36 ms·

Ask HN: What's Your Biggest Regret?

• fullstop 4y ago
  Half joking, but I was young and had the money, but didn't pull the trigger on buying 10k of AAPL when it was less than $1. It was such a low risk proposition at that time in my life.
  • snicky 4y ago
    It's not too late. Take your 10k and invest in one of hundreds of 1$ stocks right now. It's such a low risk proposition, isn't it? I hope you get the irony.
    • fullstop 4y ago
      Those $1 stocks aren't close to the scale of Apple in 2001, but I understand what you're trying to say.
• shultays 4y ago
  I was a kid and my grandmother was at her dead bed. I saw her from outside, with all sort of devices hooked up, and couldn't make it inside and asked to be out. I wish my mom dragged me in by my ear even if she had to
• aristofun 4y ago
  I'd relocate to another country and invested in understanding my life goals 10 years earlier. And in general I should have been way faster on making decisions. I realized only in my 30s that not making a decision IS often the worst type of decision you made.
• deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
• mindaslab 4y ago
  JavaScript
• level87 4y ago
  I wish I had continued programming after high school, instead I pursued a career as a furniture maker, scraped a living for 10 years, it formed my entire personality which in retrospect was really unhealthy. I also realised too late that everyone around me was being propped up by their rich parents/partners. Recently changed careers and now happily programming and on my path to being a bit more financially secure. I can now design and make things I want in my spare time, without having to worry about where the money is coming from. The comment someone made about everyone losing ten years somewhere really resonated with me.
• Spooky23 4y ago
  My biggest regret was that I didn’t intervene in an argument between my mom and grandparents that ultimately led to a near estrangement between my mom and her family for several years that caused her a lot of pain. It wasn’t my argument and not my “responsibility” per se, but I’m sure that I could have defused it, and I didn’t for reasons that seemed reasonable for 15 year old me.
• pavanto 4y ago
  My life is full of regrets and nostalgia. When I was studying for Master's in Sweden about 20 years back, I had a crush on an Austrian girl. I was so timid and had lack of confidence that I never asked her out due to fear of rejection. In fact most of the decisions and I took and still taking are influenced by fear of rejection. I know how to live a happy life theoretically but don't know how to implement in the real life. Sometimes I feel life had given me quite a few opportunities and squandered them
• kirso 4y ago
  My biggest regret was not to take path less travelled and the risks that would probably put me on a tougher journey, but more satisfying process. I dabbed into programming when I was 25 and thought I was late. I also killed my business pre-maturely going the safe route when first hardship occurred. I suppose fear got better of me. I am incredibly grateful for where I am, but the monkey brain always wants more and asks what if...
• conductr 4y ago
  That time in 2000 when I wrote a web service on top of authorize.net's payment gateway but didn't turn it into a product.
• deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
• ClassyJacket 4y ago
  I am 33 years old haven't gotten a programming job yet. I could be making so much money now if I'd done it years ago. I'm hoping to finally make that change in the next few months. But I couldn't stick to one language or specialization, I have a bunch of half-working projects and nothing finished. I kept switching depending on what interested me at the time. And I kept putting it off due to poor mental health and travel. I'll never catch up to people that started in their early 20s, but I hope I can figure out how to climb the ladde as quickly as possible. If I could go back I would finish one thing before starting another. I also wish I had studied computer vision at uni instead of being the idiot teenager that did game development.
  • annie_muss 4y ago
    Same here. Mid thirties. Friends are running successful companies, making 6 figures, in early retirement. I'm still living in a small apartment struggling with a Swiss cheese resume. My advice to others: don't think "I'm still young, there's still time." Push push push today! You will rapidly run out of time. All through my twenties I did various jobs, I thought that great software job was just around the corner. Turns out it's not that easy and when you're older people expect a lot more from you.
    • ChuckNorris89 4y ago
      Why not study medicine and become a doctor? The web dev industry is too ageist and mostly runs on churning new-grads, whereas as a doctor, gray hair is an advantage not a perceived "disability". Or try less hip domains in SW development popular with gray beards like embedded. Pay isn't as hot as web dev, but age is not a problem. Edit, since I'm comment throttled and can't reply: In my country studying medicine is free/vey cheap. And SW devs don't make six figures here so studying to become a doctor is way better for your bank account and job security than competing with thousands of new-grads in an ageist industry.
      • Cwizard 4y ago
        This is strange advice? I would assume becoming a doctor is hard, extremely expensive, takes a long time and not something you should go into because ‘you see your friends making 6 figures’
• jstx1 4y ago
  Choosing to go to a mediocre university to study something weird instead of doing a CS degree at a prestigious university (I would have been able to get in).
• elmerfud 4y ago
  Not pushing myself harder when I was younger and not traveling the world sooner.
• JetAlone 4y ago
  For any thing I might wish had been different, there was a reason, whether I know it or not, that I did something that looks bad. I've become more able to accept my past even though things look quite bleak to me these days. In that past I learned some things that give me ideas of what I want to do now, and I'm grateful for that.
  • 6stringmerc 4y ago
    Recently I’ve told those close to me “any decision with enough hindsight can be seen as good or bad” - like we wanted to sell some Pixar Cars play sets a while ago but never got around to it in a year or so. This week Disney+ just debuted Cars: On the Road a series and now they are popular again here at home. Went out and got them cleaned up and back in action. So failed at the sale goal for over a year, then they failure turned into a convenient win that was unforeseen cuz I had no idea a new Cars bit was coming. I did get a hint at the grocery store though when I saw a new die cast character. Some kinda rusty monster truck. Yes…I am trying to collect them all…
• cosmodisk 4y ago
  That I haven't punched a few people in the face when I should have.
  • ChuckNorris89 4y ago
    Be careful with this regret. In my country you can go to jail if you punch people and harm them, even in self defense. Running away from fights is a better deal than having a police record.
    • cosmodisk 4y ago
      I could go to jail in my country for stuff like this. I'm not going to punch anyone, but it would have been nice at the time:)
• staticelf 4y ago
  Instead of wasting all my money in my 20s it would've been much smarter to save it as I would be a lot more well of today than I am currently.
  • lexapro 4y ago
    How did you waste it?
    • staticelf 4y ago
      Well waste is perhaps a strong word. But I bought a lot of unnecessary crap that I didn't need. I could've put a lot more money into investments and I would likely have double the amount of capital I have today.
    • fuzzfactor 4y ago
      I spent most of my money on wine, women, and song. Everything else was wasted.
• ihatepython 4y ago
  Bitcoin. I knew about it from the very beginning.
  • paulgb 4y ago
    If it's any consolation, you probably would have lost it all in Mt. Gox's blowup anyway. (At least that's what I tell myself :))
    • OscarDC 4y ago
      Ha! I tell myself exactly the same thing, I even registered to Mt Gox (which I think - my memory is not to clear - included sending some identification papers) to finally just chickening out when it was time to put my money by instead asking my non-tech family what I should do - which of course was not to put money in that weird thing. Now, I half have a large regret and half tell myself that I would have lost it all anyway.
    • controversial97 4y ago
      The price of bitcoin went up so much after mtgox went bankrupt that the bitcoin the bankrupcy trustee has found is currently worth about $2.8 billion. At some point in the next year or two, up to 90% of that will be returned to the 25,000 creditors who filled in the paperwork to make a claim years ago.
    • waterlaw 4y ago
      Haha. I lost all my bitcoin stored on a personal wallet. Doesn't even have to be Mt. Gox
  • matsemann 4y ago
    Meh, would probably have sold once my $10 investment reached $1000 or $10,000 or so anyways, no way most people would've kept their head cold (and _gambled_) on it going even further.
    • Kiro 4y ago
      I sold at $100. Thought it was a massive overpriced bubble and insane that it was worth $100. No regrets.
• devonallie 4y ago
  These comments are a nice reminder that my time on this earth is my most precious asset.
• mjthrowaway1 4y ago
  I let a divorce ruin me mentally during a pivotal year of my company. Had a rough valuation of ~100MM and blew my top 3 market position because I let my ex convince me that it was all my fault that our relationship failed. In reality she was just struggling with being gay. I stopped paying attention at work for about 18 months in an attempt to “save my family” but I just ended up losing everything. Oh well.
  • 6stringmerc 4y ago
    Thanks for sharing because it reminds me of a situation I went through which was similar in some ways. I had a back-to-back of really bad managers. Ever met people who are offended and basically angry that you are smarter than they are or ever will be? I made good money in a terrible spot for 2 years. Dropped to 145 pounds or so at 5’7” (now 165 abd healthy). Broken emotionally and in spirit. The worst part? Those closest to me kept insisting I was being off base and Jeff wasn’t really that bad. Oh and don’t quit until you have the next job lined up, which even with 2 applications a week was useless at the time. All of them were just afraid of instability or that I wouldn’t find work. Maybe at the time they were right. I’m also glad to share the following which I probably couldn’t have done without that awful experience… In 2022 I discovered my role is getting massive raises, promotions, and work-life balance because of the stress that comes with deadline driven sales processes. Within 5 months I saw a dream job on paper be a bush-league cult pressure cooker. Also they were underpaying market rate by $10-15,000 in salary. I spoke up about an issue and got Terminated for non job performance reasons. After 5 months there I just updated my resume and leave their name off because Momma told me if you don’t have anything nice to say…and I’m the job hunt in Fall 2022 it doesn’t matter. People are asking “when can you start?” more seriously than “why are you looking now?” because it’s obvious - the market is hot and six-figure gigs are falling out of the sky with signing bonuses for the first time ever. So, as unsettling and not-their-comfort-level this time has been to them, for me it has been therapeutic and inspiring. I’m a finalist in 3 different firms, 2 are promotions, all pay $15,000 - $20,000 more in base salary so I can keep up with inflation, and hybrid office presence versus butt in chair for a Boomer’s sense of control. Yea it’s a little over a month but the future is blindingly bright after all that suffering along the way. Yes I love the people who are bothered by this different approach, but it’s my goddamn life and I listened to them last time and it was shit so they can either get with reality or shut up and manage their own lives and leave mine alone.
• THENATHE 4y ago
  I wish I had asked my dad more things and recorded/wrote them down. My old man is in for stage 4 cancer and it gets harder to ask him things. Every little tidbit of info he gave me over the years I cherish greatly, but I often times (read: nearly always) forget the context or nuance of the statement, meaning that, of the thousands of moments I’ve had with him, only a select few are ones that provide me any insight into who he is/was and/or advice for my life. The rest are just passing thoughts that make me think “damn my dad was cool”, which is good in its own regard, but certainly not the same.
  • austinjp 4y ago
    I don't know if it's any consolation, and I'm sure you've considered this, but it's impossible to remember and perfectly grasp the nuance of every moment spent with anyone. There's an inevitable loss, not just of the physical person, but the depth of their impact in your life. This is part of the nostalgia and sadness and joy of remembering loved ones. I hope you and your dad are both doing well.
  • burwood 4y ago
    I'm sorry to hear and I wish you and your dad the best. Hope you find peace and those moments in your head prove to be a forever lasting memory of a wonderful man.
  • tbrock 4y ago
    My dad started writing me letters after major life events and birthdays, on new years, etc... I save them all. They boil down to advice like being grateful for what you have, looking back and being proud at what you’ve accomplished, valuing the people in your life especially those that take time to help you, and realizing how lucky you are and at the same time encouraging working to put yourself in positions where you make your own luck. They seem to come at the right time, after I have a phone conversation when I tell him I’ve failed at something or am frustrated with someone. It’s less about him and more about me but it helps me remember the kind of man he was, one of the greats.
  • l33tbro 4y ago
    Forget nuance, what I would have given for one meaningful moment from my largely aloof old man. You are lucky to have that relationship in ways you'll never know. Either way, sorry to hear about his condition.
• m3nu 4y ago
  I was always interested in IT, but studied business instead because my parents thought IT would be too stressful. Ended up programming a distributed simulation optimization tool for my master thesis (in business), while already doing multiple online startups. Do I regret not studying CS and following a SWE career? I really don't know because many skills from the business side have served me well too. Would I have started those companies without understanding customers, marketing, accounting, taxation, investing? So I try not to regret things because I don't know the alternate timeline. Could be better, could be worse.
  • eternauta3k 4y ago
    Similar story but I studied Physics. I've been on positions with more or less SW development, but switching to a real programmer job seems so hard while working full time...
• joshka 4y ago
  Not maxing out retirement savings early in my career. Compound interest FTW.
  • patwolf 4y ago
    If it makes you feel any better, I read a clickbait article this week on why young people shouldn't save for their retirement. The gist is that they can easily make up the difference in their high-earning older years, so it's not worth the sacrifice of trying to save in their low-earning years, especially when the market is flat. I don't necessarily agree, but it is a perspective I hadn't heard before.
    • SoftTalker 4y ago
      I'd disagree with that, I think it's worth the sacrifice to learn the discipline needed to save. Think about what you'd spend it on otherwise? Something consumable, most likely. Something that won't have any benefit for you in the long run, or possibly even tomorrow.
    • smileysteve 4y ago
      This seems to assume 2 things; 1) that your spending needs won't increase as your salary does. 2) that your salary meaningfully increases over time (more true for the top 15% than for 85% of others)
  • ostenning 4y ago
    Not sure about this one, especially if pension funds collapse like they will probably do in Germany
  • badpun 4y ago
    > Compound interest FTW. Unless hiperinflation.
• plodman 4y ago
  Letting myself get burned-out to the point of considering the s word. Every time I just thought “things will get better, it’s probably just me”. I’ve since switched jobs after a break but I still struggle with focus and attention span. Hoping that improves over time.
  • sandruso 4y ago
    Wish you well! Did you work from home? Because my attention span also dropped significantly during covid. What helped was getting out of the house to get some work done.
  • ChuckNorris89 4y ago
    I'm in the exact boat as you. The burnout set in so slowly that I didn't realized I was burned out until I stopped working and had the time to look at my life.
    • dutchbrit 4y ago
      That’s what happened to me with my second burnout. The first one hit me like a brick. I’m glad the second one isn’t as bad as the first one mentally. I regret not taking enough rest during my first burnout as I never fully recovered, this time I’m taking things more seriously.
  • austinjp 4y ago
    Hi from an internet stranger! Have you sought help? Please do, even if you think the worst is past. Best wishes :)
  • punkspider 4y ago
    Wow, that's a big one. I'm sorry to hear that. It sounds like you've been through a lot. What was it about your job that burned you out? I'm sure this would be helpful for me to know, as well as others who may be in a similar situation.
  • ta988 4y ago
    Yes it will improve. Just make sure you give yourself time outside of work. You don't need to do fancy things, sometimes just getting food you never had before, go see a building, simple life is what saved me from burnout. It took me almost a year (after a change of job) to start living again fully and break off my self deprecation and focus issues.
• swyx 4y ago
  going to an Ivy League university under a government scholarship, which I then regretted so badly I had to break my 6 year required work contract and pay back ~400k including interest. probably set my life back at least 10 years. i shouldve tried harder to evaluate my options but at 16 i just went with what everyone said was a good enough path.
