I started taking guitar lessons when I was 10, but I had to quit because the lessons conflicted with my Girl Scout meetings. Really wish I’d kept them up.
What Beelzebubba said.
The things I’ve done and haven’t done are what got me where I am now. Not that I’m anything resembling successful, but I’m mostly happy most of the time. Each thing I do teaches me something. Sometimes it’s a good lesson, sometimes it’s a lesson I’d rather not have learned, but still, I learn.
But like Shadowfox, I’m undereducated. I graduated from high school, but didn’t complete college. Took a class here & there, but that’s it. I’d like to go back someday.
And Shadowfox? What Caricci said is correct. A GED will get you in to a Community College, and an associates, or at least getting your basics out of the way, will get you in to a university. And since you’re a “non-traditonal” student, you probably qualify for an actual grant of some sort, something you won’t have to pay back. Give it a shot! 
I’ve always been really sorry that I didn’t learn to drive when I was 16, like a lot of people do. I just finally learned to drive a few years ago and I don’t think I’ll ever be comfortable with it.
I’m not an archaeologist. I have a piece of paper that says Bachelor of Arts in Archaeology, but I’ve never put it to use.
I can’t say I have any regrets like many here. I think the world is filled with learning opportunities and if you regret something you are certain to live your life thinking “What if…”
Now, there are a few things I am miffed about but those aren’t directly related to anything I did or didn’t do. The main thing for me was I expressed extreme interest to my parents that I wanted to join the local ski team. I admit I was a great skiier and my parents didn’t back me on that. I don’t neccessarily think it be important for me to have been another Peekabo Street (sp) but being able to race would have kept me focused on other things in my life. I basically lived to ski and the parents didn’t allow me to pursue it. grrrrr but that’s then this is now, I am a computer geek and out of shape. 
As for Shadowfox I got my GED and I went to community college for a year and back in the late 80s, if I had completed my Assoc. degree I could have gone to a state university. Of course that’s here in Colorado so it may depend upon your state laws.
In my life I have made an incredible number of bad decisions. However, like Beelzebubba said, those decisions have also shaped who I’ve become and I’m not interested in changing that. It seems dangerous to regret choices made or not made; because you can never really know what pulling a single thread might do to the overall tapestry.
That being said, there is only one thing that I sincerely regret.
I was about 15 or 16 and my dad and I were driving home from visiting his mother at her home up on the lake. We passed a fairgrounds about halfway home that had signs up for a demolition derby later that evening. We joked about it, and my dad told me about a couple he had been to, and we kept on driiving. Later that night, he called me down from my room to ask me if I wanted to drive back out and check it out. I said no. Today, I can’t even remember what I had to do that night that seemed so important at the time. Part of me has a sneaking suspicion that I didn’t do anything, that I blew him off and spent the night watching bad TV or talking on the phone. I wish I had gone. Not because I would have necessarily enjoyed the thing, but because my dad went out of his way to ask me, and I said no. Going definitely wouldn’t have made any difference in my life one way or another, but still…I can’t help feeling that I missed out on something special that day. I regret that.
I’d give my right arm to be ambidexterous!
I am a firm believer that things happen for a reason.
I attended college for a disasterous three or four semesters ( it was community college and in my mind, 13th and 14th grade.) and bailed out for the beginning of a variety of dead end jobs, that I was put in management for all of them.
My main argument with college then is that most of what you are taught is utter crap and useless in the real world. The guidance counselor did not like my take on the matter.And I was shy then, now, I am …well, so Shirley.
I traveled. Met a great guy who taught me a great deal about myself and *I learned more and -this is key here people - retained more - than any thing I learned in college. *
(I am, FTR, looking into attending classes again, because I am a) more mature b) need mental exercize c) want my children to be able to look up to me and say, " Hey Mom, you earn 100k a year because of that degree in English/Movie Trivia/Pottery, can I borrow the Beemer?")
