Biggest regret of your life?

Its not really a regret but sometimes I wonder what would have happened if I had taken a different fork in life when I was offered both a professional job that took me to Edinburgh and also  place on a greenpeace ship.  I took the proper job.

but I turned it down as I wasn’t confident about going to live in another country.

I'm always impressed by people who live and work in different countries to their birth, something I'd never have had the confidence to have done. Now, thanks to Brexit, I probably don't have much choice...

After uni I was volunteering at the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology one day a week for experience. They offered me a job and an offer of an MSc. I had just paid for my chainsaw tickets so I turned it down.

Nae regrets though, I made a choice at the time.

Marrying my first wife to 'do the right thing'. PTSD for life

Leaving aside wanting more time with my father before cancer killed him (because you can never have enough time), I'm not sure I have that many regrets. Maybe starting skydiving earlier in my life, maybe joining the army earlier in life, maybe not doing such a limited degree.... All of those are minor though.

Going to work in my dad's family business straight from school. It was the easy option.

I knew I had a guaranteed job so messed around during last two years of comp and screwed up my exams - came out with two CSE's.

35+ years later and still in the print trade.

Not finishing my A levels. It has restricted pretty much every aspect of my life since.

I've had a few, but then again, too few to mention.

i wish i had got a trade instead of going to uni.

Not joining the RAF when I had the opportunity.

I had just finished my environmental science degree and desperate for money, so I turned down the opportunity for an MSc in environmental archaeology, and went into consultancy.

On many days, I still think about the joys of sitting in a muddy trench rather than the career I have now, Even though I'm an expert in my field.

Oh and drugs, I really regret some of the total carnage my addictions caused in my earlier years.

Funnily enough, while working on a cruise ship, I didn't act, on the now, very obvious advances of a very attractive young doctor.

Chatting to her in a bar, about to make my delayed move and her pager went for a "Code Blue". Doh!

Never got around to it again. I think she gave up.

Not sure what she saw in me mind!

About 10 years ago Jerry offered me a commission only job at Frog Bikes. Didn't dare take it, so stuck with my environmental sales job. Wonder where i would be now if I did.

I really regret my drug use during the 90's.

I should have done more

I’m always impressed by people who live and work in different countries to their birth, something I’d never have had the confidence to have done. Now, thanks to Brexit,

Yeah, it's funny.

I wouldn't change anything about my life (not that it's been fantastic but it has made me who I am now so do I really want to be a completely different person?) but I do sometimes wish I'd spent more time living in my hometown (Glasgow).

Of course, I wouldn't have had anything like the same experiences and opportunities but there is a lot to be said about laying down deep roots in a place and the relationships that are built up over decades.

Staying at home for the first 2 years of university.

I have no real regrets, but there's two points in my life where I have "what if?" moments.

When I was 18 I was seeing a Canadian girl who was 6 years older than me and was set on going around the world. She asked me to join her on my gap year after I'd finished a-levels and I didn't, and I have no idea why, really.

Then, when I was struggling with the unfathomable-maths-course-with-good-PR that Engineering degrees are, I saw an advert for Whistler Mountain, basically begging people to come and work there in pretty much any capacity as the resort was just starting to take off (1995). Again, I've no idea now why I didn't just go.

edit: oh, yeah, if someone had possibly considered the idea 35 years ago that I might be slightly autistic, that would have been extremely useful.

After A levels had the money for a round the world air/inter rail ticket. Spent it on dope.

also Gwen and fit Claire on a beach in Almeria. Passed out pissed on the sand

and not doing the British Antarctic survey placement at uni

buying the dilapidated shit pile money pit I am now sat in

Frederique, Pas de la Casa, early 90's.

Right before I dropped into teaching (safe but dull) I was offered an opportunity by a Design consultancy I'd done some work for. To take a quite cool product (prototype had been in a Bond film) they had on the back burner and turn it into a company initially operating within the consultancy building. I'd have been everything - designer, manufacturing engineer, organised the manufacture, assembly, marketing, sales. The lot. Only snag - there was no pay, just 50% of the profits and it would have been 18months minimum before they'd have been any. Sadly I'm not from a background where bank of mum and dad would have supported me to live during that time so said no.