• anon2020dot00 4y ago
  Interesting question, and it really boils down to "given what you know now, what would you have done differently in the past?" Most regrets stem from poor information or prediction capability such as the story of the one that went into game development during college instead of a better course or the one that didn't focus on programming until late in life. I think the biggest regrets doesn't come from lack of prediction or information but just from the lack of willingness to take risks. Life is finite and so whether we take risks or not, we all end-up in the same place; but to those who took risks and it paid-off, the journey is much more pleasant and the reckoning at the end is much more fruitful. Of course this is just a platitude and isn't really that helpful, since there are a lot of risk-takers that just end-up dead or worse-off. But the idea is that a person can't win by not taking risks since we're all dead anyways and so maybe a calculated risk is the answer.
• switch007 4y ago
  Not pushing myself to go to a better university Not saving enough when younger Not moving to Europe when it was easier to do so (I’m British) Oh well. Life is too short to dwell on such things. You can only change the future, not the past.
  • zmibes 4y ago
    Still easy, don't remoan just do it
    • switch007 4y ago
      Really? Name a country other than Ireland in the EU where I can just turn up and work immediately without a visa.
      • nickd2001 4y ago
        If you live and work in Ireland for 5 yrs you can become Irish as well as British, and effectively get your EU rights back. If I was younger, I'd be very tempted. Of course this door may not be open for ever with united Ireland on the horizon. If you don't do it, you may end up replying "I wish I had" to an identical Q to this on HN in 20 yrs time ;)
        • switch007 4y ago
          I’m quite familiar with Ireland (I’ve lived there), and the Irish government’s process for citizen applications. Hard no from me for various reasons. It’s why I said “other than Ireland”. I have other options though and I’m actively exploring them. But unsurprisingly none are “easy” :-)
          • nickd2001 4y ago
            Care to spill the beans on why "Hard no?". I have to say that seeing the way the UK is going, (or should I say England since the rest of the UK probably will break off before long, Scotland for sure) , Ireland looks tempting to me. I'd worry about anti-English sentiment there. People bitch about the Irish health service but NHS probably no better now it seems to me.
• Sirened 4y ago
  that I wasn't braver as a teenager and that I didn't stand up and fight for myself until I was much older. So many years lost to suffering because I was too afraid of consequences...
  • the_only_law 4y ago
    At the same time, around middle school something snapped and I stopped caring much about consequences, got in a fair bit of trouble that ended up costing me opportunities down the line.
• michaelcao 4y ago
  Great question. I wish I would not change anything. Sometimes, I wanted to get out of technology and tried to find another job. Nonetheless, it was a waste of time. I should focus on software development because it's my strength. All of us should use our strength to be a giver. Money will follow.
  • ChuckNorris89 4y ago
    >Money will follow. That can be survivorship bias. Money will follow if you have a great network and/or live in a hot area with tons of networking and jobs opportunities for your trade. Being good at what you do is not always enough to succeed financially.
• rookiemistakes 4y ago
  Last week, actually. Was a bit careless and inebriated while working on a demo and suddenly I realized I had luksFormatted the luks partition holding the only copy of keys for cryptocurrency worth ~$200k. That was a sizable fraction if my supposed net worth. Either I'm still in denial or I've risen above obsessive materialism as it doesn't affect me too much so far, though. Its just money. Unplugged the drive and haven't touched it since but I'm not holding my hopes up.
  • atdrummond 4y ago
    If it makes you feel better I lost the keys to Bitcoin worth a few orders of magnitude more. Life does go on.
    • jonasdegendt 4y ago
      Same here, lost the keys to a sizeable wallet that was god knows how big at one point, I stopped checking a while ago but it was a good exercise in letting go and learning to value other things. I can't complain, most of my regrets are related to how I spent or wasted money, there's worse things and life went on to turn out great regardless of my net worth.
      • atdrummond 4y ago
        It bothers my ex much more than it does me. She has contacted me on at least five separate occasions asking me if I had reconsidered my decision to not search for the old desktop the wallet resided on.
  • switch007 4y ago
    Was it 200k at the time, or appreciated later?
    • tasuki 4y ago
      The comment you're replying to starts with "Last week, actually."
• cosmotic 4y ago
  Playing video game instead of getting exercise
• hardware2win 4y ago
  I cant think of single thing which changed, could significantly change my life, that im aware of and i cannot change now.
  • scaradim 4y ago
    bluff? :-)
• MrGilbert 4y ago
  Everything and Nothing. Leaving the comfort zone more often is something which will make you grow. And I didn't do that in the past. Bit of a life story: I'm 36 now. When I turned 22 in 2008, my mom surprised me with her having sarcoidosis, a disease which will turn functional cells into non-functional ones. Quite an issue when it starts in your lungs. A year later, my father surprised me with him having cancer. Long story short, they passed away in 2013 and 2017. I should also mention that I have four younger siblings. I raised my little sister until the beginning of 2020, when she turned 18. And then, the pandemic hit. I wish I'd talked more to my dad. I wish I would have been more socially active, would have gone on a fishing trip with him. Worked on the car. You know? Things you do with your dad. Instead, I buried myself knee-deep into coding. I read books. But I missed life. And I accumulated debt. Oh, am I in debt right now. 46k still left to pay off, with which I'm struggeling. And the path I choose? Up to today, I don't even know if it's the right one. I'm a coder. But from time to time, I need external validation. I need "the stage". And I love to teach other people stuff. Working from home, I realized that I don't have any problem talking directly into a camera. Just recently, I moderated a panel discussion with 7 participants and an audience of ~100 people. I wasn't aware of me being able to do that. But there were people in my company who believed in me and said "Do it!" and I decided to leave my comfort zone. That was maybe the best feeling I had for a long, long time. tl;dr: a) Avoid the debt trap b) Spend time with your loved ones, as much as you can. Grow bonds. c) Leave your comfort zone. Experiment. And never be afraid to fail.
  • WA 4y ago
    Kudos to your strength and caring for your siblings. > I need "the stage". Maybe this can be fixed easily? Like go on conference on behalf of your company and give a talk? I also work from home 99%. Recently, we did a non-profit event and sold some kind of lottery tickets. Proceeds were donated 100% for local causes. Getting out there and selling tickets for 3-6 hours actually gave me energy. I had conversations with strangers that just went extremely fluid. I enjoyed that, but would hate to do it as a full time job.
    • MrGilbert 4y ago
      Thank you! Yes, I'm currently trying to get more involved on that side. Also, outside of my job, but I'd like to have some training there. Which is currently, from a financial point of view, not possible. But I'll figure it out, as always. :)
• hypertele-Xii 4y ago
  I've consciously moved on from ruminating on the past and replaying alternate timelines in my mind, to thinking about what I actually can change: the present, and the future. Life is a blind let's play. It's more fun to watch exactly because you don't know what's going to happen. Having the ability to play it again would destroy consequence, and thus meaning, to one's actions. Spending extraordinary amounts of time thinking about the past got me literally nowhere. When I realized this, practically every problem in my life started unwinding and I found friends, love, passion, work, and peace.
  • fsckboy 4y ago
    >Having the ability to play it again would destroy consequence, and thus meaning, to one's actions. this might say something deep about the interative process of software development. perhaps we should only get one try.
  • Maketsuki 4y ago
    Beautifully said. Thank you.
  • 6stringmerc 4y ago
    Once I came to the conclusion that past actions only have a limited affect on the immediate present - like real genuine hooks versus memories of stuff - then life is a series of situational decisions. Trying to get them all “right” is a fool’s errand leading to heartache. On the flip side, it gives lots of chances to try and live out personal principles and perspectives on how to operate in this life, and takes away the guilt of existing with consciousness a little, and for me, makes each day a bit more fun. It’s almost like being able to walk through walls in Doom (clipping life) - very powerful and a lot of people look on and wonder “how do you do that?” because I am a genuinely happy guy.
  • Kaibeezy 4y ago
    Agree. I often tell myself, and others, when bad things happen: Eventually, something good will happen, and you had to go through the bad things to get there. That said, it’s hard not to regret getting a real band together while my voice was still there.
• CSDude 4y ago
  When Docker was first released, I made a programming assignment grading system when I was a Teaching Assistant. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fFy8LHQ6EtI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fFy8LHQ6EtI Idea and execution had potential but I lacked networking or courage. Also professors was really dismissive about it. I could have it used in 2 different courses only. I wished I pushed it harder to even different universities and courses.
• burwood 4y ago
  Nothing. If we were to go back in time, we'd make the same `mistakes' again as that's who we _were_ (its the cumulative development since those points in time that gave a different perspective that would make us act differently). Most of our life is failures. Once I hit a particularly low point (and also with age), I appreciate the journey much much more as cliche as it sounds. For a different reason - with an expectation to mostly fail, we are set free to truly live.
• bluebus 4y ago
  Two things slightly related: 1. Doing a job as a model when I was very young (17) in which I was sexually abused. 2. Not going to university After first, I got totally lost and torture myself. A lot. I didn't put priorities in order nor seek for help. I wasted a lot of time doing shitty jobs for having some money, having terrible relationships and doing sports heavily to keep me distracted until one day I decided it was enough and did two HNCs related with computer science (which is something I was always passionate about). I cannot complain about the jobs I've had nor the amount of money I earn right now but I'm 33 years old and I if I could change anything, would be definitely those two points. The first was not by choice, but I should have been more cautious. PD: Holy fuck. I think is the first time I feel brave enough for mention this "out loud" to someone.
  • throwaway8383d 4y ago
    Thank you for sharing your deeply personal experience, I’m sorry to read you’ve been through that.
  • austinjp 4y ago
    Sounds like a really shitty experience. Just a reminder of something which you know anyway: it's the perpetrator's fault, not yours. I guess I want to say something trite like "don't hang onto regret (or what feels like it) for someone else's actions" but I realise that's way simplistic. It seems that you were just living your life, working a job. That's normal, and (again overly trite, apologies) nothing to regret. Best wishes!! Edit: On re-reading what I wrote, it might seem that I'm saying you don't have the right to feel regret. Not my intention, sorry if it reads that way. It feels, though, that you shouldn't have to feel regret for living a normal life with normal decisions.
  • ta988 4y ago
    Thanks for sharing, and it is not your fault!
  • mbrodersen 4y ago
    Talking about it openly and repeatedly is the best way to reduce the power of any trauma.
• CM30 4y ago
  Oh, that's a hard one, since I have two major regrets in my life: 1. Not being more outgoing in university. Feels like that made things like getting a good job way harder than it could have been, and left me in a situation where making friends is difficult, especially offline. 2. Not investing more into my YouTube channel in the earlier days, especially back in 2017. I covered a game which was super popular back then, and many of my random videos from that time did extremely well views wise (one is now at about 5 million views because of it). If I'd built more of a fanbase then, I'd probably be far more successful on the platform now.
• bloqs 4y ago
  To everyone in this thread, a piece of advice I didn't initially believe but over many years I have understood more: "everyone loses 10 years to something, somewhere along the line"
  • deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  • selestify 4y ago
    As someone who doesn’t quite understand/believe it, could you elucidate more on that?
    • CaptArmchair 4y ago
      More apt would be: hindsight is a b. Everyone has a tendency to evaluate the past with today's knowledge and experience. That's a fallacy. You didn't so much "lose" 10 years, it just took 10 years to come to an understanding about a meaningful part of your life. And maybe you really needed all that time to arrive there. In my book, regret means you've learned something about your past but you're still trying to change the past. Which you can't. What matters is how you're going to leverage your wisdom going forward in a meaningful way.
    • wccrawford 4y ago
      I take it to mean that everyone has a situation that they could have handled better, and it took them quite a few years to really fix the situation. Perhaps it was something that affected them mentally, and they finally overcame it, or perhaps it ended up being a physical or financial hardship. Everyone makes mistakes, and everyone makes a few big mistakes. The key is not to beat yourself up over it. Learn from the mistake and do better in the future.
    • H8crilA 4y ago
      It means that if you add up the regrets (for example, staying in a bad job or not doing X for Y years) then it will come up to about 10 years for everyone. Maybe your 10 years are still ahead of you, or perhaps some of them are behind you but you didn't realize that yet as you haven't seen the consequences yet.
• deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
• waterfallr 4y ago
  “Marry, and you will regret it; don’t marry, you will also regret it; marry or don’t marry, you will regret it either way.”. Søren Kierkegaard
  • camjohnson26 4y ago
    Worth noting Kierkegaard never married
    • pixelmonkey 4y ago
      That historical detail is actually somewhat irrelevant to the quote. This is from "Either/Or" and Kierkegaard was making a point about the nature of decision-making and regret, not about marriage. The fuller quote: "If you marry, you will regret it; if you do not marry, you will also regret it; if you marry or if you do not marry, you will regret both. Laugh at the world’s foolishness, you will regret it; weep over it, you will also regret it; whether you laugh at the world’s foolishness or weep over it, you will regret both. Believe a girl, you will regret it; if you do not believe her, you will also regret it; if you believe a girl or you do not believe her, you will regret both. [...] This, gentlemen, is the sum of all practical wisdom." And later: "Were I to wish for anything I would not wish for wealth and power, but for the passion of the possible, that eye which everywhere, ever young, ever burning, sees possibility. Pleasure disappoints, not possibility."
  • bartvk 4y ago
    I feel this quote badly aged. Nowadays, the choice isn't really binary anymore, there's so much between marrying or not. I never married but had two long, solid relationships so far. Which I'm quite happy with. I do note that you didn't actually say what your choice was, and whether you regret it.
    • rchaud 4y ago
      Marriage was considered a core social obligation until very recently. In modern times, I take this quote to mean something closer to "choose to conform to what society expects or choose not to; you will have some regrets either way."
• user_7832 4y ago
  To anyone full of regret, I'd just like to give a quote by Marcus Aurelius (a Roman Emperor and stoic philosopher) Think of yourself as dead. You have lived your life. Now take what's left and live it properly. Life likely hasn't been perfect for almost anyone, but would you rather die right now (with likely unfinished desires, wishes and more regrets) or would you try to make the best use of what you have? (It may be a bit difficult to fully live as per the quote even if you're already familiar with stoicism - it's quite hard for me too - but something that sometimes helps me is to literally visualize yourself dead as of now. Maybe a stroke. Would you be happy? If not, you should do something about it.)
  • matwood 4y ago
    Steve Jobs turned the ideas in that quote into a commencement speech after his cancer diagnosis. It concludes with: Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure - these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.
    • scandox 4y ago
      It is handy when your heart is in something financially remunerative though. My heart tends toward the gutter. Not complaining though.
      • matwood 4y ago
        I knew I would get your comment and almost left out the last line because of it. But, I wanted to keep the quote complete. It still works even if you leave out follow your heart.
    • smoldesu 4y ago
      It's a shame he never took the advice to heart. Jobs' last days were unnecessarily painful for both himself and his family, who desperately tried helping him only to be pushed away and insulted. Jobs was good at echoing the wisdom of people smarter than him, but not so great at using those principles to fix his own life.
• 6stringmerc 4y ago
  It’s not a regret but would’ve been a different life path - in 2003 I let people talk me out of pursuing Intellectual Property Law because of my interests in music and technology intersecting with the law - and the reason they cited? There’s no money in IP law. Right, the folks working in Texarkana on Federal cases for Samsung and the like drive used Hyundai minivans and buy ramen in bulk these days /s. Pretty glad I didn’t go that route though because deep down I love competition, cocaine, and strippers. About as much of a 180 from present day me.
