I regret my dissertation topic in graduate school. I should have chosen something with more pratical implications, something that would have helped me develop more specific, valuable skills. I’d have more publications and more self-confidence, although I might be doing something totally different now.
I also regret not having more fun in college. I didn’t really have friends or do anything extracurricular, so my memories of that time are mostly of stressful all-nighters.
I regret having spent $500 on a new brake system for a car that was only going to die two months later. What. A. Waste.
(1) The year and a half I spent with April, the bitch from hell. She took advantage of me for my generosity and in no way reciprocated or did much to show any appreciation. She cost me money, took time away from me, time that I could have spent with family and friends and myself, she caused me lots of emotional grief, and most of all, she cost me the chance to further my college education. I ended up settling for an Associate degree after it was all over and done with and had her out of my life, rather than start from square one and get back on course with my original career aspirations.
(2) My other big regret was thinking that I could get rich by going to government auctions, buying up disposed-of property for cheap and then turning around to sell it for a big profit. I went on this with a friend who was convinced it was his ticket to financial freedom. We’re still friends and we try not to talk about this time in our lives.
Letting my health go. I was a spring-steel athelete in college and now it’s torture to ride my bike 30 miles.
With that in mind I’ve resolved to knock out a few lifetime desires after my company shuts down next year. My parents didn’t get to enjoy their retirement so I plan on doing a couple nice vacations back-to-back before the grind of a job-search. Ah the joys of middle age.
Getting married two months shy of my 17th birthday. Lasted about 6 months.
Walking around in a drunken stupor the 10 years I was in the Navy. I passed up a lot of interesting things, all over the world, in search of a cold beer.
Not going to college. I had this stupid idea that I had a future at the small restaurant where I was making minimum wage, but the owners were hinting (I thought) of something more.
4.Smoking. 20 year habit. Quit 5 years ago. Hardest thing I ever did.
I would be regretting something else if I had done 1 or more of the above.
That my mother isn’t alive - she died when I was 14, and now that I’m 44, I miss her more than I did then
That the gastric bypass surgery that gave me back my health wasn’t as advanced 10 years ago - I would have done it then, but I feared it
I try not to obsess over things like this, but I do think about them sometimes. I think “What if” is a healthy thing, as long as it doesn’t overshadow moving forward with your life.
I spent approximately three years too long with a male person only referred to (by persons in my social circle) as “The Jackass”.
It was a lesson to me in the destructive potential of misplaced stubbornness though, so I don’t regret it very much.
There’s little I actually regret. All the things I’ve done or could have done taught me something it has proved valuable to know. (Okay, granted, sometimes what it taught me was “Well, let’s not do that again”.)
I regret quitting my Little League team. When I got to junior high, I realized that I have a good ability to track a thrown baseball. Seeing the ball and making contact are two different things though and I probably could have corrected the latter if I had stuck with Little League. Who knows where I would be now if I had done so? I might have had a good career in the Majors to look back upon.
On my bus ride to work this morning I was thinking about my father who recently passed away, and how I foolishly assumed there’d always be time to do certain things with him.
I regret getting deep into debt when I didn’t really have to. Seems like it took a lot of options off the table, especially travelling.
There are some paths that I could have taken in college that I chose not to take, and regret that somewhat, but I made those decisions for a reason so there’s more a sort of wistfulness for things that might have been than deep regret.
For instance my private teacher in high school (a Juilliard grad and pit orchestra player on Broadway at the time) said that if I put in a solid audition he could get me into Juilliard. I chose not to take him up on it at that time because I really didn’t want to go to music school. A few years later in my academic career when I did want to go to music school it seemed like the biggest idiot decision of my life. At the time (my senior year in HS) a music conservatory just didn’t seem to be the life for me. It still doesn’t. But there’s a lot of what if.
My big academic interest was Geography. Sometimes I think I should have stuck to that instead of veering off into my on again off again relationship with studying music. My degree is in both, sort of. Which qualifies me for neither. I get by, though.
My biggest regrets involve letting people down who counted on me. I don’t mean not living up to my parent’s expectations or anything like that. I mean people counted on me for something and I just flat out let them down for no other reason than my own selfishness.
I most regret saying yes to nursing school and saying no to med school (my Dad offered to fund me thru and stupid 18 y/o that I was cried, "but I don’t wanna go to school for 8 more years!).
I also deeply regret not pursuing a degree in journalism and entering the field of publishiing/writing. I feel most at home with books.
I regret NOT sticking up for myself more as a young adult. I know better now that I am my only advocate–if I say nothing, who will?
I don’t lose sleep over any of this. You move on, find compensations and silver linings.
Wish I’d gotten myself more interested in math in high school and learned to trust the methods they give you that can reach out past your own insights.
There was this physics major who was friendly and pleasant to me, who seemed like a naturally nice person - she made the effort to get me as her lab partner - there was something so warm and comforting about her face - damn, that was stupid, I should have explored getting to know her instead of the cranky girl I later married.
Oh, yeah, the cranky girl I married.
Aw, crap, yeah, all the cranky girls I married. Aw, shit.
I wish like hell I had avoided curving or twisting my back while also loading it with force. God, my fucking foot is still stuck in an electric outlet, what, 5 months now. Fucking hell. Where’s the damn Percocet? God, this bottle had 80 in it just the other day… I still eat standing up like a cannibal…
The only completely unqualified regret I have is that I started smoking. It was a stupid decision and had absolutely no value as a “life experience;” the only thing I learned was “smoking is dumb,” which is something I knew anyway.
I’m starting to regret that I waited so long to come out of the closet. It didn’t really bother me before, because I figured that it all added up to life experience. But lately I’ve just been thinking about all the things I should’ve had figured out by now, but didn’t because I was so afraid of what would happen and what other people would think.
I’ve been there three times! I remember sitting in my car one night and shaking for about half an hour after dropping the first one off. I had just finished listening to her cry for a couple of hours about a potential breakup she had with the guy she eventually married. I feel like something died in me that night because of it.
Do I regret the time spent on them, though? Not really. It just demonstrated I wasn’t mature enough to recognize the situation as it really was.
This might sound cliche but not asking her to dance. I ran into this girl at a party who I liked at the time, we start kissing and stuff and instead of joining the dance party downstairs, I take her upstairs to drink some beers with the guys. She ended up going back downstairs to dance with someone else.
I still think she would be with me today if I had done that then.
