Just a little thread to make everyone feel better about themselves by seeing the misfortune that others have wrought upon themselves. What is the worst mistake you’ve ever made?
Myself: Living for 4 months off my credit cards, while unemployed. It was so fun at the time, because all I did was play videogames and watch movies all day. But man oh man, am I paying for it now (literally). I haven’t bought myself anything other then food in the last 6 months, and I still got about a year and a half to go (by my calculations) before I am debt free.
Can’t say for sure, but possibly giving up that $20,000 scholarship to an art college because the only person I knew who actually went there was an incredible snob.
Of course, there’s much to be said for working your way through college.
About ten years ago I went in on a get-rich-quick scheme with a friend who went to a seminar and brought back materials with information on how to get super rich by going to government auctions and buying up a bunch of stuff for dirt cheap and then turning around and selling it for a profit. The idea was to start small and then parlay the profits to buy bigger and bigger things, until eventually one could buy up foreclosed homes as if they were Monopoly properties. The glossy brochures made it look sooooo easy and promising with dozens of “testimonies” from self-made millionaires who went from being on welfare to living in mansions, driving expensive cars, etc. At the time I didn’t know better, so I joined forces with him and we went to several auctions, only to find that they had nothing but old crap to offer (e.g. 8088 and 286 computers, this being early 1993 when such computers were long ancient even by then). The stuff we did sell off didn’t yield the profits we were hoping for. This mistake set me back about $3,000 and cleaned me of most of what I had saved up by the time all was said and done.
Being forced to take a work-study job a few years back. My academic life is still in the crapper. Did something stupid, which still haunts me to this very day, lost what ability I had to confide in family. The incident sapped my motivation to do much of anything in school. THANKS DAD!!!
“You implore me, my friend, to renew an unspeakable grief.” [loosely quoting a line used repeatedly by one of the characters in Fieldings’ “Tom Jones”]
Ok, here’s mine: I failed to tell my wife that I went Christmas shopping with a (female) friend of mine, and had lunch with her, too. This friend was always someone my wife felt jealous of. My wife found out, some days later, and that omission precipitated her decision that she couldn’t trust me completely any longer. That incident returned to haunt me repeatedly over the next 10 years or so, being cited in every argument, etc., etc., until finally she decided that it was too damaging to our relationship and she left me 10 months ago. Divorce is in the works.
The moral of this story is that it’s hard (or, sometimes, impossible) to win back trust once it has been eroded.
Now would someone please tell a sadder story so that I can feel better about mine?
Pablito,
Doesn’t sound like that was a mistake on your part, at least not a huge mistake…(unless there’s more to the story)
But I understand where you’re coming from. I know how difficult it is to be in a relationship where jealousy takes over common sense. A relationship is not a deed of ownership over your partner.
Sounds to me, though, that your SO should be posting this as her worst mistake instead!
Off topic slightly, but a quote from one of my favorite books:
(On the subject of marriage)
"But let there be spaces in your togetherness,
And let the winds of the heavens dance between you.
Love one another but make not a bond of love:
Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls. "
—Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet
I do hope though that whatever the outcome, you will find love again.
superbee you just dredged up my long-repressed memory of trading in my beloved 1974 Monte Carlo!
Okay, only the second worst mistake I ever made, but at least I made sure it got a nice new home as a racecar.
First off… sorry Pablito I agree with XJETGIRLX , it is not your mistake.
My mistake…
I stayed married to someone for 15 years who I never wanted to change, went thru hard times with and loved unconditionally… but he left me when I started having Panic Disorder. The mistake was not seeing things for what they were… but what I wanted them to be and I lost a lot of “myself”.
Spent 5 years of my life (5 of the best years too) with a jealous, obsessive, hypochondriac, loon that I knew all along there was no way in hell I would ever marry.
Course, I am happily married now (to someone else), but those 5 years essentially went into a black hole.
Haven’t had much time to make mistakes yet…but I think the biggest one was going from an inner city middle school (crappy building, diverse student body, absolutely wonderful academics and extra-curriculars) to an all girls’ Catholic private school (gorgeous campus, but full of rich, snotty, white girls who thought that anyone who was not rich, white, and Catholic wasn’t worth anything. I may be white, but I am not rich and I am not Catholic. And they were really sports oriented and though I was taking 3 sophomore level classes, I’d taken 2 of them in 8th grade already.)
I was miserable. I spent the whole year being torn up about making new friends, fitting in, trying to still be me while doing these things, etc, etc, and also dealing with an-as-yet-undiagnosed depression and anxiety disorder. I’m now back at the high-school version of the middle school I left, taking medication, and much happier than I was last year.
Hey jk1245, I did that too! Except it was six years in my case. I was really bitter for a while, but now I’m just glad I was smart enough not to marry the psycho hose beast.
XJETGIRLX and Candid Sky–
thanks for your voices of sympathy. Very thoughtful. I forgave myself long ago for my mistake, but I still regret it.
Now, so as not to drag down the thread, I think I’ll just acknowledge a couple of drunken episodes in college in which I embarrassed myself and felt like an idiot the next day.
Trusting some people that worked for/with me. However all that did was cost me some money, but it doesn’t hurt my conscience and when we meet it isn’t me that has to make excuses or twist the facts.
Waiting a full semester to change my major after nearly failing a Discrete Math course and deciding that I really hated my computer science major. Also, not changing an Assembly Language course to “credit only” when I realized I was coming close to failing it (I managed to get out with a D- though).