• suranyami 4y ago
  Not leaving a destructive relationship sooner. Twice. The second one was the worst. I've since observed that behaviour in other couples, mostly with the men, but almost as frequently with the women that make the partner's feeling of self-worth completely revolve around them. It's toxic, left me with severe depression that is still an issue today. There is a certain type of internal self-talk that becomes a self-reinforcing mania and starts with the simplest triggers and ends up with a feeling of loathing that can happen any time. It's dangerous and can lead to thoughts of suicide. This was in my early 30s, and I'm now in my late 50s and I can't believe I still have these things to deal with. Best advice I can think of is a quote from William Burroughs: "If, after being in the presence of a certain person, you feel like you've lost a quart of plasma, avoid that person."
  • mft_ 4y ago
    Sorry to read your story. I've been there; in the end, I had to take a job in another country --literally emigrate-- to properly make the break that my head was screaming for, but was so very difficult to make happen at the time within the confines of the relationship. I'm lucky that I don't have the long-term damage that you have, but it took years to heal, I think - and even now, there are some traits in my behaviour that are far from ideal and which I think trace back to that relationship. (For example, I've developed a disproportionately strong response to any behaviour from others that starts to even slightly near to 'controlling'. This obviously isn't ideal when mostly people aren't like that.) I think of this as emotional scar-tissue; I need to work out how to start breaking it down.
  • pc86 4y ago
    I had to get out of an abusive relationship to see it was abusive, which I think is true for a lot - maybe even the vast majority - of people. She was emotionally abusive/manipulative, and that would occasionally branch into physicality. Never anything as overt as hitting/slapping, but certainly the occasional grab or shove. I also had friends bring up the emotional part (nobody ever saw anything physical) but your mind gets pretty twisted when you're in a relationship like that. It's really hard to see it through an objective lens until you're already on your way out, or even far removed. I don't know your specific circumstances but I'm confident you will continue to get better.
• Pinegulf 4y ago
  Doing my Ph.D in biotechnology. Turns out that EU area is really against bio-tech. Now I do IT to pay the bills.
• rswskg 4y ago
  Stop being afraid of failing. It was so painful that I put alot of things off and thus didn't grow.
• bradlys 4y ago
  Thinking I could time the market after a big drop on IPO day (thinking maybe it'd rebound - which it did but then subsequently dropped and dropped and dropped). Should've just gotten access to my stock ASAP and sold everything. Instead, I let it drop so far over 6+ months that basically got less than what I put in to exercise the options + AMT. This holding mentally came because I didn't actually need the money so I thought letting it sit would be beneficial (don't time the market) but holding all that in one stock was foolish and I wish I had better peers around at that time who forced me to sell. Instead, everyone was saying to hold. We all lost a lot of money over it. The divorce didn't help either but I don't know if I regret that so much as had no real recourse about the whole situation. (My ex decided she no longer wanted to work and we split up over that)
  • mattm 4y ago
    Normally you can't sell for 6 months anyway unless it was a direct listing
    • bradlys 4y ago
      It was a spac - you could sell day 1.
• graycat 4y ago
  (1) People. I paid full tuition in my course to get some understanding of people. Dad had some understanding, and Mom was really good at it, but neither tried very hard to teach me. In particular: [i] Boys and girls, men and women are very different. (A) The cliche that boys pay attention to things and girls, to people is not fully true but significantly often is true. (B) Once from a real expert I got a flat statement: "Of COURSE, women are MUCH more emotional than men. That is the cause of all the problems.". That answered a lot of questions! (C) A large fraction of girls and women tend to be afraid -- the list is long with some standard items and some more. One of the more important things a boy/man can do is make it really clear to the female that they are at zero risk with him. (D) Generally girls/women are exposed to some means of manipulation, and some of them get good at it -- boys/men need to watch out for that. (E) Some girls are afraid of being in love (there is a lot to understanding love, and I can't cover all of it here) but, still, are very interested in sex. For them, holding hands can be more intimate than sexual intercourse. Boys/men need to realize that. [ii] A surprisingly large fraction of people are in some significant ways seriously mixed up. So, watch out for that. Also have a list of common ways and watch out for those. (2) Business It took me way too long to understand the importance of business, even just small/medium business, as a path to being financially responsible and maybe even secure. In particular, for a good job in the economy as an employee, there has to be up there somewhere some person(s) who did well enough in business to have created that job. So, being an employee is limited by the jobs other people create. It is better to be the person who is successful enough in business to create good jobs. E.g., at one time I had a relatively good career going as just an employee in computing. Then (A) I didn't appreciate how that career would have to change or how to make that career a lot better, e.g., by starting a business or being such a good employee that I could get stock in a growing company. (B) To be better qualified as an employee, I got a Ph.D. in pure/applied math. I didn't appreciate that in fact, in reality, in the US, a Ph.D. is intended for people who want to be devoted to an academic career and put up with being, in my view, financially irresponsible. I had zero interest in being a professor. The academic work and my independent study are crucial parts of my startup, but the Ph.D. was a very inefficient way to get some help on some of the parts. I conclude that, generally, a Ph.D. is more trouble than it is worth and financially irresponsible. Learning can be important, but a Ph.D. is an inefficient way to do it. (3) Stock At one time the founder, CEO of FedEx told me "You know, if you stay you are in line for $500,000 in FedEx stock." I was holding a really good hand but didn't know enough to play it at all well. I didn't stay. My father understood even less than I did. Mom, didn't have a clue. (4) Art In high school and through college, the teaching kept trying to get me to pay attention to art, especially literature. I didn't see the value. And the lessons in literature were not very credible, that is, I could not trust that they would really be true, say, like Newton's Second Law. For art, I like the definition -- "The communication, interpretation of human experience, emotion." With that definition, okay -- via art can get some views of examples of the experiences, emotions of other people. Maybe sometimes the examples do illustrate something about a lot of people and not just some one. With that definition, I might have paid a little more attention to literature and gotten a little value from it. Being successful with people is CRUCIAL, and understanding their possible experiences, emotions can be important for the success. For me and art, I liked music a lot right away, some before I was 5. Explaining just why took me a while! (5) Jobs and Marriage Apparently some of the prosperity of the US now is due to having a lot of women working. A lot of career paths require moving frequently. But those moves can play havoc with a marriage having two jobs. And with only one job, it can be tough financially to buy a house and do well supporting the family. Lesson: A career that does not require moving has a big advantage in being financially secure and doing well supporting a family. So, if you want to pursue a career that has you move or be in some really expensive place to live, then consider delaying getting married. (6) Gossip In an office, and maybe in much of a life, gossip can be a threat. In an office, if you do well, then others can feel threatened and attack you with gossip. So, apparently it is not enough to assume you are innocent until proven guilty and instead need positively to assert innocence on likely gossip accusations. I'm no expert on how to defend against gossip, finding a good expert could be important, but I'm sure that gossip commonly is a threat. So, watch out for gossip. If it appears you have been attacked by gossip, then (ask an expert) do defend yourself.
• 2-718-281-828 4y ago
  Regretting is not just an isolated mental state. It's rather a mindset. If you are somebody who can't let the past be past but has to drag it into the present to continue the suffering tainting the future then you will always regret. Doesn't really matter what you do. There's always something to regret. But if you learn to let go of the past you'll feel free and live happy until the day you die.
  • coyotespike 4y ago
    This! Many of my old "worst regrets", which bugged me for years, no longer bother me. If I revisit the regrets that don't bother me - well, probably they could start bothering me again! I still have regrets that haunt me daily. I'm learning to live with those too. A life well lived has a lot of griefs in it, but stewing in them isn't an awesome way to handle them.
• methusala8 4y ago
  I would go back and complete education rather than dropping out of school. I had to waste 7 years of my life in order to understand the importance of education. Eventually, got a Masters in Statistics. But I wish I could run this back and get those lost years.
• controversial97 4y ago
  My mother was an irrational unreasonable prying crazy nightmare who was incredibly negative and hated anyone disagreeing with her about any trivial thing. My biggest regret is that I allowed her to order me to go to the nearest university and continue to live with her. She had drained me of all confidence and was hostile to signs of me being an independent adult. Getting away from her years earlier would have been much better for me.
  • sph 4y ago
    I hope you've sought some professional help and are doing better. It is incredible how damaging bad parents can be. Being the brain so malleable, you'd grow your entire persona and life—your entire self—around a messed up childhood and then slowly solidify into position as you age. Many of your thought patterns are tainted, and healing is a very long and painful process. But being (made) aware of the extent of the damage is the first and necessary step to a healthier self.
  • olivierestsage 4y ago
    I lived through the same experience. If you ever figure out this problem (which you clearly have), you have nothing to regret. Not everyone does.
  • hestefisk 4y ago
    Was the diagnosed with borderline personality disorder? Surely sounds like it.
• dankai 4y ago
  Perhaps a more simple regret, but not buying bitcoin when it was at ~8USD. In hindsight it would've been the easiest way to not have to think about money anymore for the rest of my life.
  • gberger 4y ago
    You would have sold at $100 ;)
    • derekp7 4y ago
      If only I would have had the foresight to buy a lottery ticket with the correct winning numbers. Yes, there was Bitcoin, however there are always millions of investment opportunities that may or may not pan out. Most don't.
      • kamaal 4y ago
        There's always something called as an Index fund. Which more or less tracks the top companies of a country. Unless you expect your country itself to go down, its generally a good lottery ticket to buy. I'd say just throw in some pocket change in places where you can afford to lose. You never know as the downside is nearly 0, the upside is in millions.
    • Yizahi 4y ago
      Worse, he would have probably bought them on MtGox, since it was the most popular during those prices.
    • subpixel 4y ago
      This is my personal coping mechanism. If I made $10k in BC I would have sold it all and felt very lucky. I did find a fractional BC on a thumbnail drive in an EOL software wallet for which I had long ago forgotten the password. So that could have happened too.
  • Aeolos 4y ago
    I mined a few bitcoins on a GPU back in the beginning, but threw them away as useless. In hindsight...
• cmrdporcupine 4y ago
  I would redo all of my time in high school. Personal and academic. Not getting the grades I needed in math then stopped me from being able to pursue a CS degree in post-secondary. And that meant spinning my wheels running uphill in my career for a long time trying to get employers to consider me. It still affects me, 20+ years into my career. And I made 'choices' (are adolescents truly making choices?) in my personal relationships and actions at the time that I think were selfish and at times unethical that I wish I could go back and change. Amazing that we let these years be such a critical fulcrum for individual's lives even though most adolescents are not at all ready to make the important decisions and sacrifices. I am a parent of two teens now. It's hard.
• qwerty456127 4y ago
  My only regret is I never cared to exercise physically. I hate exercising with passion but I probably would be terrifically fit and flexible if I had been putting just some very-very small but systematic effort throughout my whole life. Not a serious regret though, just a missed opportunity (I still am reasonably fit).
  • kieckerjan 4y ago
    FWIW, you are never too old to start. The older you get, the more getting in at least some exercise counts.
• deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
• BirAdam 4y ago
  When I was a kid, I sold most of my old computers and game systems to get new ones. I wish I hadn’t done that. That stuff would be awesome to have now.
  • beranabus 4y ago
    I thought the same and bought a few older systems. Now they gather dust on a shelf, because I got bored of them after a few hours. But at least the feeling of need is gone, I guess?
    • pfdietz 4y ago
      These days I regret not throwing things away sooner. Most long term possessions are just clutter.
  • AnIdiotOnTheNet 4y ago
    I kept all my old consoles and even picked up some new ones and spares at Goodwill over the years. I consider myself a retro gaming enthusiast. They mostly sit in storage. Very occasionally I'll take them out to play & stream something. Given the state of emulation these days it is difficult to justify keeping them.
    • BirAdam 4y ago
      Typically, I’d agree. Then, when I hook up my Dreamcast, the physical parts are great. The controller, disks, and of course the sounds of DC. With my Atari 2600, the physical feel and sounds of the cartridges. Emulation is great for playing a game but there’s a magic to the hardware too.
• philliphaydon 4y ago
  Staying at my previous job too long. 9 years. At 5 years it started to turn toxic. I always hoped it would get better but it didn’t. I should have left sooner but I wanted to finish the project I was on because I wanted to leave behind something to feel proud of. In the end the company screwed my over. But I have a better job now so it worked out ok.
  • gllub 4y ago
    Similar story here, though fortunately "only" 6 years. I was at a startup, and though I'd come to disagree with the direction of the company, I'd put so much work in that I was always operating on a sunk-cost type hope that success was just around the corner. Of course, it wasn't. I've been out over a year now and getting into a position to be able to walk away financially and then doing it was one of the best decisions. I'm hoping the lessons I've learned balance out the psychological damage I took pushing through burnout for three years.
• darod 4y ago
  i've been in remission for 3 years. I'm not dead yet so I don't have any regrets, just gratitude for more time that I was given.
• mauvehaus 4y ago
  Had a job interview in an unfamiliar, boring[0] midwestern city. Drove over early the day before to see if I could stomach living there. Saw that Medeski, Martin and Wood were on a marquee for a show that night and did the responsible thing of not going to see them and getting a good night of sleep before the interview. I should've gone. [0] I'm from a rust belt city in the Midwest. This isn't some kind of outsider prejudice against "flyover country".
  • epalm 4y ago
    Happy to hear they’re still touring. I agree you definitely should have seen them :D I was visiting NYC years ago and realized the day of my departure that Dave Brubeck was playing at the Blue Note. I regret not canceling my flight.
• patrakov 4y ago
  Bad question, because it is two questions that the OP treats as related (regret vs possibility to have done something differently in the past), but that are actually not. For example, let's suppose that the answer to the question about the biggest regret is "not learning to swim while still a child" (I learned while being 31 years old), but the reason is that my mother could not teach me and actively opposed any other possibility for me to learn. This was not something I could change about my past, even in theory.
• AlgorithmicTime 4y ago
  Wish I had kids when I was in my early 20s rather than my early-mid 30s.
  • em-bee 4y ago
    i wanted to respond to this comment, but it's dead: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33261300 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33261300 so i'll write this here because it fits. i hope you'll notice it some day :-) i fully agree. i had my kids late and i am almost fifty now. i am not regretting having kids so late, but i feel much better than i thought i would feel at that age. and that's what got me thinking that having kids earlier would mean we'd now be independent and, given the higher income would be able to do a lot more interesting things than i was able to earlier. again. i have no regrets, especially because i was able to travel and live in many different places before i got married, much more than the average person, which i would not have been able to do, had i married and gotten kids earlier. so it's a tradeoff, but it's something well worth considering. just make sure you have a partner that shares your motivations.
• deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
• rpsw 4y ago
  Bought a family home I don't like and don't think I will be ever to sell leaving us stuck here.
  • Gigachad 4y ago
    Why don’t you like it?
• MrDresden 4y ago
  My father was a alcoholic, who had long stretches of staying sober before always falling of the wagon again. After he had been on a particularly long bender, which finally caused my mother to divorce him, me and him had a verbal fight where I decided I would not have more to do with him until he would seek the help we knew he needed (and we had been offering him for so long). I'll add that he was a moody drunk, never abusive and when not drunk he was the sweetest person. Some months later he fell badly while drunk, and hit his head. The resulting internal bleeding caused damage to his prefrontal cortex, which resulted in personality changes and loss of inhibition. Within the year he had a heart attack, alone in his apartment, having ravaged his body with the lifestyle he lived. I wish I had been less stubborn, more understanding, and would have helped him get through his illness at the time. But I was only in my early 20s at the time, with much left to learn.