It would have undoubtedly been a ball ache, I'd have been exploited taking all the risk, and probably it would have failed but what I'd have learnt about running a business would have changed the course of the rest of my working life.

I wish I’d worked harder at school. Not because I didn’t do well, I did, well enough to get into medical school. But I messed around a lot, and missed an opportunity to learn things that I’ll never get again.

All my other “regrets” aren’t really regrets, because I’ve learned from them. Plenty of mistakes made, but few enough repeated that on the whole I’m in a much better place than I’ve ever been.

I sort of regret not trying harder/revising harder/working less whilst at school.  I was working 3 hours a day before school by the time I was 14 and so was already tired by the time revision in the evening came around.  I've achieved a lot despite poor results, but I wonder what I might have done had I not delayed myself, but had things happened  differently, family, job and other things likely wouldn't have happened.

A trivial one - I had the chance to buy a bargain 2008 M5 Touring when I finished Uni in 2010 (low miles, silverston blue with white interior - £21k)- I won the auction and then chickened out.  In my head, it would've been immense, but in reality, the engine/gearbox would've likely bankrupted me.

I had the chance to buy a bargain 2008 M5 Touring

Similarly, I nearly bought a Mk1 Toyota MR2 - it was from someone I worked with, she didn't want too much for it and it was 100% pristine. I pulled out when I found out what the running costs were like (IIRC it was about £1k just for a new exhaust).

@Daffy if that was the V10 model then it certainly would have.

Can't pin it down to one! I've got a good life now, but I know I could have done so much better in lots of things if I'd have not been so ****ing lazy and taken a few opportunities. I just don't seem to have the confidence to go for it.

Should have done better in sports as well, never really played a team sport and I think that affected th amount of friends I had when I was younger, and the way I interact with people now, again a confidence thing. Team sports are great for confidence building.

Not getting a new van before Covid.

Sadly I’m not from a background where bank of mum and dad would have supported me to live during that time so said no.

You can't leave it hanging like that though...... what was it / are you the STW equivalent of Ronald Wayne, who decided that it would be a ballache trying to set up a new venture with Jobs and Wozniak and sold his 10% stake for $800 12 days after it started?

Not going to university.

I went to a rubbish comprehensive in the 70s. Massive classes, full of disruptive kids, taught by (with a couple of exceptions) dejected and unmotivated teachers. My naive mindset at the time was 'if this is education I'm not sticking with it for a second longer than I have to'. I left at 16 in 1980 with a handful of O levels.

I went to an Army apprentice college for two years studying for a technical trade. I then went on to have a full and rewarding army career, commissioning from the ranks toward the end of it. Along the way I did a lot of specialised tech training and and quite a few OU courses.

I have no regrets about my career path but just wish I'd delayed it for a few years for A levels and university.  For the experience as much as the qualifications, I'm imagining there was a lot more shagging and recreational drug use than in an all male military college!

I do carry a mild inferiority complex about not going to university. Of course when I left school it was relatively rare, rather than being the norm as it is now. It's not a big concern and I'm mostly comfortable with who I am and my life choices. I took early retirement, am happily married after 37 tears and have two brilliant (university educated) Kids. I'm very lucky and don't take it for granted.

But as you asked,  it's probably the one thing I would have done differently.

Swerving around an overweight cyclist wandering across the road in Central London while on a large motorbike, missed him and managed to stay on.

#johnson

I am not a big fan of my decision to quickly clean the conservatory roof to please the wife before rushing off to buy a Maserati.

I never got the Maserati but I did get 6 months in bed to think about the decision while the doctors decided whether to amputate the foot or not.

Swerving around an overweight cyclist wandering across the road in Central London while on a large motorbike, missed him and managed to stay on.

#johnson

FFS!! We'll all chip in to develop and build a time machine for you!

You can’t leave it hanging like that though…… what was it / are you the STW equivalent of Ronald Wayne, who decided that it would be a ballache trying to set up a new venture with Jobs and Wozniak and sold his 10% stake for $800 12 days after it started?