Eventually, met Mr. Wonderful, traveled some more, spend shit loads of money, started a family, have two incredible kids [sub]and I want more kids, but am working on hubby so I won’t have regrets about that [/sub]. I am now really discovering who I am and what’s it all about. [sub]It’s all about being nice to everyone and patience. [/sub]
But my two big regrets are a) I didn’t wear that red vintage flapper dress to a dance in high school when I had the opportunity (the waist and tits are gone now) b) I didn’t buy that big moose head when I saw it. (It was gorgeous and I have never seen one it’s equivalent.)
Oh, and wasting so much time in my teen age years being shy and so worried about what everyone thought of me. I haven’t seen any of them since graduation day. What was all the worry about?
(a) I regret not having given more of a chance to my first girlfriend. (I was 16, it was a long distance relationship, things slowly fell apart, but I still kinda feel that she was my one true love)
(b) I regret not selling all of my stock options when my company’s stock was at 17.
© I regret not selling all of my stock options when my company’s stock was at 12.
(d) I regret not selling all of my stock options when my company’s stock was at 6.
(e) I regret not selling all of my stock options when my company’s stock was at 3.
ruadh,
don’t write off being able to play guitar because you didn’t take lessons. I have never taken lessons but have played guitar for a long time (I am ashamed to say how long considering my skill level). I still enjoy playing immensely despite my disappointment at my lack of skill, even playing with other people and being complimented on my skill level. But that is neither here nor there, the important thing is that you enjoy playing. That is the key, the enjoyment that you derive from what you do. Don’t let your regrets stop you from doing something that you enjoy, or even might potentially enjoy.
certes
I regret pretending to not care about people or the outside world. It has caused me to become rather misanthropic.
It’s all a facade.
The one thing I regret is not being more adventurous, and worrying too much about what bad things could happen.
This is a serious reply. It gets a little strange, but it’s all true. I was in a relationship that had serious problems, but I was determined to make it work. As a result I did not reply to the following personal ad
“#1 My father used to grow tomatoes red like anger, and I would eat them whole like apples.#2 When I went past Walnut and Camac and saw that the cobblestones were gone, I almost cried.#3 When I was little I called Pepto Bismol Bishop Ship Ship. Any questions?”
A woman disturbed enough to place that ad, is just crazy enough to be the one. Sometimes, I fantasize about telling this tale only to discover that She is one of my listeners.
Again, this is the truth. This is not an in-character joke, or hoax of any kind. Assuming that she was serious when she wrote that ad, she's a mad poet. I go for the mad poet type in a Big way.What a coincidence. That’s one of my regrets, too. I did get to study Latin after I became a graduate student. I am registered for fourth-semester Latin for Spring 2002. Why didn’t I study it in high school? It’s a complicated story.
At the private Church of Christ high school that I attended in the ninth and tenth grades, only two foreign languages were offered - French and Spanish. (The Church of Christ disapproved of Latin, for reasons too complicated to explain here.) I chose French, and I registered for French I in ninth grade. I was medically exempted from the one semester of P. E. that was required in the ninth grade, so I had to pick an additional academic class for the fall semester. I took one semester of Homemaking in the ninth grade. What a mistake that was. I never learned to sew very well. I got an “A” anyway, for effort.
There was a one-semester course entitled “Humanities” that was offered each fall semester. The Humanities course was mostly devoted to art history and music appreciation. I took that course in the fall of the tenth grade, and I got an A in it. I liked the class, and I liked the teacher. I still have a copy of my textbook from that class. In the spring of the tenth grade, I took Creative Writing. I loved Creative Writing class and received an A in it, but I didn’t produce anything suitable for publication.