  • biorach 4y ago
    Don't feel so bad. I've seen, from a distance, more than one friend tear their life apart trying to help an addict, to no avail. I think that your chances of making any difference at all were slim.
  • mscarborough 4y ago
    Let the guilt go. Coming from a person in recovery who's lucky to have gotten out of that hole, just know there's not really anything you could have done if your father wasn't interested in seeking help. No amount of being there or showing understanding or talking sense to him matters. Good on you for not losing your 20s and beyond to that endless pit.
    • toomanyrichies 4y ago
      +1. I spent some time in recovery, and someone once shared that "Our help isn't for people who need it, it's for people who want it." That always stuck with me.
  • darkerside 4y ago
    Small comfort, but thinking probabilistically, your choice was likely the best thing for him. It could have been the wakeup call he needed to truly change his life. Unfortunately, in this case it was not, but you can only make decisions with what you know at the time. Condolences on your loss.
• extasia 4y ago
  Cheating on my ex-girlfriend when I was in university.
• throw0101c 4y ago
  I would recommend reading 30 lessons for living : tried and true advice from the wisest Americans by Karl Pillemer: > After a chance encounter with an extraordinary ninety-year-old woman, renowned gerontologist Karl Pillemer began to wonder what older people know about life that the rest of us don't. > His quest led him to interview more than one thousand Americans over the age of sixty-five to seek their counsel on all the big issues- children, marriage, money, career, aging. Their moving stories and uncompromisingly honest answers often surprised him. And he found that he consistently heard advice that pointed to these thirty lessons for living. Here he weaves their personal recollections of difficulties overcome and lives well lived into a timeless book filled with the hard-won advice these older Americans wish someone had given them when they were young. * https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/11376196-30-lessons-for-living https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/11376196-30-lessons-for-... * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Pillemer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Pillemer
  • ThalesX 4y ago
    <a little bit of an emotional rant> I don't know. I used to think that the wisdom of old people was something to aspire to. I come from a place in the world where family ties are very important and we're all very close together, and for the past decade I've been having a lot of trouble with my family's influence on me. Their insistent advice comes from a good place but belongs to a world that doesn't exist anymore or a world that I don't care for; their advice throughout my life made me less assertive and more submissive in the face of adversity, it ended up having me stay put and not take any chances in life, it ended up destroying a happy 10+ year relationship and just yesterday they started giving me advice again on how I should find a "stupid fat woman" (yes, these are the words) so she can "bare children and not give you headaches". So, in my 3rd decade on this planet, I have come to fear the advice of old, and to cringe whenever I get these important life lessons. It took a very big toll on me, to shy away from them, and to actually start being myself, and my quality of life improved dramatically, but even now they still push and prod and try to 'advise' me. I hope I won't end up on my death bed, regretting not following their advice, but for now, I'd rather not regret the present.
    • 4y ago
• pwdisswordfish9 4y ago
  Wasting time on Hacker News
• spaceman_2020 4y ago
  Focused too much on making a living in my teens and 20s instead of college and social life. Never pursued artistic interests seriously because I was just too tired from working and stressing out about bills. Now I’m in my 30s with next to no social life and the realization that I’ve wasted away my time and whatever little talent I have. There’s a “regret” folder sitting in my Google Drive with two half-finished books and at least half a dozen songs I was too chickenshit to finish and release out in the wild. Always wonder how things might have turned out if I had more supportive parents (financially, emotionally) and if I had taken a few different relationship decisions. I reckon it’s still not too late, but something tells me that it is…
  • etothepii 4y ago
    In your 30s it is not too late to do really anything apart from elite sports (with the exception of long distance running). Difficult to tell from your comment but if you did bring yourself some financial stability, it was unlikely time wasted.
  • lucidlive 4y ago
    Age is meaningless… it’s all about how you feel. So nothing is really ever too late.
  • parroteal 4y ago
    If I had to pick one thing out of all the things in the universe that is never too late to start a career in, I would pick writing. When Günter Grass (famous German author) was asked for advice to young writers he said something like: "Don't try to become a writer just because you want to be one. And if you absolutely must do it, don't study languages. Pick a career that forces you into contact with lots of people. A waiter in a restaurant or something. If young people start to write without knowing the world, they risk writing about their own belly button too soon." (Writing about your belly button being an expression for writing about your own selfish viewpoints and insecurities) I'm in my mid thirties and published my first short stories last year. I'm very pleased with the result and I'm glad I didn't publish my earlier stuff. I was terribly opinionated while trying to sound enlightened and only out to prove something to myself and the world. Now I have the maturity to be more expressive and it shows in the feedback I get. (Always express, never impress they say.) Now I'm putting off my first novel to learn about computers, because I feel like having a good job is a more pressing issue right now than artistic expression. And I'm absolutely positive that it won't be too late for my novel when I'm 40.
• Traubenfuchs 4y ago
  Years ago, I was suffering from painful defecation, had mucus and blood come out. I always thought it would get better by just eating healthier or whatever. Never even thought about visiting a doctor. When I finally went, the doctor tested my butt for STDs and what a surprise, it was chlamydia. A round of doxycyclin quickly got rid of the chlamydia, but the damage they did lead to a (peri?)anal abscess, which turned into a fistula. I had a surgery to implant a little "piercing ring" into the abscess, so it could drain and stay drained. Had it in for a few months. Then I had a second surgery to split it. The pain from the abcess/fistula and the two surgeries was unimaginable. Long after the second surgery, I still suffer from bouts of pain, some weeks it's gone and some weeks it's so bad, I can barely work. If the pain is there, none but the strongest of pain killers and illicit drugs will stop it. When it's especially bad, I visit a proctologist, but they all say there is nothing wrong and it's post surgical pain we can do nothing about. I kept my stool continency by the way, but sometimes I can't hold my farts now. So, chlamydia. Extremely easy to treat and practically harmless if you discover it early. My regret is that I didn't go to the doctor sooner. The fun continued when I got, you wouldn't believe it, monkey pox up my butt! You know those famous monkey pox sores? I had less than 10 small, harmless ones on my body, but the inside of my rectum became a bubble waffle. Doctors believe you get the strongest outbreak of them at the place where you caught them, e.g. face/mouth/throat, penis or butt. I had to take sleeping pills for 2 weeks to keep functioning. Getting off of those is very, very hard. My doctor told me he had someone with monkeypox up their urethra and that guy got catheterized for a week because he couldn't piss from pain. As a bonus, the monkeypox also gave me myocarditis. I am still healing from the sores up my butt, 2 months after I could leave quarantine. I will have an MRI of the heart in a month. I am dumb and unlucky and yet still I deserve this because I just can't stop having casual sex with strangers.
  • RMPR 4y ago
    bad bot
    • Traubenfuchs 4y ago
      Text length has been limited and I am fed up with STDs, -100% absolute bias for all stds I can think off, the usage of the words „butt“, „penis“ and „casual sex“ will also be mostly reduced.
• andrepd 4y ago
  Clicking 'cancel' on a buy order for 110 bitcoins at circa 2$ each x)
  • ramesh31 4y ago
    >Clicking 'cancel' on a buy order for 110 bitcoins at circa 2$ each x) Meh. You would have sold them at $4.
    • andrepd 4y ago
      Hardly, I bought just two at 20 and I'm still holding on to them :p
• mikessoft_gmail 4y ago
• kuramitropolis 4y ago
  Being born. No, thanks!
• deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
• dutchbrit 4y ago
  Not working on myself as much as I should (physically, confidence and focus).
• cranium 4y ago
  Looking out for my dad more while I was at university. He was divorced, retired, and full of unhealthy habits. I could have come home and cook him a nice meal, do some woodwork side-by-side and tell him what I was working on (he was very proud of me). He suddenly died from a heart attack on a Sunday afternoon, while I was scrambling to write a paper before the midnight deadline.
• nvarsj 4y ago
  Letting anxiety control my life for so long. Marrying the wrong person because I didn’t want to be alone. Not going into the game industry. I was too afraid of the horror stories at the time, so ignored my passion.
  • koonsolo 4y ago
    Why can't you still try to get into the game industry?
    • nvarsj 4y ago
      Good question. I guess I have made some assumptions about it that I still hold onto. Like, it will be less pay with longer hours. Not really in a great spot right now to career switch either.
  • throwaway5959 4y ago
    How’d you get a handle on your anxiety if you don’t mind me asking?
    • nvarsj 4y ago
      Therapy - if only to get me analyzing it rather than letting it control my life. It's still there, and it's still a struggle. I've learned to mostly accept it as just how my brains works. I can recognize when it's causing me to make the wrong choice, and override that. Long walks really help when it's bad.
      • throwaway5959 4y ago
        Thank you. I feel like we’re getting there together at roughly the same time wrt accepting how our brain works and how helpful long walks are.
• anotherone3 4y ago
  Not going to a counselor, psychologist or someone similar when I was in my teens or as a student. I certainly could have benefited having someone to talk to about internal issues I was dealing with. Not doing sports, especially individual sports like martial arts or climbing when I was younger. Choosing to care to much about how I'm perceived.
• deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
• possiblydrunk 4y ago
  I would never think about regrets, my own or those of others. While there is always the lure of capitalizing on the knowledge, it's rarely worth it. Thinking about negative things (that is a regret after all) in the past is pointless -- you can't change it and you don't know where your life would be if you 'just made that one change'. Changing your own life based on other people's regrets will yield unpredictable results. Live in the present and think about the future. Avoid regrets. They are a trap.
• jugg1es 4y ago
  While at a house party during summer break while in college, my summer-time girlfriend and a girl I had dated in high school started making out and I was so surprised about it that I missed an opportunity for a threesome. I later talked about it with them and they admitted that they were thinking about it and would have done it if I had suggested it. Can't tell you how many times I've regretted not acting that night.
  • whoibrar 4y ago
    wasn't expecting to read this at the time I logged on but glad to have read it anyways (:
  • mmmmmbop 4y ago
    Love the honesty.
  • Orzelius 4y ago
    love this one
• bheadmaster 4y ago
  I don't really "believe" in regret. At each and every point in my life, I was working with the information I had at my disposal, each information having its own "weight" in my mind. Every mistake I've made has brought some information in my mind that wouldn't have been brought otherwise. Fantasies of "changing the past" are seductive, but ultimately pointless. The only way I could justify having regrets, is reminding yourself of some mistake that should not be repeated in the future. Alas, most regrets I see written by other people are things that will not repeat, e.g. spending your youth doing <X> instead of <Y>, not talking to your <Z> enough, not investing in <W> before its price went rockets... There's just no point.
  • labarilem 4y ago
    Agreed. Also sometimes regret comes out naturally and this is a swift and effective way to deal with it.
  • chefandy 4y ago
    Hm... Regret is an emotion, not a logical destination. People don't rationally analyze a situation and deploy the appropriate, justifiable emotion; reacting emotionally is an involuntary step in processing things. You might be able to control your outward response, but that's not the same thing. Someone can experience regret for decisions that they wouldn't change in hindsight.
  • jefftk 4y ago
    Let's say you have two advisors constantly giving you advice about what action to take next, and all you ever do is choose between them. Over time you might learn that one of them gives better advice in some situations and the other gives better advice in others. In this weird hypothetical, regret is noticing that you followed the advice of the wrong advisor for the situation, and it turned out especially poorly. What's going on in your brain is a lot more complicated than this, but I think it's still a meaningful concept?
    • bheadmaster 4y ago
      In that particular example, regret would be justified, as it would be a remainder not to listen to the bad advisor. However, if, at some point, both advisors decided to leave and never come back, and you started thinking about how one of them always gave you wrong advice, and regretting listening to him, then that regret is pointless.
• gtmitchell 4y ago
  Trying to get a PhD. I wasn’t a good student and I didn’t choose a good advisor. I spent the better pet of a decade trying to finish and failed. I ended up unemployed and divorced in large part because of that decision, and while my life is OK now, I can’t help but regret that little decision that lead to so much personal pain and suffering.
• TheAceOfHearts 4y ago
  I've longed to kill myself for as far back as I can remember and I regret not having done so already. If I could change anything in history, I would chose to have never been born at all.
  • annyeonghada 4y ago
    Same. I had already chosen the date but chickened out. The next time I will try getting drunk first.
  • incomingpain 4y ago
    Friend, suicide is never the answer. I followed your profile and believe I found your github. You have hundreds of repos and hundreds of stars? You're a rockstar and humanity would be at a loss to lose you.
  • xrd 4y ago
    Do you need anything right now? If so, write me an email and let's chat. I'm sorry you are feeling this way, I can identify, sometimes.
  • hypeatei 4y ago
    Same. Sure, there is X amount of ways to improve or make your life happy for a short while but eventually it's all death and despair again. Life is inherently suffering.
• bluedino 4y ago
  Not going to university and not moving to the valley from a flyover state in 2000
• robertk 4y ago
  Nothing. Free will doesn’t exist so I just accept what comes my way and naively trust the universe not to be too much of a d$&#. Hopefully that gets me to the finish line.
  • gilbetron 4y ago
    Yeah, I'm really having a tough time believing in free will anymore. Sure seems like we're just along for the ride - consciousness without free will, what a combo!
    • camjohnson26 4y ago
      Whether free will exists or not, relative to you it does. You can hit yourself in the leg with a hammer right now, or you can choose not to, and the result will affect the rest of your day. Just because the choice is physically predetermined doesn’t make it any less real to you.
  • Loughla 4y ago
    I legitimately do not understand the philosophical exercise of 'free will doesn't exist'. Yes it does. I could walk into the street right now. I could walk into the office next door and slap a co-worker. I could learn German. I could leave my life and walk to China. What is your justification that free-will doesn't exist? Other than biological needs like eating and sleeping, I have control over the rest. Or, rather, I have control over how shitty the rest is. I have yet to hear an argument that has swayed me at all.
    • christianboyle 4y ago
      Free will is a way to describe the macroscopic behavior of human beings, analogous to how we talk about temperature rather than listing the position and velocity of every molecule of air in a room. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bxqcuPZnOl4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bxqcuPZnOl4
    • gilbetron 4y ago
      I'm not convinced that free will doesn't exist for others, just myself. There seem to be people who can build their lives exactly as they want it, and maybe you are one of those, but they are the minority. Sounds like you are someone that is completely happy with the aspects of their life they can control because they are able to do exactly what they want when they want (get out of bed on time, learn a language when they want, focus exactly as they want when they want, etc). Or, maybe you are someone that just thinks they have free will by making excuses that they really want what they actually get. Don't know you well enough!
• analog31 4y ago
  Kinda trivial but: Neglecting my upper body strength when I was much younger. Just to have more of a "reserve" against injury and for when I get older and start losing it naturally. This is something I've mentioned to both of my kids.
  • the_only_law 4y ago
    I really wish I had just got in shape when I was a teenager. I was a lot more athletic then, and I’m not even very old now, but I’ve managed to fuck to my knee and various bad habits and choices have butchered my lung capacity.
• jemmyw 4y ago
  Don't stop doing something you enjoy, thinking there's time to pick it up again later. I played badminton a lot in my teens and loved it. Then I went to uni and didn't continue with it, moved around the world, and every move would casually think "wonder if there's a badminton club around". Now I've finally started playing again and the first thing I did was get an injury because I tried to play like a thin, fit 18 year old in the body of an overweight 39 year old. But I still love it and can't help regret 20 years of being too lazy to just look up a club and go.
