What was your biggest regret in life?

scoresscores wrote:

None, really.

Part of me wishes I attended an undergraduate school with a better social experience. I tried to save money.

Maybe I can commit to this as a regret. A big name degree gives a lot more momentum to live off of, and I would accept paying more for a good name.

Not learning an instrument or foreign language. Working too much when the kids were young. Working too much when I knew it was affecting my health.

Running wise: doing my easy days too hard and not running 100 miles a week consistently.

Running regrets:

-Wish I'd run a lot of slower miles in HS, and not burned it up every day.

- Wish I would have embraced track more in HS. I kinda suffered through track just to get to XC, and in reality XC is near meaningless compared to track performances.

- Wish I had trained for and run a quality marathon after college.

I wasn't good enough to have any running regrets that would have made a real difference in my life. It's not like my regret is coming in 4th at the Olympic trials or something really meaningful, but I think any competitive athlete would like to know what their true best effort was, and I dont think I got to see that.

Not applying myself when I was younger, I would spend most my time doing absolutely useless, mindless things that only gave short term pleasure.

. Now I’m almost 30 and it seems to take me forever to learn certain things that other people catch on to so quickly.

Taking an intro CS class now and it’s just so freaking difficult, while others vocalize how easy it is to them. Really demoralizing

bxjsndje wrote:

Not applying myself when I was younger, I would spend most my time doing absolutely useless, mindless things that only gave short term pleasure.

. Now I’m almost 30 and it seems to take me forever to learn certain things that other people catch on to so quickly.

Taking an intro CS class now and it’s just so freaking difficult, while others vocalize how easy it is to them. Really demoralizing

I empathize; I had a somewhat similar issue in coding classes until I got help and someone explained things to me at a slower pace.

summit fever wrote:

Not turning back on a summit attempt when the weather started getting iffy. I ended up getting hit by lightning soon after reaching the top.

Good thing it wasn't a direct strike, or I'd probably be dead.

Holy crap. How did you get hit? What happened after?

jecht wrote:

bxjsndje wrote:

Not applying myself when I was younger, I would spend most my time doing absolutely useless, mindless things that only gave short term pleasure.

. Now I’m almost 30 and it seems to take me forever to learn certain things that other people catch on to so quickly.

Taking an intro CS class now and it’s just so freaking difficult, while others vocalize how easy it is to them. Really demoralizing

I empathize; I had a somewhat similar issue in coding classes until I got help and someone explained things to me at a slower pace.

Thanks. Gotta try and do the same thing as you

Giving my now 18 year old son too much freedom in middle school.

Led to some dark days that he hasn’t yet come out of.

Don Juan wrote:

On about 5 to 10 years I am going to sell my house for about 300-350k and retire in Thailand and live off 1,500 dollars a month. I will live like a king(on a budget) and take Muay Thai classes & sex a different girl every month while you losers will be screwing some ungodly beast your own age.

You're a lucky man, don't take it for granted.

I spent way too much time looking at the world so negatively. The glass was always half-empty...with everything. What a buzzkill!

In my mid-thirties, I experiences a lot of loss & it was a light switch for me, & I simply shifted my perspective. Sounds so simple now, but I was simply tired of being tired.

Now, twenty years later, I have experienced a pretty good life. Oh, the negative thoughts still creep back in, but it's much more easy to push them away.

But, I really regret not taking advantage of all those years of gloom & doom.

If you haven't gone through a divorce, family break up, serious disability, or lengthy imprisonment your life is more or less as good as you can expect. (I've experienced half of the above and those events never leave you.)

Musings about 5k prs and earning potential are pretty minor in an existential sense and are best left behind.

Cheers and good luck-

being born

I did journalism too (newspaper reporter) in my late 20s and early 30s and hardly made any money. I'm a lot older now (60+) and don't regret it at all! But I was able to get a well-paying job tech writing in the software industry after I left journalism, so that may be why I have no regrets.

I went grocery shopping today. It felt good to go outside.

"Cute blond girl in engineering class".

Isn't that an oxymoron? Cute and engineering.

Bend OR runner dude wrote:

I did journalism too (newspaper reporter) in my late 20s and early 30s and hardly made any money. I'm a lot older now (60+) and don't regret it at all! But I was able to get a well-paying job tech writing in the software industry after I left journalism, so that may be why I have no regrets.

I live in Cbus and tried to get into tech writing, but it is a bad market for that. I'm considering moving to an area where tech writing jobs would be in demand. I'm doing the mortgage role right now (outbound calling) but know if I stay too long, employers will see me just as an outbound caller.

By trying for a UX degree online or getting into tech writing, I'm able to put my journalism skills to use. I have to spin my journalism/communications skills when I go for interviews and they ask what I do (outbound calling) and have to say talking to people on the phone is a use of my degree. It's somewhat humbling--but I'm able to say outbound calling has improved my soft skills.

Typical dude wrote:

That cute blond girl I met in an engineering class and dated my last year of college and didn't try harder to make things work out when I graduated and left town for work. Haven't met that combo of looks, brains, and fun since.

"Cute blond girl in engineering class"

Isn't that an oxymoron? Cute, female, engineering student

There seems to be a few common themes to this interesting thread. People here generally post their regrets about these 3 areas:

- Regrets about money. "I could have made so much money if I had just just (fill in reason)"

- Regrets about women. "If only I had stayed with Suzie Q and got my act together with her, then (fill in how beautiful she was and how great life would have been together)"

- Regrets about running. "If only I had run in college..." or "If only I had kept training hard..." (fill in how awesome a runner you have been)

The running regrets are the most interesting. Some of the girlfriend regrets are sad, since many of us can relate to "the one who got away."

The money regrets are the least interesting because hey, it's just money. Especially the bitcoin regrets. "If only I had hung on to my bitcoin" (yawn. no one cares.)