It would be a good (if depressing for me!) Story if someone else took it on and became a millionaire off the back of it! Sadly not - it never went anywhere. It was a subaqua sled - basically took air previously used by the diver and used the energy left in it to run some little thrusters. So you held on to this thing and slipped around (quite steadily) underwater. I think similar things exist now, but not sure if any use the same propulsion methods. It would make far more sense to use the lighter compact batteries available in 2023 and use leccy for your propulsion.

Definitely missed a few opportunities with the opposite sex due to completely misreading/not reading the signals.

I wish I'd kept up playing the piano with any degree of aptitude.

Can't complain about much else though, if I'd paid more attention during my A levels I'd have gone to a different uni and not met my wife so while that would have been very different, not sure it'd have been better.

i was at a car auction in the late 80s or early 90s and a 3 door sierra cosworth went for 4.5k. i could have rounded up the money if i had wanted to.

I regret not committing to becoming a pilot because at 18 I would have had to take out a £60k bond to pay for it with no guarantee of a job afterwards.

Instead I went to university for 10 years and became an engineer.  23 years later I still want to fly and am finally in a position to get a private pilots licence in the next couple of years

basically took air previously used by the diver and used the energy left in it to run some little thrusters.

Are you talking about using a divers exhaled breath to turn little turbines?

Don't think that would ever of worked, it would really mess with controlling your air consumption.

I have a rather long list.

Didn't see my RAF application through when I was young - what could have been, eh
Not dealing with my anxiety/depression sooner - will regret that for the rest of my life
Getting into over £25k of debt in my 20's. Ruined any chance of financial stability and independence for most of my 20's and 30's
Not being better in school and college, so I ended up in my current career almost by default.

Probably a few more on top of those.

One that would be high on my list is living in Southampton for ~30 years and not discovering the South Downs lanes on a bike until six years ago. For as long as I can remember I've always had at least one bike, often a road bike,  but it was extremely rare for me to ride besides for a purpose (commutes, popping to shops, popping to friends' houses etc.).

Really missing just simply getting out to the likes of Old Winchester Hill ridge this year, nevermind chasing my times up the climbs, due to long covid.

Getting sent to borstal for a fighting incident when I was 19.

It cost me a very promising professional rugby league career.

Stupid young men eh.....

FFS!! We’ll all chip in to develop and build a time machine for you!

None. I have the most amazing life ever. Anything that don't lead me to exactly here and now would be devastating

no major regrets.

I kind of wish i had taken fewer drugs at uni and worked harder (I got a Desmond)

Not sure how much it would have affected my subsequent career path (being a musician/DJ), mind. I am lackadaisical and easily distracted, but fairly bright (sometimes wonder about ADD). So maybe it's not realistic to think i could have done much better anyway. I dunno.

I also wish I hadn't caught COVID in April 2020, which turned out to be the single most defining aspect of my life ever since. But it's not like I did it deliberately...

The hurt I've caused a couple of people close to me. One in particular.

Turning down a job offer in the US, I'd just met my first wife.. Turned out to be an abusive relationship in which I turned to alcohol and drugs to survive it. Some good things did come out of it. I have a daughter who is more grounded then I ever was at that age.

i was at a car auction in the late 80s or early 90s and a 3 door sierra cosworth went for 4.5k. i could have rounded up the money if i had wanted to.

That reminds me of another.

My Dad sold a car back in the late 80's  and gave me the job of taking £4000 in cash down to the bank for him. Next door was the bookies and all the newspapers were talking about that day was the Gold Cup and this wonderhorse, Desert Orchid.

I could have had 3/1 at the time, and 12K winnings if I hadn't bottled it. As a 19 year old that would have been riches beyond compare.

(given i can influence the result of any sporting contest merely by betting on it, the alternate outcome would also be a 'regret of your life' post about how i lost £4K of my Dad's money on a horse)

I also remember being at University sat in the pub one afternoon and one of the lads had been to the front bar and overheard a bloke telling his mate about going to all the bookies in town and placing bets at the same time on this horse - clearly something afoot. Some of the lads cobbled together a few quid each, and went and had a piece, that came in at some daft odds and kept them in beer for most of the term.