  • raffraffraff 4y ago
    This hits home. I started playing badminton when I was about 13 at a tiny club in a rural area. I ended up playing against adults most of the time. By the time I was 16 I was completing in the adult League with my club (instead of playing in my age category). I played for a while in uni too, but eventually quit because I moved to an area that didn't have a club. Always thought I'd resume paying. I'm 47 next year, so I've left it almost 30 years. I regularly run an cycle, and kept my weight/waist the same as my 18 year old self, so that's it: tomorrow I'm going to find a club and join. Thank you!
    • jemmyw 4y ago
      Just be careful with your arms and stretch properly. It was the tendons that I hurt going back at it too aggressively.
• rr808 4y ago
  I wish I spent more time on my appearance and then chasing girls. I thought it was stupid vanity. Now I'm too old.
  • the_only_law 4y ago
    Hah, I managed to start caring after high school, but too little too late, I’m expecting to lose my most attractive physical traits will all fade sooner than later, just aging naturally.
• francisofascii 4y ago
  Having 1-2 alcoholic drinks more that I should have, making the next day a wash. x 1000
• CalRobert 4y ago
  Buying a thatched cottage in Ireland. It's very pretty, and it checks all the boxes (bike ride from train station), etc. but Ireland's insanely strict protection rules and ridiculous insurance payouts have resulted in every insurer of thatched buildings leaving the country. Additionally, when I applied for permission to build a separate house on the land (it's a few acres) the heritage officer insisted we only build an extension, despite neighbours being permitted to build separate houses on their land, in order to force us to live in the house and "preserve" it. It's a very Irish approach. I extended it just in time to find the extension (and original cottage) completely uninsurable, so unmortgageable, so effectively worthless. A quarter million euro to have a beautiful unsellable unrentable house. Good discussion of this at https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/oir-media-hourly-files-r2/cr4/cr4_20220929T133120.000333.mp4 https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/oir-media-hourly-files-r2...
  • rippercushions 4y ago
    That creates a remarkable set of perverse incentives akin to what's seen in Australia, where restoring old houses properly is so expensive that they tend to be left to rot and/or mysteriously catch fire instead. Is the issue widely known?
    • wollsmoth 4y ago
      yeah, gosh, it'd be a shame if the house were damaged such that it lost its heritage status.
      • CalRobert 4y ago
        The neighbour offered to accidently back his tractor in to it...
    • bombcar 4y ago
      A similar thing happens in the USA with houses declared "historic". It's well known among realtors and other groups, but not extensively known. Some states/localities have funds to somewhat help with maintenance, but they get depleted very fast, and you often have requirements like "cannot replace the switches with modern ones, must use push button switches" and similar things. https://www.houseofantiquehardware.com/shop-by-type/vintage-lighting-electrical/antique-light-switches-outlets/push-button-switch https://www.houseofantiquehardware.com/shop-by-type/vintage-... At $15 for a switch vs $1, those things start to add up. In some poorer places it gets so bad the fire department will basically "wink wink" tell you how to burn your house down. Other areas have a much nicer version which is "remain visually similar" - basically you can't change how the house looks from the street but you can do whatever you want/need inside.
• brianolson 4y ago
  Romances that didn't happen because I chickened out, or that went badly because I screwed up in some way. Nothing to do with Hacker News, just Human stuff. I'm just a nerd who has been unlucky in love.
  • tommypie 4y ago
    I sincerely enjoy this thread because it asks the harder questions to the audience. Human stuff are very hard.
• eel 4y ago
  My biggest regret is drifting apart from family members and friends. I moved to a new state which was great for my marriage and my career, but it has slowly distanced me from the rest of my family.
• DontchaKnowit 4y ago
  Always had an obsessive personality. Raised Christian. Always had a bent for pushing boundaries. Got interested in the nuerochemistry of psychoactive substances. Got very involved in educating myself about drug usage, until I was finally comfortable trying them. Queue ~6 years of polysubstance abuse, wasted money, and fake ass friends. Did everything under the sun I could get my hands on. I think the list of unique drugs I did was something like 40. I was high on at least something every day for years. Most days more than 1 thing. I never got truly "hooked" on anything thankfully. I just loved being high. What I didn't realize was that the opportunity cost was enormous. Every second I was in my room fucked out of my gourd staring at the ceiling was a second that I wasn't out making friends. Being a normal person. It was a really solitary and lonesome existence, just retreating further and further into my own head each day. Additionally, being a "drug guy" just completely shuts the door to a whole strata of people : e.g. good luck meeting a woman that shares your Christian morals if you are a drug enthusiast. Now I'm off the bullshit. Straightened my life out, graduated college, gainfully employed. Etc. But I feel that I've missed the boat on having a fulfilling social life. I don't really know how to meet people. And whenever I talk with people I can't help but feel like I'm some kind of alien. I'm working on it. But it's so hard to know how to work on it. Especially now that I work from home, and live alone in a suburb.
  • spicyusername 4y ago
    I've had a similar experience. It's hard sometimes for me to reflect on all the wasted time, but what's gone is gone. I do my best to try not to ruin today thinking about yesterday. Just keep putting yourself out there, focusing on what you do have, and taking it day by day friend.
  • troupe 4y ago
    The opportunity cost is something I've never thought of before. Thank you for that insight because it has made me start thinking about things I'm doing that, while not necessarily harmful, may be coming at the expense of things I'll regret deferring when I'm older. Congratulations for putting that behind you. If you were raised with church as part of your life, you may actually have an advantage when it comes to developing friends at this point in your life. I've seen some strong atheists say that they envy the way churches can help one create strong friendships and community. That isn't to say it isn't still a lot of work on your part, but there may be a lot of opportunities if you can find a good church community to participate in.
• codazoda 4y ago
  Not starting a successful business. I recently got into a mindset where I thought I may die. I was alone and had sudden chest pain. Anyway, my mind wandered to this question and I fixated on the fact that I’ve dreamed about it my entire life and yet I haven’t made it happen. I did walk away from that feeling pretty good. After all, I had no immediate regrets about the important things like family and friends.
• randomsearch 4y ago
  My school years were utter misery. It was the worst period of my life. I wish I had just stopped going. I was bright enough to teach myself, there was a decent library on my commute. I wasted over a decade of my life unhappy. It was a good life lesson, it made me stronger and wiser and more grateful, but looking back it's pretty fortunate I'm still here to reflect on that lesson. Schools, particularly high schools, needs to be completely reformed. They are prisons for the young.
• bsnnkv 4y ago
  Most of these I have made peace with and addressed in my life now, but historically, these have been my biggest regrets: Becoming addicted to pornography and masturbation in my early teens and staying addicted throughout my 20s. I have been sober for years now, and for me, it was only possible through working the SLAA[1] program. I never actually knew it existed until a therapist suggested it to me; I wish it had been easier to find, but unfortunately whenever I would search for resources in overcoming pornography addiction, I would only ever really find places like r/NoFap. On the one hand, I have spent more than half of my life addicted to pornography. On the other hand, I now have the gift of potentially being able to spend more than half of my time on this earth sober. The glass is definitely half full for me on this one. Not learning how to dance until my 30s. I was once made fun of for dancing at a party as a young child (<5yo maybe) by my mother and a friend of hers, and that led to me being completely terrified of dancing until last year. I would get very angry and ashamed whenever I was in a situation where dancing was involved, and just generally feel not-good and attacked whenever somebody who loved me wanted to dance with me. I picked up swing dancing last year and now dancing is one of the most joyous activities in my life, and you can usually find me out cutting a rug on a Wednesday night.[2] Being a lousy big brother to my one younger brother. This one probably hurts me the most and I still have not been able to forgive myself for it. Funnily enough, my younger brother loves me very much and we have a good relationship now, but when I think about all the ways I failed him when we were younger I just lose it emotionally. Working on this in therapy currently. Not taking care of my body in my teenage years and 20s, and especially wasting all that free extra T[3] when I was going through puberty. I wish I could go back in time and drag myself to the gym when I first hit puberty! I do a wide range of physical activities now including lifting and I have a body and the kind of mass I never would have dreamed of before, but sometimes I like to imagine what I would have looked like now if I had started 20 years ago. Oh well, I can always see what I look like in 20 years' time! [1]: My stubborn younger self would have written this due to the vaguely religious overtones of the 12 steps, but I'm glad that as a still-non-religious adult I was able to get out of my own way on this one and just focus on doing what I needed to do to get better [2]: This is also how I found probably my most important adult friend group after the age of 30! [3]: I will probably hop on TRT when I'm older and my T levels go down, so maybe I will get to experience something like that later in my life after all
• stefanos82 4y ago
  Last year I have answered to a related question; the answer remains the same I'm afraid. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27785753#27816241 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27785753#27816241
• ultra_nick 4y ago
  Not asking anyone working in the career I wanted about the career. It's been a decade of floundering.
• soueuls 4y ago
  I did my master degree in Tsinghua University, China. I was surrounded by really smart people. I regret leaving China to go back to Europe. I truly wished I was still living there.
  • camjohnson26 4y ago
    Every mistake is an experience that makes you a unique person and helps you know who you are. I have friends who regretted leaving China and went back, only to find the grass is always greener on the other side.
    • soueuls 4y ago
      Yes, it depends on the person’s ideals, it’s now obvious to me that I am more aligned with China then my home country. I wish I could be there right now
      • tasuki 4y ago
        Can't you go back?
• deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
• djohnston 4y ago
  So far, squandering a relationship with someone I really loved. I traded my closest connection for selfish hedonism and I've spent 8 years trying to find that bond again.
• smeej 4y ago
  In 2017, I finally--courageously, in my opinion at the time--decided not to subject myself to my dad at Christmastime and bailed on a trip to see family for Christmas. Only a few days after Christmas, my sister, who was 8 months pregnant, died very suddenly and with no warning. I missed my last chance to see her alive, and I wound up spending a month staying with my parents anyway immediately after that, trying to help them manage. With the information I had when I made the decision, I still think it was the right one, and I'm reasonably sure I would make it again with the same amount of information. But I'll always wish I had made it differently anyway.
  • brandnewlow 4y ago
    I'm sorry for your loss.
  • sgt101 4y ago
    I am so sorry. I hope you can take a lot of comfort that even with hindsight you feel that your decision was the best one that you could have made. I imagine your sister would have agreed and would have understood. We never know the storms we are about to sail into.
  • baobabKoodaa 4y ago
    For some reason this resonated very strongly with me. Especially the reasoning around decisionmaking, where you wish you'd made the "wrong" choice because the outcome would have been better due to factors you could not have known beforehand. I'm sorry for your loss.
    • smeej 4y ago
      It might sound weird to say it just this way, but I had to forgive myself for not being there. My presence wouldn't have made any difference to the outcome (it's not like if I had been there she might not have died), but had I made a different choice, I would have had those last few days and those last few memories with her. I honestly haven't forgiven my dad for my not being there, though, even though my choice was my own. Perhaps if he had changed at all since then, it would be easier to feel differently. I've recently heard forgiveness defined as "letting go of all hope for a better past," though, and I might be able to get to forgiving him by that path, for my own sake, not for his.
• Dowwie 4y ago
  I should have given web development in the 90s my complete attention while in high school but thought it was too complicated and too great a challenge. There weren't as many resources to learn from and I didn't have access to mentors. I didn't have any idea what was involved with the work. I regret not trying. I had the interest and the time.
• durnygbur 4y ago
  When younger, trying to pass out, run away, reset. Instead should have simply eat better, hydrate, exercise and have sex with girls. Would have made much more constructive decisions and choices...
• chasd00 4y ago
  I stayed at my first job for 11 years. I should have stayed 3-4 max
• deadcore 4y ago
  I'll give this a go as it took me far too long to work this out - and some might disagree with me. Taking every single ounce of advice people give to you. I've found that everyone has a pathway in life, a way they are able to unlock and achieve their full potential. I found that what works for one person, may not always work for another. When I was starting out I would listen without question to anyones advice, peers, managers, business owners and attempt to shape myself to accommodate that advice & guidance - to only find that it would stifle me. Everyone has an opinion on how to do things best, but sometimes you just need to believe in yourself and your own capabilities. Now I'm not saying don't ever listen to anyone, just be selective on who you listen to.
  • nottorp 4y ago
    Listen to everyone. Just don't do what they say if it doesn't suit you. This is not a regret, just an opinion.
• deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
• glutamate 4y ago
  My biggest regret is wasting so much time regretting things.
  • waterlaw 4y ago
    This is good advice. Learning lessons is not the same as wallowing and reliving the past.
• alocasia-1 4y ago
  The crap I tolerated from others when I was younger. Not necessarily within relationships - that helped me define my standards and boundaries, raised my appreciation for functional relationships, yada yada ... it sucked ass but it served a purpose. I mean more the treatment from customers and coworkers in my teens and early twenties, the restaurant jobs and summer gigs when I was just a skinny, horrifically awkward young woman that was busting her ass for minimum wage (or less) and didn't know how to stand up for herself. How I just froze up and smiled and didn't talk back. I should have humiliated those men. Instead they just went on about their day to do it to someone else. Now I work from home and I'm too grouchy looking and, I guess, too old to get much of that any more, which is a blessing - but as far as regrets, I wish I'd found my spine in the aughts.
• uberdru 4y ago
  Not dumping my stock after my company was acquired in 2000. Also not holding that stock until 2022.
