Life is OK but what the heck, I’ll try rebooting.
FUCK!!!
I guess 2001. That was the year my life went to hell. TBH, the truth is September of 2000.
January 1976. I made a choice that I’d change if I could. It’s true that you sometimes don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone.
I’d go back to August 1989, just before I started college. If I knew what I know now, I could get together with my wife much earlier than I did and save her from the abusive relationship that she had before we got together. Also it would be fun to relive my college days.
Finally as others have said investing in Microsoft until 2000, then switching my assets to gold until I go back to a diversified stock fund in March 2009, would probably leave me with a nice nest egg.
Reminder: You can only go back to January 1st at the start of a decade.
I can narrow it down for myself to about a day or so- a day on either side of Aug 29th, 1991. I think it was that afternoon at about 3:30 or so when Dad said “Have fun and don’t do anything stupid.” and left me at my dorm immediately before my freshman year of college started.
I’d choose that point because that’s the first point at which I was truly out from under my parents’ thumb, and before I’d done or not done anything I’d like to change.
Mainly though, it would be to capitalize on lost opportunities, rather than avoid the consequences of any stupid decisions. There was a lot of stuff I didn’t do, or chose the responsible, un-fun path, even when it didn’t matter.
Now with 21 years of hindsight, there were a lot of situations where choosing the fun option wouldn’t have made things any better, and at least it would have been fun, rather than just being miserable and still ending badly.
If I had to choose Jan 1 at the start of a decade, then I suppose it would be Jan 1, 1990. I’d still have to suffer through part of my junior and my senior years of high school, but I’d rather do that than miss the opportunity to do undergrad all over again.
Well, I got married May of 1991 and in May of 2001 my husband announced he wanted a divorce, so I’m fine with starting fresh from either. I think I’ll pick 1991 and never marry the guy.
1/1/91. I had my first nervous breakdown in '96, so I’d go back and correct all the things that I could to help prevent that, from interpersonal relation issues with my mother to financial mistakes that were made in an attempt to rectify my insanity. Also, I didn’t lose my virginity until I was 24, so I’d be all over offers prior to that.
There’s a pretty good book with (almost) this premise (Replay by Ken Grimwood) which might be worth checking out if you find this sort of thing interesting.
As for myself I’d go back to 1991 when I started secondary school. I imagine with my current knowledge and mad skillz I could set my life off in a different direction.
My confidence was almost destroyed by bad experiences in school and it took me a very long time to get it back to an acceptable level. If I could have told 11 year old me what he would be doing in 20 years time he would never have believed it, I think if I had my time again I’d start my life shifting onto its current track in my late teens/early twenties and not my late twenties/early thirties as actually happened.
Or I would quite possibly join the RAF in my late teens, something I contemplated for a long time but never actually did (for various reasons, lack of confidence being a major one).
There are two possible points I’d like to go back to:
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When the (seemingly) nice young man I’d been dating dumped me, he asked if we should still see each other in a social context (we had some overlap in friends). In the reboot I would say not just “no” but “hell no” and “GTFO” for good measure.
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Right after leaving my last full-time job, I was deciding what to do next. I had had a hard time at that job and took a lot of FMLA leave. In the reboot I would apply for Social Security Disability right away and not wait 1 1/2 years, cursing myself as lazy and unmotivated as I looked for work like crazy.
These are kind of downers. I’m sorry. 