Getting in to debt. Nothing major or exciting, just genral bad money management and trying to raise a family on only my salary as with childcare prices etc it was better for my wife to be stay at home mum. General denial about how bad it was getting with loans and credit cards. We ended up moving house and using a big chunk of the equity to clear the debt and then having a smaller deposit for the new house. Now the children are old enough that we can both work and it's a much better situation, but it always feels like we could have so much more money/freedom if we'd been more sensible in the past.

Dropping Biology O'Level as a "girl's subject" meant I was never going to medical school as a first degree - regardless of A'Level grades (which were more than good enough). As it turns out, I would have likely ended up in the same place anyway doing what I do now.

From a career perspective, at the end of my first degree I went on a week-long induction for Officer Training in the RN. I still would have liked to have served as a Navigation Officer for a few years conducting training, but did a PhD instead (which I was always going to do). In the field I studied (Theoretical Physics), time out from study was basically detraining, and you could never get back. And the rest is history.

I also wish I hadn’t caught COVID in April 2020

And this. It's been a long recovery and I am only just getting back to some meaningful training. Strava fitness and freshness says they morning I am at 10% of my previous race peak.

A girl I once knew..

After a night out boozing we ended up back at her flat with some mutual friends, for a standard post night out continuation of the night out/ sleep over type thing that you do when your young, with people crashing out at various phases into the early hours.

At some point we ended up playing computer games when everyone else was crashed. Anyway we all went for a hangover cure breakfast somewhere the next day and at some point she said to me something like 'it was fun playing that game, tell me what game you want to play, i'll get it and you can come over and and we can play 2 player!'

Well stupid me thought she was out of my league and was just being friendly, and I didnt think anymore of it, until several years later. Epic fail.

Chatting to her in a bar, about to make my delayed move and her pager went for a “Code Blue”. Doh!

Can't believe you fell for  that old trick 🙂

At 18 I thought about joining the cops, no real reason, just seemed like an interesting career. I applied and was accepted onto a weekend course, you know the sort of thing; aptitude tests, bit of an interview, team games of get everyone over the shark infested custard with this bit of string and an orange...Anyway, they wrote to me and said they'd offer to start me on the fast track. At the same time, I got offered a position in the civil service which was 20mins up the road, and where my then gf lived...

I don't regret it, but I sometimes wonder how my life might have changed.

The thing that I regret in hindsight not doing that had the most profound affect on how my life panned out was bottling making a complaint to the 6th form college management at the end of my first  year of A level Maths about our teacher. The 12 of us in the class knew she was not steering us in the right direction-little homework, no practice papers etc.etc but we just assumed it would be OK. Of the 12 , only two of us passed- my E grade and another lad’s D. She had predicted me a B and so I had applied for and had offers from good engineering universities. Not surprisingly I failed to get in even though I had two A’s and a C grade in my other A levels. I subsequently found the department knew she was no good and she left soon afterwards.

Whether I would have enjoyed engineering more that the product design course that I joined through the equivalent of clearing at the time, or the subsequent move into a 30 year teaching career was a good thing is difficult to say, but I regularly think of what might have been.

on the car front, I almost bought an Alfa Romeo Sprint GTA 1600 Stradale in 1986 but couldn’t stretch to the £10k they wanted then ( roughly equivalent of £28k now). My 1600 Junior was worth about £3K so finding £7k was too much. One of the GTA’s recently sold for £250k……

Not having anyone think that something might not be quite right with me when I just stood up and ran out of a big Xmas dinner and was trying to get in my car (almost certainly to go and do something bad) when my dad caught up with me. A brief walk around the block and I was back at the dinner table as if everything was OK... it wasn't for at least another 30 years.

Well stupid me thought she was out of my league and was just being friendly, and I didnt think anymore of it, until several years later. Epic fail.

I agree with the Mark Radcliffe philosophy on this...

"Always talk to the best looking girl in the room..... you never know...."

#punching 😀

A private (money grabbing) dentist talked me into having a front tooth extraction (the tooth was turning slightly black after an abcess) and replacing it with an implant. The procedure went wrong and he was later 'struck off' for varying degrees of 'f' uppedness on other patients.
It's affected my eating, I never smile, my teeth are dreadful and I now have a gagging reflex.
A tiny thing but my mistrust of dentists is huge. This has cost me thousands of pounds to try and put right over the years.