• washedawayse 4y ago
  Working for PagerDuty. I gave PagerDuty a $100k discount on my market rate in exchange for 2% of stock. The week I got fired, I had just taken us to AWS Re:Invent and helped sign a lot of business. During this conference, a gross creeper named Jedidiah Smith (really) from Linode/Foursquare, started sexually harassing and stalking our Office Admin who had come to help with the conference. Our child of a CTO wouldn't do anything about it, so I took matters into my own hands and had him fired, because his boss was a friend and former customer of mine. This made my boss feel impotent, knowing I acted like a man, and he acted like a coward. A man protects his people at all costs. A coward drinks whisky and hobnobs while a potential rapist threatens his people. ( True story, when Moira of the Apache Foundation killed herself, Jed was considered to have shared some of the blame for his constant harassment over her for having been raped, and for being trans. When I still had LinkedIn, he stalked me every 3 days terrified I would do something to him. ) During the conference, AWS us-east-1 went out, and I was blamed for PD's shitty single-AZ, single-region infrastructure, even though 110% of my work had been marketing at that point, and I had not really done anything technical. The founders were to blame for every shitty technical decision they had made, but I was the oldest person in the company, and the easiest scapegoat because I wasn't a young techbro (I was 30, they were 24). On the flight home to San Francisco my father died. When I arrived at the office that afternoon I was fired. No stock, no severance, just "we locked you out, give us your laptop, fuck you". I was fired and paid a half day's pay for that week. Working for pagerduty was the worst mistake of my life. I was still idealistic and happy when I first started there. I loved the project. I thought we were going to take over the world. They became billionaires, I became homeless. My stock would be worth like $100m now. For a while I lived on the roof of Pagerduty's office. It's easy to walk by the security guard, the view is stunning, and it's really warm in the loft up above the elevator shaft. The last picture of my father, he was wearing a PagerDuty shirt he had just received. On the way to bury him, my brother in law and closest friend in this world died of an accidental oxycotin overdose due to a surgery. Boy didn't even take aspirin until his achilles tendon snapped, first week of painkillers he died. Just like that. Poof. Living consciousness to dead meat in a box. My grandfather and mother all died within a year of that. I fell into a hopeless depression, tried to kill myself several times, spent the next year and a half in a drug-fueled haze. When I woke up, I was living in a stolen RV, my fiancee had left me, all of my friends had ghosted me, my family had disowned me, I'd been arrested three times and was over $75k in debt. I decided to nullify my life. Cynicism and nihilism is my life's philosophy. For the past 11 years I have only slept with women I paid, so that I don't need to have any attachment. I have no ties, no responsibilities, no connections. I lie to people about my name if I socialize so that I never have to engage with the same person more than once. If I do accidentally connect with the same person twice, I decide it's time to move on, which happens every 2-4 months. I've moved about 50 times, if you can call drifting "moving". Digital nomadding, I dunno, whatever. I own three motorcycles, (all R1250RTs) the one I'm on now, one in London and one in Mexico City I imagine has long-since been stolen. I have a backpack, a hand drum, a laptop, a few burner phones, about 50 sim cards, a wallet, a two pairs of custom hiking shoes, a week's worth of hiking clothes and a couple of Neal Stephenson books. Also, some antacids, i have the worst acid reflux. I carry my Do Not Resuscitate on me, I have not had a social media account of any type for 10 years. My real identity is long lost, sometimes I refer to myself by one of my fake identities so much I start believing them. My passports and IDs are all fake, and I'm happy being anonymous. I've managed to squirrel away a few hundred thousand dollars in cash and gold in storage lockers in my favorite cities. No crypto, I prefer pure anonymity. Before I die I'll collect it all and give it away to homeless people. I like sitting with bums, drug-dealers, hookers and junkies. They're honest, they accept me for who I am and never ask me questions I don't want to answer, and I never ask them any either. The closest I come to having friends is knowing drug dealers by name in 20 or so countries. When I come to a new city, I walk around looking for the thugs, make a deal, hand them a beer and talk to them for a bit. I haven't actually done drugs in 5 or 6 years, besides cannabis and acid, I just like talking to real people and there ain't nobody realer than a hustler. My old man was a hell's angel, I prefer lowlifes to the rich. I left tech for a while, made a pile by selling coke, heroin and mdma to yuppy tech bros, many, many of whom worked for YCombinator companies. Let's just say I know where a lot of bodies are buried. If I wrote a tell-all book, I could run the lives and reputations of at least 20 names you recognize very well. Don't worry, I am an animal with integrity when it comes to secrets. Within a few years I will be breathing through an oxygen tank because of congenital emphysema, and a few years after that I'll be dead. This is my remaining comfort, this knowledge of my mortality is strangely very comforting. The series of events which began with PagerDuty nullified my life. I hold only bitterness and hatred for my peers, my colleagues, my employers and my customers, and each and every one of you on this site. To me, you are prey, somebody to rob or jump for fun. Don't worry, if I jump you, I won't keep your wallet, I'll give it to the first bum I see. I'm too old for that now anyways, my lungs are failing. My last ~20 employers never knew my real name. I have a few people I hire off of UpWork to be my references when I need a new gig. I have no social media presence, no saved e-mails, no photos, no papers, no property. Just the bare essentials to survive and to keep moving, I'm like a shark, always gotta keep moving. I don't exist. For those of you who are familiar with GG Allin, he defined who I became after PagerDuty with more eloquence than I ever could. "Everybody knows that I'm a scumbag They won't come and see me in this dive Everyone's afraid of what might happen to them Or if they'll even get out of there alive Some fuckhead in the corner is getting to me Talkin' about the way I look and smell Well I guess he don't know that I'm the Outlaw Scumfuck Someone aughta' warn him before I knock him straight to Hell Because everybody knows that I'm a scumbag I like sluts and whores and I don't care You can say just what you want to say about me But if I hear you I might just go knock you off your chair' Cause I like to drink whiskey by the gallon I live on peanut butter sandwiches, I don't care I spent some nights in jail in this old country Everybody hates me and I just don't fucking care" Fuck y'all, especially you Alex. Fuck you, Alex.
• clavalle 4y ago
  Not finishing my degree. I started a business which was successful and dropped out a year before I finished my ChE degree. I had decided that I didn't want to go into oil (which was the most likely career path) and that I really enjoyed writing software and I was making more than I would as a ChE, so why bother? I've been writing software ever since. However...not having graduated has bothered me more than I thought it would. I have a letter from the Dean allowing me back as long as I go full time and finish as a ChE. It's been over 20 years so I'm not sure how much weight it carries now, but I doubt it's something I'll ever take the time to do. Looking back, it would have been better to tap down my enthusiasm temporarily and just finished up. Back then a year seemed like such a long time.
• coldcode 4y ago
  I was in Silicon Valley just before the start of Dot-Com with nearly a decades experience running a couple of software startups (in Texas, not in a high tech city) working at Apple and left to go back home thus missing out on enormous opportunities. I thought Apple would go out of business and figured no point in sticking around. What a doofus... I never looked around and asked, would my experience be useful somewhere? My career was OK but who knows where I might have wound up.
• nosleep10 4y ago
  Trusting my family.
• nosleep10 4y ago
  Trusting my family. Believing white ppl.
• KBeyo 4y ago
  Nothing. In fact, I’ve worked hard to come to accept that of which occurs in my life that is undesired - be it from my actions or actions that are outside my control. Everything that has occurred has happened for me, not to me. I’ve learned a great deal along the way and build my character from all my experiences. And just like everyone in this thread, you wouldn’t be who you are without these “regrets”. Hindsight is one thing, having regrets is another. I don’t like to say I regret anything, I’m just living and learning, accepting and letting the pieces fall into place. Life is too short to live with regrets.
• PuppyTailWags 4y ago
  I regret not publicly proclaiming my love for people and their talents. I've always held back on expressing how much I appreciate others and I regret every time I do so. There is no friendship like a friendship where two people earnestly love and respect each other intellectually and creatively.
• pfdietz 4y ago
  That I didn't try to intervene when my brother was spiraling down to suicide. The warning signs were there, but I ignored them.
• lordnacho 4y ago
  Normally people mean if they could change a decision they made about the past. I guess in that sense I should have been more critical when starting a business a few years back about who to bring along. I had my doubts about a certain partner, which turned out to be right. Maybe the biggest "hiring mistake" I've done.
• Mezzie 4y ago
  Going to grad school. Took on a bunch of debt, which would have been fine if I'd been able to pursue my original career choice. I got MS my last semester and am now stuck in the limbo of 'able to work so I can't get my loans discharged' but 'not able to do work that would PAY ENOUGH TO PAY OFF MY LOANS and not able to do the work I trained for'. Possibly undergrad as well. I think I would have done much better in the trades, honestly, but that was not an accepted/encouraged option in the early 00s. Especially for girls. My parents are still giving me guff for having left an office job.
• waterlaw 4y ago
  Lost half my money in Gold/Silver mining stocks. Broke at 30. Didn't start that businesses I wanted to in my 20s. Would had been in the same position financially by now anyway.
• kieckerjan 4y ago
  I have been writing fiction for as long as I could hold a pen and always wanted to be a writer. But then computers happened and getting an interesting job was as easy for me as snapping my fingers. In my early thirties I realized that unless I did something drastic, I was never going to be a writer. So I enrolled in a four year creative writing course. (Creative writing is not routinely taught in college here.) The place had a tough selection policy and was run by established writers with editors and publishers. It is probably the best place in my country to build a network and get noticed. I did get indeed noticed and published a few short stories in a reputable magazine. Then the publisher (which is one of the most prestigious in the country) had a sit-down with me and told me they really liked my work but they wanted to see something more substantial, which is thinly veiled code for a novel. It was a come-on as big as they come in the literary world. And I fucked it up. I never took them up on their offer. I did not even try and write that book. After a while my contacts dried up and the window of opportunity closed. Nowadays when I send something to that particular publisher it ends up in the slush pile of uninvited manuscripts (of which they receive over a thousand yearly). I don't blame them, but I do regret it.
• kadabra9 4y ago
  A high paying, cushy job in tech / FAANG with great benefits and easy work/life balance can be as much of a crutch as it is a blessing. With your own personal situation so good, it can be too easy to just stick to the default and not chase something that's more ambitious, but perhaps also more risky as well (whatever that is). The years go by fast and eventually you start wondering if its too late (it's not). So, have gratitude and appreciate the good situation(s) you've found yourself in, but if there's some idea or action you can't seem to forget about, go do it.
• bsnnkv 4y ago
  Going to try and repost this comment because from what I can tell it was shadow banned, maybe for use of a word that triggered a filter? Most of these I have made peace with and addressed in my life now, but historically, these have been my biggest regrets: Becoming addicted to prngrfy and mstrbtion in my early teens and staying addicted throughout my 20s. I have been sober for years now, and for me, it was only possible through working the SLAA[1] program. I never actually knew it existed until a therapist suggested it to me; I wish it had been easier to find, but unfortunately whenever I would search for resources in overcoming prngrphy addiction, I would only ever really find places like the big sub with "astronauts". On the one hand, I have spent more than half of my life addicted to prngrfy. On the other hand, I now have the gift of potentially being able to spend more than half of my time on this earth sober. The glass is definitely half full for me on this one. Not learning how to dance until my 30s. I was once made fun of for dancing at a party as a young child (<5yo maybe) by my mother and a friend of hers, and that led to me being completely terrified of dancing until last year. I would get very angry and ashamed whenever I was in a situation where dancing was involved, and just generally feel not-good and attacked whenever somebody who loved me wanted to dance with me. I picked up swing dancing last year and now dancing is one of the most joyous activities in my life, and you can usually find me out cutting a rug on a Wednesday night.[2] Being a lousy big brother to my one younger brother. This one probably hurts me the most and I still have not been able to forgive myself for it. Funnily enough, my younger brother loves me very much and we have a good relationship now, but when I think about all the ways I failed him when we were younger I just lose it emotionally. Working on this in therapy currently. Not taking care of my body in my teenage years and 20s, and especially wasting all that free extra T[3] when I was going through puberty. I wish I could go back in time and drag myself to the gym when I first hit puberty! I do a wide range of physical activities now including lifting and I have a body and the kind of mass I never would have dreamed of before, but sometimes I like to imagine what I would have looked like now if I had started 20 years ago. Oh well, I can always see what I look like in 20 years' time! [1]: My stubborn younger self would have written this due to the vaguely religious overtones of the 12 steps, but I'm glad that as a still-non-religious adult I was able to get out of my own way on this one and just focus on doing what I needed to do to get better [2]: This is also how I found probably my most important adult friend group after the age of 30! [3]: I will probably hop on TRT when I'm older and my T levels go down, so maybe I will get to experience something like that later in my life after all
• yashg 4y ago
  Not getting a CS/engineering degree is my biggest regret. I would go back and get an engineering degree. I have 20 years of experience and I am a CTO. But even today CTO level openings need a CS/engineering degree from a brand name school. My resume won't make it past automated filters at top companies. When people say education and degrees don't matter, it just fills me with rage and regret.
  • arethuza 4y ago
    I suspect that any organisation that filters you out because of the lack of a CS/engineering degree is probably an organisation that doesn't deserve you!
    • yashg 4y ago
      Yes that's what I say to myself as a consolation.
• pmarreck 4y ago
  I never felt real acceptance from my parents. Which made the first woman I fell in love with, who was very beautiful and sweet and totally accepting of me, nearly impossible to get away from once I realized that she was unsuitable for me to make a permanent (and sole) life partner. Cue many years spent seeing her on and off while trying to reclaim the same spark elsewhere and fucking up other perfectly-good (if never quite the same, and certainly less intense) relationships. Unfortunately it seems that a lot of my… sexuality (this word seems like a vast oversimplification in this case) got tied up with her and is basically now gone, and I’m still processing this years later. I did retain the self-confidence she gave me though, but the cost…
• pc86 4y ago
  I'm torn on this. My life is pretty great. Well paid, leaving a job I hate for a job I think I will love in the next few weeks, loving family. Things would be drastically different if not for the path I actually took, but still. I'm a developer, and a decent one - not FAANG level by any means, but decent. But, my degree is from a school nobody's ever heard of, in an unrelated humanities subject, with a horrendous, barely-graduated level GPA. I was much more concerned with partying and video games. If I had it to do over again, I would have majored in CS, studied, and actually applied myself. So I'm torn. If I had had my eye on CS, I might have gone to a school like CMU or similar, would have been excited by the material as opposed to the classes I slogged through, and maybe ended up in SF or NYC in the 2008-2010 timeframe. That was a super exciting time in the startup space. Who knows where I'd be now, but it certainly wouldn't be where I actually am, and I really like where I actually am.
  • deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  • RMPR 4y ago
    > I'm a developer, and a decent one - not FAANG level by any means, but decent This statement rubs me the wrong way. What does that mean being "FAANG level"? It's either a misconception of what is going on there or underestimating yourself... Or both
    • pc86 4y ago
      It certainly could be both! And I get what you mean, I always feel weird if I say something like that because it's not exactly what I mean but it's the best way I know to articulate it. I'm sure every FAANG has dead weight, but I've always had the impression that in part due to the compensation the best of the industry tend to gravitate there. That certainly may have changed in the last decade when I think that idea got solidified in my mind.
      • jmcphers 4y ago
        There are plenty of middling engineers at FAANG-class companies. It is true that they have more rigorous standards and employ above average engineers, but that isn't the primary driver of the comp: these companies have to pay a premium to attract engineers in part because working at a huge (and in many cases unpopular) company isn't fun. Source: Worked at Microsoft for about a decade.
• oldsklgdfth 4y ago
  I've got a whiteboard on my wall with phrases I want to internalize and maybe turn into mantras. One of them is: "Guilt and regret kill many a man before their time." I regret many things in life. If I could go back I would do things very differently. I would be kinder. More hard working. Humble. Have integrity. Uplift the people around me. Explore the world. It's very depressing when I look at my life that way. So I just look at today. How do I make the most of today. If I get hit by a bus will I be satisfied with what I did. Remember half of life is chance.
  • deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
• j_k_eter 4y ago
  Denying the existence of God (or a higher organizing intelligent power, if you like) until I was 45.
• CSMastermind 4y ago
  I dated a girl in college, and we were deeply in love. So much so that we got engaged. The one problem was that her family didn't approve of her dating me because of my race. She had initially been hesitant to introduce me to them, but I had insisted that she do it. When they threatened to disown her if she married me, she said that we should just do it and live our lives together. But I was too much of a coward to follow through and tried instead to convince her family to accept me. They never did and our relationship feel apart. I've never met someone that I care about the way I cared about her. Huge what if.
  • deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  • gernb 4y ago
    I had a similar experience. Her father threatened to fly over and take her back forcefully if she didn't stop dating me. She told him she stopped but kept seeing me. Eventually she hoped to elope. She also had a deadline for leaving the country, visa etc... I wasn't as sure as you sounded tho and decided even though things were great we had not been together long enough to get married and she shouldn't give up her family for me. Two years after she got back they made her choose a husband from one of 3 from a matchmaker. She said she wasn't in love with the guy but she was doing her duty.
