What is your biggest regret to this point in your life? I'm 29 and my biggest regret to this point is not spending enough quality time with my family. My grandparents are in their late 70's now and I feel like I always chose other things to do way too often rather than visiting with them. I've been making a concerted effort to spend more time with them before they pass on. My mom was recently diagnosed with cancer and it's brought us closer together. I just hate that it took an illness for that to happen. I've just come to appreciate family more than at any other point in my life.
you're catching it early, cc. at 29, there's lots of time to make that right. regrets suck. every year i read "a christmas carol" around this time of year. It's my favorite story. This year I'm reading the original Dickens version to my 9 year old (which has me explaining a ton of stuff as we go). There's a part in the book not often shown in the movies or theater renderings of the story...where he's been visted by Jacob Marley and Marley has just left...and he looks out the window over the town and sees tons of ghosts, all burdened with regret for not having helped people over their lifetimes. One ghost laments looking down on a poor homeless woman in the freezing cold with her baby...and cries because he no longer can do anything about it as a ghost. That whole concept of regret...and then Scrooge's reclamation...is just awesome to me. Love it. I regret things I've said to people that were hurtful. Even to those I've apologized to, it still really bothers me.
In all things: inaction, rather than instinctual (& possibly wrong) action. Of course, I say this having never been imprisoned, so inaction on a few of those instincts probably helped. [A single tear. Wells.] I'm so sorry! It was a moon. Max, it was a moon! [Close-up: the single tear. Cascades down face.]
1) Waiting to screw 2) Waiting to drink 3) Not graduating early 4) Not taking the debt load and going to a better school 5) Random girl crap
I thought about sitting on the floor in second grade. I couldn't keep the pace. I thought I was the only one moving in slow motion while the other kids knew something I did not. But if i acted like a clown, I thought it'd get me through. It did, but that don't work no more. You're not a kid no more. I thought i'd do some traveling. Never did. I thought about the hours wasted watching t.v., drinking beer. I thought about the things I thought about until immobilized with fear. And all the great ideas I had. And how we just made fun of those who had the guts to try and fail. And then I ended up in jail. But just for a day, seems the police had made a computer mistake. Said there must be thousands like me with the same name. Anyway, I thought about the things i settled for or never tried. I never visited my grandma even once when she was sick before she died. So I don't blame you if you never come to see me here again.
Inaction in circumstances where a good thing was there for the taking and I failed to act out of pride, fear, etc. Someone once said "Ever notice that 'what the hell' is always the right decision?" It's often true.
When I was around 7 I got into gymnastics. It's a not a typically masculine thing for guys to do. I stuck with it for 5 years and loved almost every minute of it. I was damn good at it too (I was 2nd in the state on the rings). I quit when I was 12 because the coach I had at one gym was fired and I left for another gym. The coach I got at the new gym was the type to scream in kids' faces and ears as a means for motivation rather than any form of encouragement. I did not respond well to that type of coaching (still can't stand that approach with anything, really) so I quit. The gym tried to talk me out of it by getting a different coach assigned to me, but the whole experience kind of soured me on gymnastics so I quit anyway. I wish I hadn't. I enjoyed it so much and I really loved the athleticism it bred in me (and I'm sure I would have loved the strength it would have caused me to develop as I got older). Especially looking at my physique today, I really regret quiting that sport.
Not going back to school after HS. I'm 23 and just beginning my college schooling. That and killing my next door neighbor and burrying him in his front lawn!
Not going to med school and becoming a doctor. Going to school for that long at the time seemed like an eternity.
I'm surprised that someone hasn't posted the obligatory, "I don't regret anything because if I did, it would make me not who I am today." I also regret not spending more time with my grandparents, especially my 2 grandmothers. Now I'm 36 and they are all gone - it especially hits hard for me when I'm with my wife and we spend time with her grandparents (she still has 3 out of 4 living). I also regret not lifting weights sooner in life, especially in high school and not jumping rope when I started growing in junior high school. I was an outstanding basketball player and soccer player that did all of my physical growing between the ages of 12 to 15. I went from being 5 feet tall in the 6th grade to being 6'2" going into my sophomore year. I always had speed but I lost all my quickness and became clumsy and uncoordinated as an ox as I started growing. I remember my father begging me to jump rope as he said it would help me keep my quickness and not lose my coordination and I just laughed at him. I was too busy playing video games to do something like that. As a result, my basketball skills were seriously eroded as I lost the ability to create my own shot. I also regret not playing high school football and I still have dreams from time to time about being back in high school and playing on the team. The problem was my high school team back then really sucked ass and were lucky to win 1 to 2 games a year. Add on the fact, that I was a skinny kid that played wide receiver and their offense was a wing-t type meant I wouldn't have gotten to do much than throw an occasional block here and there. So I know I made the right decision not to play (it also would have interfered with the fall soccer team I played on) but I still can't help but wonder why I dream so much about wishing I had played.
And my serious response: I guess if I have any regrets, it would be that I partied too much in college and ended up getting a degree (Music) that really didn’t benefit me. And that I didn't discover this until a semester before graduation, when it was too late to change it. If I had it to do over again, I would’ve picked something more practical (like Finance or Accounting) and gone to class more often and actually studied for tests instead of partying 7 nights a week, just getting by, and graduating by the skin of my teeth. I’m doing fine now, but it’s been a long hard road. And I suspect that I could be doing much better with a different degree.
I hate that saying, as if anybody is perfectly happy with the person they are or doesn't think they could have done anything to be better than they are.
Amen. I've done things that caused people a lot of hurt, and I don't care if it makes me who I am today, if I could go back and stop that I would.
Yea, I also regret about what I got my degree in. I started out in engineering and dropped out of the program after just one month. I basically finished my bachelor's program by taking all the math and science classes that engineers needed to take - I just never took the actual engineering classes. I mean I also thought about med school and law school when I was in my 20s but looking back at it, engineering was really the most realistic thing I could have done but I punked out on it and punked out on it too soon.
Finding an unopened pack of Marlboro cigarettes on the ground. That night started an 11 year smoking habit. I quit 3 years ago, but it was tough.