Regret not choosing my best & favourite subject at A level: Latin.
Only found out on the A level results day that my Latin tutor had previously shared my work up to O level with his old college and I would have been a shoe-in for a place  had I taken the A level.
He wasn’t allowed to inform/influence my A level choice. Despite having just done 2 years of A levels, I seriously considered redoing the 6th form with Latin as one of the choices.

I would  have gone to a different University and had a completely different career.

but then I wouldn’t have met my wife & had the experiences and family I’ve got.

I always wanted to be in the RAF and was pretty serious about it all through school, tailoring my qualifications for it and managing my expectations as I got a bit older- looking at realistic roles I could do rather than just the usual vague schoolboy dream of "I want to be a combat pilot".

It really was not seen as a cool thing to do though in the circles I hung around in and for some reason I was generally discouraged from it by my family too. So I naturally just aimed for going to University, drinking, taking drugs and all that stuff which is of course much more productive.

In some ways it hardly matters as I'm pretty happy now so whatever really, but I'm a lawyer which seems almost as far as you can get from being in the royal air force. I do often feel a pang of regret when I see or hear about those types of things in the media or on TV though.

I also think there's massive chance I'd have immediately failed literally all the aptitude tests but at least I'd have known eh!

Not really a regret as I wouldn't be in the happy little world I now live in....but turning down a job offer to go and work in Bermuda in 1988 was probably a bit daft.

(actually loads and loads, never mind the gishs there's selling a big house in an bit of london that's now up and come, getting hooked by surfing (seriously, life would have been so much simpler had I not) the list goes on...)

Another one for the RAF here. Was in the RAF Cadets (CCF) at school and loved it but then various things conspired - I'd have had to change my 4yr degree as I would have been too old on graduation to go straight in and also my Dad was absolutely dead against it.

I could have changed the degree easily enough.

I've lots of regrets, but I like who/where I am, so really those regrets are just experiences that got me here.

Computer nerd friends at university told me about investing in this new "bitcoin" thing when they were $100 each. I thought it sounded stupid.

Computer nerd friends at university told me about investing in this new “bitcoin” thing when they were $100 each. I thought it sounded stupid.

You'd have just lost them all in the MtGox rugpull of 2014, and then lost whatever was left over in the BitFinex hack of 2015, and then again in all the shenanigans of the last 2 years

Better off this way

The more life-changing regrets are a bit too depressing to type out so I'll go with -

Not going to see Nirvana at Portsmouth Poly when I worked there.

Not going to see the White Stripes in Brighton cos I couldn't be arsed to drive there.

Another debt based issue.  At 29 I was in horrendous debt, then promised myself I’d double down on work and financial ethics to clear it and have a decent life.  I did, it worked and I’m fortunate to be in a very good place with a wonderful family.

But i fear the reasoning, mistakes and effort and emotional energy have left me with the constant fight or flight paranoia and anxiety I have now making daily life an energy sapping experience for me and people close to me which I can’t seem to switch off.

Loads of mistakes, few regrets - dwelling on them is a waste of time!

Most of my mistakes seem to be quite common....not capitalising fully on the opportunity of education and of course 'regretting' the couple that 'got away'....i don't think i'll ever forget not furthering things with the teacher from Nottingham!! 😂 She still haunts my thoughts every now and again!!  Other than that, the mild 'regrets' don't seem to have done me any harm long term, in fact quite the opposite (possibly).

I wish i'd been more courageous in my 20's, but i was full of THC and MDMA for a period! I enjoyed it at the time though. 🙄

+1 not joining the RAF. I actually applied and made through the 18 month recruitment process, acing my psychometric tests and got asked if I thought about becoming a pilot, attending tests at Chicksands and then getting accepted to become an imagery intelligence analyst. A couple of days before I was due to go off and start I phoned them and said I didn’t want to do it, all because I was in love with a girl. Of course we broke up a few months later, funnily enough the RAF didn’t want to know when I called them to ask if I could change my mind.
Stupid dumb 22 year old! I could’ve gone on to work for the intelligence agencies.

bands i should've seen is another thread again. Buzzcocks supported by Joy Division, leeds uni, winter '79 I think. Maths homework or something daft got in the way so gave someone my ticket.

