Try **TWO **hundred :eek:
I would have traveled more or studied overseas when I was younger. Now that I’ve seen more places, I want to see everything and feel like I missed many years in which I could have been doing that. I am making up for lost time now, though.
I also would have left my first job out of college far, far sooner. Rather than almost 6 years, I would leave after maybe two or three. I’m relatively happy where I am now but I still would change it if I could.
I thought about this one for quite a while. Honestly, I cannot think of a single major life choice that I would do differently. Does this mean I have always made good choices? Or am I just too conventional and dull to have taken “the path less traveled”?
Nothing I would have done differently. My mistakes are as big a part of who I am as are my successes. Although if I could choose to have different parents, that’s the only thing about my life I’d want to change. Failing a new set of progenitors, I’d prefer to never have been born.
Same thing except he’s not ex.
Two biggies.
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I would have taken better care of my body. Not let myself get so fat.
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I would have not let my parents talk me OUT of going to college. I should have said fine, if you don’t want to help me, I’ll do it myself, and DONE it, picked a career I could have had a passion for and went for it. Now I’m 51, fat, and stuck in a job that pays the bills but nothing else.
I would have listened when a friend of mine warned me to not become too close of friends with her sister-in-law. She seemed like a nice person and I couldn’t understand why my friend would be so weird about it. I figured, being related by marriage, it must just be a “family thing.” I was so wrong. Of course I didn’t realize this into our husbands and kids had all become very good friends. This woman was seriously controlling, got her feelings hurt way too easily, was the “pout and punish” type when someone hurt her. Ugh!
I would have smiled more. It makes people feel good.
I would have gone to the uni I wanted, not the one my boyfriend was going to.
I would have NOT AT ALL IN ANY WAY SHAPE OR FORM have dated my first husband. Oi.
I would tell myself to not allow the guy I was engaged to to talk me into dropping out of college. Back that up… I would tell myself not to date that guy at all, then I wouldn’t have gotten engaged to him/married him either.
Been nicer and more helpful to my mother.
I would’ve listened to all the classmates who told me my boyfriend in high school was gay before I even started dating him. They were right. The relationship was nothing but drama, and he came out of the closet in college.
When I was first hired full-time by my company, I started dating a coworker. If I had been more attention to how he treated people or listened to my friends, I would’ve dropped all non-work contact with him within a month.
Work-wise, I would’ve asked to be hired full-time right away instead of applying for another internship. Not such a big deal, since I was hired full-time at the end of that internship anyway.
Things have turned out all right so far, all things considered. The relationship lessons were painful, but I hopefully learned from them, and now I have a much healthier relationship with LOUNE.
I’m 27, so this is a work in progress.
I could say that I wish I’d picked a different PhD adviser, though I’m learning a lot about myself from that experience and it may actually turn out well in the long run. There are a few other large mistakes that are probably going to be worth the lesson learned. I hope.
There is one small, simple thing that I would change though. I wish I’d lived in the honors dorm my first year of college. I’m not good at making friends and it probably would have helped to be spending more time with the people in my classes, in a ready made community. I might have saved a lot of loneliness.
I would’ve gone to the not-as-good state school that offered me the full ride. I then wouldn’t have elected to graduate three semesters early, as it would’ve been covered.
Also, I wouldn’t have married the guy I married. Sigh.
I’ve created a new thread that quantifies how much you’ld pay for the change Looking back on your life, how much would you have paid to do things differently. - In My Humble Opinion - Straight Dope Message Board
A few things I did when I was a young dumbshit that have adversely affected my health into today.
I know that the following ones will probably seem controversial, but screw it: I (a) would NOT have applied to college in HS. Looking back on it now, there was no way at all that I could have ever gone to university immediately after finishing high school, so I would not have applied at all in order to save myself from all this “woulda, coulda, shoulda” bullshit that plagued my life for the first year or so after graduating. That change would’ve steamrolled into the second one: I (b) wouldn’t have tried so damn hard in HS. The most miserable years of my life were the ones that I actually spent in HS, and if I’d taken it easier during that time I might’ve enjoyed the whole experience a lot more.
And then there’s the miscellaneous stuff: Would’ve gotten my first job at a much earlier age, would’ve gotten my driver’s license at 16 instead of 18, would’ve pursued a few romantic & sexual opportunities, etc.
I’m not even going into all of the aspects of my relationship with my family that I’d change.
I would have run away from home.
Drank less.
Shagged more.
The possibilities were always there. I was too stupid to see.
Been less shy.
More football, less band.
Just echoing a preamble that others have mentioned… I’m very content where my life is at the moment, so the idea of going back and “changing” something could of course bring unintended and unforeseen consequences…
Having said that…
High school after about year 9 was a total waste of my time, as was university. I learned virtually nothing of professional use. I doubt I could remember five A4 pages worth of stuff from that time. I did, however, form lasting friendships, and learned lessons about life and people that I may not have if I’d quit school.
As a decently paid web programmer, I learned my professional skill-set in a self-taught manner, from books and online tutorials, etc, and I didn’t learn programming until I was 24 years old. I should have started about 9 years earlier.
The year after I finished high school, my parents moved cities and reneged on a promise to pay for me to go to a uni near my hometown. Instead I was told that if I wanted my parents’ support, I would have to live with them and attend one of the local universities in the city they moved to (which did not offer the course I wanted). I’d spent all of high school working towards, and anticipating, getting myself in to a uni near my hometown. So when my parents pulled the rug out from beneath me at the last moment (I’d even already accepted the hometown uni offer), it crushed me. I was 17, and the idea of moving out of home, finding work, and attempting to put myself through uni was just too daunting, so I spent the next 12 months living at home, failing university subjects and basically being completely idle and frivolous. Having said that… I am now one of the most fiercely independent people I know.
So… I do look back on some of this stuff and wonder how my life would be now if I had never learned some of these lessons.