Years later, I wish that I had taken the Humanities course in ninth grade instead of tenth. I would have been ready to take it in ninth grade, but the counselor did not think to suggest it to me. I would have been the only ninth-grader in the class, but I wouldn’t have minded. I was not afraid of older students. I could have taken Humanities in the fall semester of ninth grade, and still taken the one-semester required Health class in the spring semester. If I had taken Humanities in the ninth grade, I could have taken Choir, Art, or Drama in the tenth grade. Art, Choir, or Drama would have counted as the Fine Arts credit. If I had gotten the Fine Arts credit earlier, I would have had more freedom in choosing my classes when I transferred to a public high school for eleventh grade. If I had gotten the Fine Arts credit in the tenth grade instead of waiting until the eleventh grade, I could have taken both French and Latin in the eleventh and twelfth grades. I did get to take four years of French, and I am thankful for that.
A more serious regret: Sometimes I wish that I had never left the private Christian high school. If I had stayed there, I would have been the salutatorian, or maybe even the valedictorian. I was a National Merit Scholar at the public high school, but I probably could have been one at the private Christian high school, too. The reason I left the private school was that I felt unwanted because I was not a Church of Christ member. Some of my classmates were emotionally abusive to me. The high school principal was a bigot who hated me for not being Church of Christ and for looking like a Jew. (I am not a Jew. I am a Southern Baptist.) The principal did nothing to stop my classmates from verbally abusing me. A year after I left that private school, the principal resigned. He left the school to go to another Church of Christ school in a city far away. I never saw him again. If I had known when I decided to leave the private school that the principal would be leaving after one year, I would have considered staying at that school. If I had endured one more year, I might have still gotten my National Merit Scholarship, and the valedictorianship or salutatorianship too. I had some friends and some favorite teachers at the private school, and I regretted having to leave them behind. The public high school taught Latin, but what use was that to me? I didn’t have enough leftover elective credits to take both Latin and French, thanks to the counselor’s bad advice (see above).
I received a very good education at the public school that I attended in the eleventh and twelfth grades. It was (and still is) one of the most respected public high schools in the state. I am grateful to the public school because it was there that I became a National Merit Scholar. At the public high school I took Statistics and Marine Science, which were not offered at the private school. I have some wonderful memories of the eleventh and twelfth grades at that public school. In spite of all this, I sometimes find myself speculating about what might have been.
Me too. 
I quit half way through my Masters, I had no money and was under a lot of stress.
Every so often I think about going back and putting in the 12-18 months realy hard slog to finish it off but I have a morgage to pay and it would mean moving cities.
But now you have me thinking again…
Another regret I have in life is registering as a pre-med major in my freshman year of college, when I really wanted to major in English and minor in foreign languages. I knew that I’d done the wrong thing on the first day of the “for science majors only” biology lab class. I saw a pair of stillborn conjoined twins preserved in a large jar of formaldehyde. I should have gone straight to the advising office to change my major, but I didn’t. I don’t know why I stuck it out for three years before finally switching to a literature major.
Not getting a college education is probably also my biggest regret. It’s hard to say, because my list is pretty long. Let’s see, there’s every relationship I’ve ever had, my job, my finances, my house, things left unsaid or undone, people who’ve died…
Hey, can I just start over? 
There was this red head in my typing class in high school…
Then there was this gal from the Virgin Islands…
I kind of regret not finishing college, but I think about the bullshit I had to go through, and I know that I never could have finished it.
What I regret most of all is that things never worked very well with my last girlfriend and I and I have to take the blame for most of the problems. I’m not saying that if I’d have done things differently we’d be married now, but at least I’d feel better about the whole thing. God, how I miss her some days.
~~I’ve always been a kamikaze…
My regrets would be not following my dream of becoming an cartoon animator (my mother highly disapproved and she didn’t give me the papers telling me when my portfollio was due in time). So I settled to becoming a English Teacher - almost there just 1 year left after this one. Also I regret doing the stupidest thing in the world and that was trying to commit suicide last year. Talk about regretting things, because of that I became way in debt due to a plethora of doctor bills (I am a poor college student). But some good came out of it I did find out that someone truely did care about me.