  • autospeaker22 4y ago
    Sorry that happened to you. I had a similar experience not being approved for being different with my first high school crush. We both liked each other as much as young kids can like each other. What surprised me was when it came time to ask her to date formally, she didn't seem interested. This was surprising to me based on all of our interactions and I found out a couple of months later from her friend that it was because of me being "different" and fear of how her family would react if she dated someone "different". She didn't want to upset me so she never told me, but damn it hurt just as bad to hear it from someone else. So what's my regret? Well there's a couple but the biggest one is that instead of embracing being different and who I was and where I came from, I instead tried to hide it as best I could. I avoided anything to do with my native culture or language because I think I was so hurt internally that someone who appeared to have feelings for me would put them aside for fear of their family's reaction. I even gave up my interests that I feared were too nerdy and contributed to my being "different", after all I am on hacker news so there's some nerd in me, right? Ended up going off to college in a big city school where different was normal and got back to my roots and interests and this put me on a wonderful path that lead to great success early in my career, stronger relationships with my family and culture, and a much happier life. It feels good to embrace "you", even if some small-town folk may think it's "different". My secondary regret is that I never reached back out to her to see if she still had similar feelings or maybe tried to get a relationship going on as more mature adults. I've thought about her a good bit but I think what I've realized is that it's not so much her that I'm interested in, it's that all I wanted was to be accepted by her and that maybe if I were to be accepted, I could prove to myself that I'm really not "different".
• carapace 4y ago
  Generally I believe it's important to learn from your mistakes, which are inevitable. If you're learning and trying to do better, then regret should fade with time. I think the biggest mistake that I've made (that others might be helped to avoid by hearing about) was not to save money. I've had a lot of money flow through my hands over the course of my career as a programmer, yet I have very little to show for it, and I'm not getting any younger. Other than that, I mostly regret the times I've hurt people or not helped them but could have.
• timwaagh 4y ago
  I would have prevented by parents from using psychoactive medicine on me. Even though I was very young and it could not be said to be a reasonable thing to deny your parents anything at that age I still should have been stronger. I later learned that it has implications for your development so might have changed who I am. And not for the better. As a close second: telling girls I was interested was something I could not do for a long long time. It's still difficult and I know it's very common for men to have these sort of regrets but I managed to overcome at least some of that. I could have studied harder too but it was very difficult for me.
• 015a 4y ago
  There's a lot of very serious ones in here; I'm going to opt for something a bit lighter: I regret not being more diligent in money management throughout university and after graduation. Working a ton, but not saving. Not investing. Living downtown for too many years. Going out to restaurants and bars multiple times a week. Buying a new iPhone every year. Not optimizing the career path for income (or, anything really). Never really going into debt beyond a (cheap) car payment, so it could be worse, but also not seeing personal capital grow. Now, I'm hitting the stage where I feel this pull to try an independent venture; and maybe even leave the software industry. But I don't know how to do it financially. Its not just the runway in my bank account which could be measured in months; its the lifestyle.
  • jly 4y ago
    This is mine, too. I'm in my 40s now but I didn't get serious about saving and managing money until my mid-30s. Lived a very fun but expensive lifestyle downtown in a major city for many years while single. I'd be a lot closer to some of my financial goals if I had been more focused on saving through my 20s and 30s. While my family is doing fine compared to many others, it feels like I'm always trying to catch up. This really starts to hit home when you add kids.
  • tasuki 4y ago
    I have the opposite situation. I wish I'd spent more money on having fun. Time is a finite resource.
• gadders 4y ago
  Not spending more time my parents and grandparents when they were older. You get busy with your own life and they never made me feel guilty for not visiting, but this is something that would have benefited me as much as them. I could have done better.
• kludgemaker 4y ago
  I regret hearing the lies spoken during sex education when I was in fifth grade in 1987. The public school I was forced to attend brought in a sociologist to do the damage. She told us that we had to release our libido energy regularly - either by having sexual relations with another person or by masturbation, and that this was okay and healthy. Self control and abstinence were presented as being unrealistic. This provided me with moral license from an expert (and indirectly from my parents, who had to sign the permission form to attend the lecture). One thing led to another, and it undoubtedly resulted in addiction; the endorphins and oxytocin produced by the human body and released during orgasm are worse than heroin. Bad habits form easily, and it's scary when you can't stop doing something that you believed would be just an experiment at age ten. The shame / guilt was hell. If I could change anything anything about my past it would be to erase the immersion into that addiction at such an early, formative age. All other attachments of spirit have been easy to deal with - this one has not.
  • simonebrunozzi 4y ago
    It's weird to me that in my home country, Italy, "sex addition" is not seen as a problem at all, and I suspect this would be true for many other countries with similar cultural background (e.g. Mediterranean/Western cultures). The first time I saw a movie where the protagonist was a "sex addict" and was going to group therapy, akin to AA, I couldn't believe it. At that point I was abroad, working for a US company. I eventually moved to the US a few years later. At some point I realized that my bias towards this came from my cultural background, and it was actually hard to explain it to co-workers, or other Americans in general.
  • _k7dr 4y ago
    I have the same problem. In the sex education course I was given we were taught about abstinence and such, and there wasn't anything controversial as I recall. However I asked the counselor giving the lecture if it were possible to get an STD by masturbating. He said "no." For my adolescent brain, that was all the validation I needed to become addicted to this day. Many factors have conspired to keep things this way: - The only prerequisite to becoming addicted is having a body that is intact. - There is practically nothing to prevent a curious teenager from masturbating at a young age, and the current literature regards this as normal, despite the fact that it can lead to addiction if it's not addressed. But teenagers are not about to let something that embarrassing be addressed by their family, especially for one as reticent as I was. - Because the addiction is behavioral there is no physical substance to seek out and no seedy culture to involve oneself in, so there's no exposure that could lead to outside forces wanting to change you. You can obtain a limitless amount of porn anywhere for free and nobody would ever know. - The physical consequences of using are mostly fatigue the next day, which can be mistaken as the result of anything. Mentioning sexual topics is taboo in comparison to admitting you are alcoholic, so nobody is going to guess correctly and intervene based on your appearance. It's an invisible addiction. - When it's to the point that people online question if addiction to masturbation is even a thing, or if it's a puritanical argument in opposition to sexual freedom, it greatly diminishes the stances of people who actually have the condition and can't control themselves. Many are trying to decrease the shame around sexual things while the people that can't help themselves are left behind adding those movements to an ever-growing list of rationalizations. - Being addicted to masturbating and/or porn is not as severe as being addicted to hard drugs or even alcohol. It gives you a sense that this is the "right" addiction to have if you're going to have an addiction at all, and makes quitting all but hopeless once it's taken hold. - Admitting to this publicly opens yourself up to ridicule with the way the culture is set up. It's unlikely many would react positively to jokes about heroin users or binging alcoholics. Sexual humor on the other hand is practically embedded into every sitcom and countless memes and dick jokes. Addiction to masturbation is never going to be taken as seriously or at as large a scale as most other addictions. The only good part is that the addiction is manageable for the most part and my lack of sociality has prevented me from going as far as casual sex. But I'm starting to have erectile dysfunction and a loss of satisfaction from physical overuse. A part of me thinks that the way masturbation is meant to be a totally private activity closed off all routes for anyone to help me from a young age. It makes me wonder if trying to avoid all addictions would have been a hopeless endeavor from the start. Every time I admitted it to a counselor or therapist they either wouldn't take it seriously or didn't offer any routines that stuck. Still, even though it is a rationalization for my own addiction, I am still glad I did not get addicted to alcohol or cigarettes or eating instead. It gives me pause to think how easily I could have started down that path with just a bit more openness to experience than I once had. EDIT: And of course to prove my point about stigma I've been hellbanned for making this very post.
• b3lvedere 4y ago
  I should study and gain lots of (Microsoft) certificates, but i hate classes and study books so much. I taught myself using Debian by being interested and tinkering with it, which is so much better.
• joshmarinacci 4y ago
  Honestly, not much. You’d expect me to say my 14 year marriage that ended last year, but without that marriage I wouldn’t have my son. My only regrets are not spending more time with him, which I’m making up for right now.
• nineplay 4y ago
  I had a great job. Great pay, stock grants that are still going up, good work/life balance, and co-workers who were friends, co-workers who wanted me on their teams. I'd spearheaded an initiative which ultimately failed but had earned me a good reputation. I went on a medication with a side effect of anger. I was told that at the beginning, I was told that there were other drugs I could use instead. I dismissed the concern, I'd be fine. I got cocky. I got complacent. I convinced myself that the company needed me and would never dare replace me. I started to get a really bad attitude - openly sneered at projects that I didn't think could succeeded. I was probably right but I didn't help anyone by my griping. I lost the job. Technically I was 'laid off' but it was that or simply get fired. I lost friends with my unpleasant attitude. I made statements that made me cringe with embarrassment now. I'm doing fine currently, and am on a new medication. I'm making less though that I would have at my old job, and if I'd stayed there I'd be a lot less worried about my future. They held on to experienced engineers and for some people it was their last job before retiring. I could blame the medicine entirely, but the truth is I'm still an arrogant asshole and I still fall into the trap of believing I'm irreplaceable and can get away with whatever I want. I wish I'd changed medications. I wish that I'd listen to people who tried to help, who told me that there were teams that didn't want to work with me. I'd be in a lot better place.
  • pc86 4y ago
    This could be me - maybe except the successful stock grants :) Some of things I said and did when I was writing PHP shitcode at 24 make me want to crawl inside my couch. I'd like to think I've mellowed out a lot, but I think everyone is susceptible to falling into this trap, especially when they're highly compensated and well respected.
    • nineplay 4y ago
      My first boss was your classic unix-beard, I hear his echo in some of the things I say. Nobody liked him either, but it's easier to get away with it at a 5 engineer company where you're the only one who dares touch the 10 year old C codebase.
    • r3trohack3r 4y ago
• themodelplumber 4y ago
  Not regretting more things earlier. Regrets can be a terrific tool for growth. I posted about it while back. https://www.friendlyskies.net/maybe/regrets-a-powerful-planning-and-energy-restoring-tool https://www.friendlyskies.net/maybe/regrets-a-powerful-plann...
• Matty1992 4y ago
  Sounds insignificant compared to some of the things I'm reading here but I regret not participating in sports as much as I should have when I was in school. Think it would have had a huge affect on my social skills, fitness and overall mental and physical health
• igtztorrero 4y ago
  Not learn to play piano,violin or guitarra in child ages.
• deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
• Test0129 4y ago
  Not spending more time being young. I never really got the chance. Due to life circumstances I had to begin working basically as young as you can work in America. I've never had a free summer, never rushed a frat, never went to dances, etc. At the time it didn't bother me but now I'm older I've seen the effects. I similarly did nothing but school and work to pay bills in college. This has had such a profound effect on my self esteem the scale I have to measure it in is logarithmic. As a result in many ways I'm maladjusted to "normal" life. The song "Time" by Pink Floyd really resonates with me. While I've moved on from losing the best years of my life (you're only young and innocent once) I overcompensated for a long time, and still sometimes to this day, by trying to do everything people invite me to do. Paradoxically this made my situation worse because more...stable people have a lot of people-oriented things they like to do and I approach all these things expecting to not keeping to do them. For example, going to the bar or clubs or whatever. These however lead to more regrets, like drinking too much when I was young and not taking better care of my health (thankfully nothing serious happened). Now, the advantage of getting older is I can look back on this wide body of experience and use it to make calls on things. I know what I like to do. I know that I am not a very social person. Instead of trying to be a caricature of what I imagine a normal person is like I just work with what I have. It's been a long multi-decade process to get here but I am better.
  • primax 4y ago
    You know, with that background I bet everyone holds you up as an ideal of someone who has their shit together, and didn't waste huge parts of their life.
    • Test0129 4y ago
      I guess you could say I have my shit together. It's strange how true grass-is-always greener is. People who did a lot of "fun" stuff growing up wish they were more serious. I wish I had time to be less serious. Life is funny in that way, isn't it?
  • mateo411 4y ago
    I also like Pink Floyd's Time. It also really reasonates with me. In the song, the young folks waste/enjoy their time when they are young. You spent your time working. In the song they spent their time laying in the sun and staying home to watch the rain. Actually it seems like a pleasant youth, but then they later they regret it. I guess they had hustle culture in the UK in the 70s too.
• tiffanyh 4y ago
  Not spending more time with family members to have since passed away.
• ravenstine 4y ago
  I regret not having more emotional maturity at an earlier age. What a lot of people don't know about ADHD is that with it comes a likelihood of a delay in emotional maturity that leads to behavior that's not age appropriate. When looking back at my life, I can identify several times where I was behaving in a way that might have been expected of a child a few years younger than I was but wasn't appropriate for my actual age at the time. This effectively meant losing out on social opportunities, friendships, and romantic relationships. Most of my problems in life stem from this issue. A mild example of said behavior is a time where I threw a fit in front of my girlfriend because my parents asked me to take out the garbage for them. I was living with my parents at the time and really didn't have many chores, so asking me to take out the garbage wasn't a big ask. But at the time I felt like they shouldn't have been wasting my time with that while I had my girlfriend over. Kids sometimes act out, yes, but I was 18 years old. That's even idiotic behavior for a 16 or 17 year old. More extreme examples are the times I made inappropriate jokes or spoke my mind out loud without considering why other people wouldn't appreciate hearing them. I was also very judgmental when I was younger and for some reason thought the world ought to hear how judgmental I was, and I ended up losing some friends and romantic interests over that attitude. It's possible there was nothing I could have done about it, so I struggle to actually regret it. What might have helped me was having an older brother or adult who could identify my behavior pattern, rather than dismiss it, and get me knock it off.
  • russellbeattie 4y ago
    Make sure you're not confusing ADHD with having bipolar type II. The hypomanic periods (a less intense form of mania) seem like ADHD, but the root cause and treatment is different. I've been misdiagnosed for a couple decades and earlier this year finally got the proper meds. The change has been so revelatory, I mention this any time I see someone talking about how much ADHD has affected their lives on the off chance it helps someone. Check it out.
• archhn 4y ago
  Nothing. I love my fate--let it eternally recur!
• slevcom 4y ago
  I regret taking antibiotics for years in high school as a treatment for acne. We just did what the doctor recommended without giving it much thought. My gut has been a mess ever since and it really impacted my quality of life during the “healthiest” years of my life.
• missedthecue 4y ago
  Losing the relationship with my best friend and girlfriend when I was in my twenties. We had been friends ever since we were kids and then dated all through school and college. We both knew marriage was in the cards. But then she left. No one cheated. No broken trust. No drama. She told me she wanted to know what it's like to be alone, which I mean, fair enough after so many years of just us. Since then, many wonderful, smart, and beautiful women have been in my life, but I have never loved anyone liked I loved her. It's an odd thing to regret, because if I could go back and live it again, I cannot think of anything I would have done differently. I've made money and lost money. I should have applied myself more academically. I should have spent more time with my Dad. But when I am alone and reflecting on my life, that is the thing I regret the most.
  • amorriscode 4y ago
    Time to go find her. This is a romance story waiting to be written.
  • higeorge13 4y ago
    Did you ever hear what she did after you? Because the "i want to stay alone excuse" usually means something else. I don't think she deserves to be your biggest regret, you did nothing wrong.
