Can you share something you did in the past that “seemed like a good idea at the time” but for whatever reason, turned out to be not so helpful, ranging from “gee, that was a flop” to “what a stupid plan, why did I do that?” to “what a disaster”
If you can, articulate not just what it was, but why you thought it would be a good idea. If you know the reason why it did NOT turn out good, please explain
Got married.
Drop out of college at 19, when I had a full scholarship.
dropped out of school at 17 and joined the Navy :smack:
Bought a brand new Chevy Vega in 1972.
Didn’t use a condom with that chick I met at a party.
Fell in love with a guy I met through friends/church, knowing that his enlistment would be up in a year and he would likely be moving somewhere else.
We crashed and burned before that even became an issue, but still. Dur.
Changed jobs - I was in my twenties so cut me some slack - I left a stable, good paying position with a large company where I was receiving training and had a good career path to go to work for an independent company run by a total IDIOT for more money, no benefits, and ended up leaving after a year because it was sucking the life out of me.
Wish I had THAT one as a do-over. Sigh.
I had what was probably the highest paying ESL teaching job in Europe, along with about six other teachers from across Europe. Cushy job - lots of work and travel, but paid really, really well. We had a (rare) meeting with all of us at one location and, after dinner, the teachers talked privately and agreed our boss was incompetent. We composed a thoughtful letter, outlining our reasons we thought that boss should be replaced. We signed it and sent it to the head honcho in charge of the entire program.
He fired all seven of us and kept the boss.
I will never sign another petition/letter like that again.
BTW, the good news was that I did find an even better job within two days - not the same money, but far more gratifying - but still…
Ha, that was the first thing that came to mind for me too 
(First, not current)
Maybe. In many ways, my life was enriched by being married. Many ways. But after separating, I feel like I have been in a coma for 16 years. I literally feel like I am starting up where I left off at 23. I’m even in a very similar situation to what I was facing then - no money, no job, and alone.
At the time I met her, 1996, I was in a shit spiral, and would have been dead within five years. She pulled me out, temporarily. Toward the end of our relationship, I was in another shit spiral, headed right down the drain.
I don’t regret it. She got me to this time right here, and if we had never met, I’d be at the bottom of San Francisco Bay.
Sitting on a roll of bailing wire while a thunderstorm passed overhead.
That was just the first time. ::: sigh :::
I think ive had several cases of “it seemed like a good idea at the time”…my first one I recall was in fifth grade…when school let out that day, I decided to climb a wire fence…i remember sitting at the top,deciding if I should jump down,and instead I decided to wiggle my way around so I would be.scaling back down the fence but my jacket got snagged at the top,thus causing me to get caught, I tried to drop down and my right arm was caught on a protruding wire, I slowly slid down but with my arm hooked on the wire it cut into the inner part of my arm…i held my arm and ran crying towards my house. A neighbor saw me and drove me home. The scary part was when I got home my mom looked at it and her eyes got big and she said she had to make a call. At the emergency room the doc said I was lucky it had just missed a major artery. Still it was pretty bad, took 26 stitches. I never climbed another wire fence though and still cringe at the way they look
At 19.
The time I said, I think I’ll go off the trail as it will be quicker. I was backpacking alone in Tibet a few days walk from the nearest road. Worked out but I thought I was going to die on a cliff face in the mountains for a while there.
At 15, a friend and I decided to hitch our skateboards to the back of our other friend’s car and go for a ride. Well as soon as my friend driving the car began to pick up speed, the other friend who was hanging on to the bumper with me on his skateboard let go (pussy!). I guess my friend driving saw him let go and assumed we had both let go of the car, because a of a sudden he began driving really fast.
It didn’t take long for the trucks and wheels on my board to begin to wobble from the speed of the car. I tried stabilizing myself but I had a growing sense of panic (this was in the span of a few seconds). And just like that my skateboard bucked and flipped and sent me flying in the air and I landed violently (and awkwardly) on the pavement on top of my left side/shoulder. It was weird, for as huge as my crash-landing was, I was up and on my feet in a matter of a split-second, literally. It was like a reflexive-reaction. Before I even knew what I was doing, I was standing there with my left shoulder hanging like half/foot below where it should be.
I thought I had popped my shoulder out of it’s socket but what I ended up finding out was that I had broken my collarbone. Now this was back in 1995 and treatment for such a broken bone fucking sucked. It consisted of wearing this disgusting brace-like device that wrapped under both arms and around your back; pulling the shoulders and scapula up and back. This kept the area in a position that allowed the bone to heal. What was so disgusting about this was the fact that it wrapped underneath both armpits. It didn’t matter how clean you kept yourself, how many showers you took or how many times you put that goddamn thing in the washing machine. It got yellow, stinky and nasty. No. Matter. What. And you had to wear it every day for like 4-5 weeks (I don’t remember exactly how long). Ugh. It was horrible. Now since that time, more tolerable methods for treating broken collarbones have been devised. But back then, that’s what you had to suffer through.
So yeah, riding my skateboard on the back of my friend’s car seemed like a good idea at the time. Turns out, not so much. 
This is a “seemed like a good idea”, where there were two ideas which were pretty much the exact opposite, and both were stupid.
Years ago I had a roommate who got plastered with one of his friends and together they decided they were going to TP a mutual friend’s yard. They also thought it would be a great idea for me to come along and help. I was sober, and I didn’t think it was a great idea to go along and help. They insisted. I insisted not.
The roommate’s friend was a real dick and actually grabbed me and started dragging me out the door toward the car. I did not take well to that and we started a more or less wrestling match that started to escalate. Fortunately, my roommate came to his senses, and defused the situation by stopping his friend by explaining what a joyless jerk I was.:rolleyes:
Had I thought about it, I would have just gone along and sat in the car or something. It would have been a much smarter option than getting into a fight.
Did I mention that the dick sometimes carried a gun? I don’t know whether he had it that night or not, but I knew that he might’ve. Which made me all the dumber – getting into a fight with a drunk guy who could be armed.
I had an epic pillow fight with this guy I really liked, freshman year of high school. The next day, I snuck into his dorm room (everyone left their doors open) and walloped him good while he was watching youtube. He never spoke to me again. Whoops!
Left my well-paying, easy-to-do job, just because I was bored with it, just before the Global Financial Crisis hit.
Please don’t eat all the morsels, or your cookies will look like this.