assignments, then what I did at those locations really doesn’t matter too much…as long as I don’t fuck up and get a dishonerable discharge or something. Anything after that and I’d run the risk of not ending up with the family that I have now…which I wouldn’t change for anything. But those two time periods it’d be great to go back and do again.
Yeah, sorry. You caught me in one of those moods.
This, almost exactly.
I love my friends, but I still live in the town where I went to college and I still have the same interests, more or less.
I’d go back to the day I came to college. I’d seek out the people I’m friends with now and make friends with them 13 years ago. I’d study harder and stay in the honors program and go on to get my master’s and doctorate. I’d stay in shape and get into fencing and martial arts at 17.
I’d basically have the life I have now, just earlier and with wider opportunities.
Of course there are things that I would have done differently. Combined a quantitative undergrad major with a liberal arts major for starters. Gone to Northwestern or Brandeis instead of McGill (although that I’m still not sure about because McGill was free). Taken undergrad more seriously. Gone to medical school instead of law school. Travelled more. Not dated some of those dudes that I dated in my 20s. Taken more photographs.
Still, my life turned out pretty good.
Hindsight is 20/20, right? I just try to learn from my mistakes and apply those lessons to the present.
In a second.
I’d just want to retain this knowledge…
that while my political conservatism & Christian faith have worked out fine for me, things in general are not as dire as I thought in high school or college;
that when there are good reasons why certain teachings were rejected by 2000 years of Christendom;
I need to grab more opportunities- go to social functions, ask out girls, get driving sooner, get more work experience;
that when friends want to start a business but I’m the only one with a good credit rating, there’s a reason why;
to appreciate family & friends, to know that while I can’t save anyone- one needs to have the booze knocked out of her hands every time she picks up a drink.