Which reminds me: doing maths A level, a subject I was really shite at, just because I felt I should do maths as a proper subject. And arts/languages were for spare time, despite (because?) of being good at that stuff... Basically, wherever I look I see r

Just a small one - not continuing my contributions to a private pension I started in the 80's.
I'd be nicely retired by now.

Not manning up at 21 and marrying Helen Barlow the love of my life.

All the mistakes and missed opportunities have still led me to a reasonably comfortable life, and two amazing children turning into well rounded young adults, so regrets is the wrong word.

I made sure we haven't pushed them to do things "we" wanted them to do. Encouraged them to follow their strengths and interests and see where it takes them. We were lucky to be able to afford to support them with time as well as money, and it's paid off.

So I learned from my parents mistakes

Two regrets.

1) not cashing out of the dot.com boom when I could have. Had £100k at one point and it went to nothing.

2) not keeping my partners flat in Edinburgh when we moved in together. She sold it for a loss and two years later the Scottish office moved to Leith and prices went crazy.

Getting either of those decisions right would mean we'd be retired now.

The thing that I regret in hindsight not doing that had the most profound affect on how my life panned out was bottling making a complaint to the 6th form college management at the end of my first year of A level Maths about our teacher. The 12 of us in the class knew she was not steering us in the right direction-little homework, no practice papers etc.etc but we just assumed it would be OK

If it helps, I complained about a terrible Economics A level teacher multiple times and the college did sweet FA.

My A levels were shocking and I had to go to a local London uni via clearing, so I did regret missing out on the typical provincial uni experience - wasn't much of a social scene around ours, with London on the doorstep.

Mid 2000’s a mate offered to swap his slightly tatty but sound and roadworthy 1968 Porsche 912 for my 4 year old diesel Audi which would have been worth 7 or 8 grand. I really liked that Audi and kept it for 10 years and 200k miles but goodness me - I wish I’d bought that porsche!

Eating a dodgy bit of chicken when I was 24 which then gave me salmonella poisoning, the next two years in hospital, the loss of my dream job, and then 30 years of medical issues. Still wouldn't swap anything about how my life is today though.

1st regret: Not taking the year out as planned as a summer job fell through and left us rather skint having just got married. We should have just gone and earned as we go - but at the time felt we 'had' to have a few £k in the bank as savings.

Not going into the Police in Cumbria, as would have been my career, and so being able to retire in a couple of years time. 🙁

I have two others, but I am not sharing them publicly.

not getting braces in my early teens.

i now have a mouth of summer teeth.... summer over here, summer over there! (they are all pretty healthy, just a bit wonky!).

I do also wonder if i hadnt kept returning to my toxic ex...... shrugs

Buying a house next to what has become a busy road.

We moved here 20 years ago and the road noise didn't affect me for the first 17 years.

However, since the start of the pandemic and working from home, I now despise it.

We have a lovely house and a lovely garden, but it is blighted by the noise pollution from that horrible road!

I don't really have any regrets, I'm pretty happy with life.

I too was looking into buying bitcoin in 2009, (around 50 cents each IIRC) the Beeb had just ran an article on it and I reasoned that it was likely to hit the mainstream if they were reporting it.  Was tempted to chuck a grand at it, but was buying a flat and decided it was too much hassle. Discussed it with my Dad, he was against the idea, still tease him about it.

A dollar was around 60p, so 30p per BTC = 3333 for a grand.  Massive "If", but if I'd sold at the peak at around £48,000 then I'd have been worth £159,984,000.

But then probably wouldn't have met my wife / had a kid etc, and am genuinely happy with life and not motivated by money so don't really regret it.

Interesting that there's been a couple of regrets about not joining the police as it was going to be my fall-back option if I failed at art school. If I had done that, I'd be retired and on a full final salary pension now. My neighbour went down the police route and he's about to retire to play golf and ride his bike.

Another regret of mine – not getting tickets to Live Aid. At the time I worked Saturdays (part-time job whilst at art school) but my boss wouldn't let me have the day off. I should have just said 'stuff it' and called in sick or whatever.