    • missedthecue 4y ago
      She was in fact alone/single for at least 1 or 2 years after last I heard. I haven't stalked her... ha
• Merad 4y ago
  I first went to college in 2002 intending to pursue an engineering degree. At some point before I started school my dad (who had learned programming in the 90s but never did it professional) told me he thought I'd enjoy a programming career and I should think about switching majors. I dismissed it as teenagers tend to do with their parent's advice. Ended up dropping out of school and drifting through my 20s without much to show for it because I didn't know what I wanted to do. It wasn't until 2012 that I went back to school for CS. Can't help but think about how different things might be if I'd gone into the "right" major from the start and entered the industry making a decent salary 8-9 years earlier. But realistically I was a very different person 20 years ago, and just changing my college major probably wouldn't have fixed the things that prevented me from being successful the first time around.
• HealthNeed 4y ago
  All of this poignant reminiscing reminds me of action buttons, aka Tim Rogers, latest review on YouTube. If you like games he puts out some of the best content around. If you aren't, skip to part five of the review to hear the part that this reminded me of. Part five is a wonderful video essay on memory, nostalgia and regret. Tim is also in a unique position to talk about this as he has a condition where he never forgets anything. It's really a fascinating video. Also general shout out to action button, all the videos are fantastic. Link to the video: https://youtu.be/779coR-XPTw https://youtu.be/779coR-XPTw
• mceachen 4y ago
  Prioritizing work over family and loved ones. You don’t get back that time. Ever.
• geocrasher 4y ago
  My past formed me into who I am today, and I am proud of who I am today. Do I wish I had done some things differently? Of course! That's a sign of growth. My advice? Stop living in the past. Your car's windscreen is 100x bigger than the rear view mirror for a reason.
  • apgwoz 4y ago
    > Your car's windscreen is 100x bigger than the rear view mirror for a reason. Great metaphor! It reminds me of a song lyric: “The Future’s so bright you’ll have to wear shades.”
• swframe2 4y ago
  I turned down offers from good friends/classmates who were VPs at early start ups (viaweb, tripadvisor, paypal, vmware, google, yahoo).
• asmr 4y ago
  Oh, I have plenty. Like not continuing to mine bitcoin circa 2010 while I was in high school, and then not buying a ton of bitcoin between 2014-2016 and then losing over 2 BTC in 2017. Then there's the fact that I decided to go to a state school because I was entering with a decent amount of credits and entered a special program for tuition assistance (it sucked). Dropped out (which I also regret). I regret not accepting the NSA's cooperative education program when offered. I regret not deciding to live with my mother when my parents divorced. I regret taking on a job with a ~3 hour commute as my first gig. Should I keep going?
  • lokimedes 4y ago
    Sorry, I have to ask - what are you satisfied you decided to do? I expect you acted on whatever information you had at the moment.
• zackmorris 4y ago
  This is a tricky question because I regret nearly everything about the last 20 years and feel that I'm living in a bizarro reality where it all went wrong. Dot Bomb. 9/11. Forever wars in the Middle East. Housing Bubble. The former president. Global Pandemic. So many unforced errors it boggles the mind! And the way I let the world use me and make me miserable enough to use others. There was no point along that progression where I experienced the feeling of having a win. Just levels upon levels of chronic exhaustion, overwhelm and burnout. To the point where that enduring suffering became my reality. I wish I would have learned about manifestation (reality shifting) earlier. I didn't know that I helped create the reality I was in by fixating on the negative and dwelling on the past. Since I was awakened, I've been shifting along the multiverse through meditation towards realities that better support spirit and magic. I always thought the dawning of the New Age had to do with time, but time is an illusion. It's more like, a dimension just outside ours that we grow into phase with through our vibration, swaying the collapse of the wave function (or whatever you want to call free will). Anyone can do this at any time, but for whatever reason we suppress that lucidity and deny our relationship with creation and our contribution through co-creation. What I'm saying is that from all the ways I let the cold hard facts of logic and ego and the quest for personal gain fail myself, I've found meaning through faith/hope/love and service to others. From the inward flow of the Sith to the outward flow of the Jedi. Or whatever pop culture reference floats your boat. The hippies were right man, all you need is love.
• ezekg 4y ago
  One of my recent big regrets was not refinancing my home in 2020/21 when rates hit the floor, before I quit my well paying job to go FT on my business. Life was crazy and I kept putting it off. But I could have cut my rate in half.
• 1970-01-01 4y ago
  Instead of investing $2000+ in BTC in 2012, I decided to pre-order a miner. It arrived a year late, and it sat in the box for another year. When I finally got around to setting it up, it mined for about 6 days and overheated.
  • 1970-01-01 4y ago
    I just did the math. Simply buying the coin and holding would have given me a 132,141% ROI today
• ta3411 4y ago
  not cashing out in time this March before market took a hit. I lost years of investment gains (down 80%) and honestly feel hopeless if I can ever recover.
• cmt123 4y ago
  I started playing drums when I was 8 years old. A few months later, the movie "That Thing You Do" came out. It's about a drummer who joins a band and becomes a famous rock star. It had such a HUGE impact on me, from that moment until I was about 24 years old I KNEW my life's purpose. I was going to be a rock star. Nothing else was possible, and nothing else mattered. This lead me down a path I now regret. All my friends were other musicians. All we wanted to do was smoke weed, play music, and party. Sure, I had lots of fun along the way, but once I got old enough to actually experience the life of a touring musician I had to accept that it wasn't for me. I wasn't happy with the life style. Turns out, I'm actually happier working hard and living a "normal" life. Luckily, I was able to go to college and get a pretty good job, but I feel like I will never meet my true potential. I spent so many years taking the easy path that I now struggle with mediocrity. All because my 8-year-old brain made a decision that it had no business making. If I could go back in time, I'd focus on going to college straight out of high school and developing myself as much as possible.
• uejfiweun 4y ago
  I'm 25 and I've never really been in a relationship. I'm an attractive guy but I've consistently punched below my weight class with women. Most women that I've actually been interested in I've been too scared to actually make a move. Now I'm in the south bay and while my career is nice I just practically never have random encounters with women and it's getting me really down. I'm going to be moving to SF soon to hopefully change that, but I don't really know anyone in the city and I don't really like the idea of dealing with all the crime up there. Meanwhile I look with jealousy upon my south bay friends who already have relationships. Relationships and women are something that I really wish I had figured out when I was younger. I'm not even sure how a girl would react if I told her I've never been in a relationship, but probably not positively. Unfortunately this area seems like it's going to be the biggest struggle in my life, and I hate the fact that something so grueling for me seems to be so easy and, well, fun for the other 99% of people out there. Also I'm not sure if I'm gay. My life experience leads me to believe that I might just be gay and in denial. I'm not sure. Wish I had figured this out in college. Another one: I wish I hadn't done sports in high school. My natural interests were always along the lines of music, acting, programming, etc. I never really liked sports, honestly. But my parents kind of pushed me into it. So I spent 4 years in high school sucking at sports. I did try, very hard at certain points, but I'm just not a natural athlete. I think it made me a stronger person to have to deal with that but I wish I had been able to pursue things I was actually interested in during HS. Also, I've smoked way too much weed.
  • erenyeager 4y ago
    I don’t think it matters if you’ve never been in a relationship, you’re not looking for the right women if they are upset with you about that. Also you don’t have to come up with a label for your interests. Seems like you need guidance in your life. Lots of ways to get guidance, idk if HN has a DM feature but I think we have some common areas. Anyways, hope you have figure out some stuff
  • badpun 4y ago
    > I hate the fact that something so grueling for me seems to be so easy and, well, fun for the other 99% of people out there. In reality, that number is way, WAY lower, especially at your age? Perhaps 10-20%. The rest is struggling too, in one way or another (some may not realise it at the time).
• markus_zhang 4y ago
  At age 40+, my biggest regret is that I mess around with a lot of things but never focused on one long enough to make any meaningful progress. My list of messing around: - Back in high school, I read a biography of Bill Gates and found it cool to learn some programming. Back then we were taught FOXBASE but I taught myself FOXPRO because it is more pretty with all those Windows UI. I asked my parents if I could do some work for their university (they worked as professors back then) but didn't get any reply. I messed around for a bit longer but then my bad grades caught up so I never did any programming for a long while - In university I got fancied by level design (big thing in late 90s/early 2000s), again only learned a few tools and made some samples. Never drove myself deep enough and gradually lost interest after a couple of years - Fast forward maybe 10 years, finally mustered enough courage to teach myself C++ as game programming seems to be fun. Learned a lot and made a few simple games including half of a Ultima spin-off in 3 months. Life was a bit hard at the time so had to focus on getting a job and working as a salesman (really hate it). - Worked hard to squeeze into IT as I still like programming. Wasted a few years on that sales job but eventually landed a BA job. After a couple of hops I managed to land an IT job (current one). In the middle married my wife and got a baby, but never truly found the focus/passion of life. Actually, the closer to my target IT job, the less passionate I'm. I still pick up hobbies nowadays (am reading binary analysis today) but don't really think I can drill deep in any of them.
  • panarky 4y ago
    At age 50+ your biggest regret will be spending your 40s focused on past mistakes and lamenting your regrets.
    • markus_zhang 4y ago
      Yeah Ian see that. Actually I kinda give up and just pick up new things and drop them at will. Ironically Kid, work and school leave me little time for hobbies actually. I guess this is...more productive?
• irrational 4y ago
  I with I had signed up for my companies ESPP and 401k earlier. But I didn’t really have the financial acumen to understand why that was a good idea.
• throwaway2722 4y ago
  I spent my twenties doing nothing but working. I put no time into learning basic self care skills like cooking, cleaning, or exercise. Weekends were wasted mostly lying in bed exhausted. I never dated. In retrospect I was obviously depressed, but I took me nearly 10 years to understand why. My relationships with my parents and peers earlier in life had been so fraught that I became convinced I could never have a healthy relationship with someone. I had so little exposure to people whose relationships were healthy that the possibility hardly occurred to me. It’s difficult to describe what believing this for an extended period can do to a person. I ultimately realized my mistake and set myself towards bringing more people into my life. However, in trying to correct this I made another mistake. I started taking finasteride in an effort to maintain my appearance, as I believed early baldness would negatively affect people’s initial impressions of me (particularly in romantic contexts). As it turns out, I’m one of the unfortunate few who have severe adverse reactions to this drug. Now, in addition to being socially and romantically inexperienced and out of shape, I’m also constantly fatigued, sexually impotent, and ironically still balding. I again find it very difficult to imagine anyone, particularly a woman, would want anything to do with me. I see others my own age with families of their own now, while I have done nothing. It’s hard to manage the despair.
  • tasuki 4y ago
    > as I believed early baldness would negatively affect people’s initial impressions of me I hope you know now, this is a mistaken belief. Also in romantic context.
    • throwaway2722 4y ago
      There is plenty of survey data to show that baldness reduces a man’s attractiveness. The effect size varies with age. Anecdotally, it also appears to have especially dire consequences in modern online dating. However, this effect surely pales in comparison to the effect of the permanent sexual dysfunction finasteride can cause. It is frankly outrageous that regulators in the United States have adopted the drug companies’ willful ignorance of this. In my case I find it impossible to imagine I will ever meet a partner who is comfortable with inability to participate in normative sexual relations, as well as being compatible in other dimensions. I could honestly say that it has ruined my life.
• reuben_scratton 4y ago
  Having kids. I'm sure it's great for normies but my kids are mentally disabled and being their dad is grief and heartache without end. I have no close family to share any of it with - the little family I grew up with are all dead and I am looking forward to my own death. I hope that one day genetic research will advance to a point where 23andme et al can help future young couples avoid these kind of outcomes.
  • 1sembiyan 4y ago
    My sympathies. Are these issues that could have been flagged by the current genetic pre-screeners? Eg NIPT
• georgeburdell 4y ago
  No real regrets here. Sure, there are peers that are doing better and have more prestigious jobs, which I envy, but I chose the path I did to have a stable life. Hopefully my kids can take more risks knowing that they have a solid safety net
• deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
• drakonka 4y ago
  Not finding a better home for my rescued Rainbow Lorikeet when I was moving countries. I had him since he was a baby, having found him with an injured wing in the middle of the road. We took him to the vet, who said that they were considered pests in Western Australia, so they'd just put him down; so I took him home instead. I was moving from Australia to Sweden. I looked into bringing him with me, but how well would a tropical bird really do in _Sweden_, and would he be able to survive the stress of the journey? I decided to find him a good home. I put an ad up for him on the local classifieds site. I was giving him away for free to a good home, with cage, feed, etc. My requirement was to meet the family first, and that they would promise to contact me immediately if something did not work out or if they changed their minds, and I would make other arrangements. I had hundreds of replies and went through them all. One of them was a family with a young daughter who already had one other friendly Rainbow Lorikeet. They sounded very nice, like they'd be an attentive and stable home, and I thought it'd be great for Goku to have another bird companion, too. I met them and they seemed great. They were good with Goku. They said they'd take their time introducing the other lorikeet (I wasn't worried about this because they said they had lots of prior bird experience, and we discussed this point specifically to make sure we were on the same page with the introductions). They promised to send me updates and pictures, and we added each other on Facebook. They sent a picture of Goku perched on their daughter's shoulder the next day and was so relieved because I thought I made a good decision. But after that, it was radio silence. I sent them a message asking how he's doing a week later, to make sure that all was good before I fly out. I got no response. I messaged again a month later, on Facebook, and got no response again. I tried again a few more months later, and then once a year or so for a few years, but they never replied to me. I wasn't spamming them demanding information or anything, just checking in at reasonable intervals, since they agreed to send me updates from the very beginning. To this day I have no idea what happened to Goku, and feel like I betrayed him. I didn't pick the family carefully enough, and could have taken more time. I got too excited. I didn't even look at bird rescue operations, since for some reason I just assumed a regular home would be better. I'm certain that something bad happened: he got hurt, or they ended up not being the people I thought they were and sold him or something. Otherwise why would it just be total radio silence?
• runeblaze 4y ago
  I wish I never entered grad school (or just get a one-year MS and leave). Turns out a PhD program which puts you at near-poverty level of salary for five years is bad for your mental health!
• tommypie 4y ago
  Maybe I am in a nostalgic / sad mood but your thread is inspiring me. As many stated, I don't regret much, it pretty much doesn't belong to my vocabulary. I have made choices with a state of mind, a state of knowledge and a context that explains them. Now I have matured, relieving a moment with 40 years more of experience is not available on the market. Though this thread could be a trigger for some people in similar moment of their lives. A few keys things that define me, why they are not purely made of happy consequences, why they also had to happen. Relationship: my first relationship lasted a super long time. My now ex is a good friend. Though I feel I have skipped on some of my fun time, and I actually broke up because I had to drink from this carpe diem cup. We are still friends, it doesn't help with whatever relationships come after. It feels I am a bit living my life backward. But at that time, this person was the first one that made me feel good / worth loving. And I think that she enabled me to achieve a pretty good high school / university time ... I think I wouldn't have been able to hold without her. Self knowledge: unfortunately when I read about all your abusive relationships I am scared I am the asshole in them. Anger issues, obsessiveness, no violence but I definitely brought down people I loved in discussions in the past. I have spent a lot of time depressed without knowing it. It took me a shitload of time to aknowledge it and claw back. My key elements have been: doing sport and having a rythm were going to bed at 1am for work everynight is not ok. Seeking help was also a smart thing to do. It took me a shitload of time to figure that. I have destroyed my second relationship by letting work putting me on edge all the time. Positive spin: I think I am decently good at my I do, I think I overinvested but got some payback in skills. I am still struggling with anger issues and not beeing a dick... Work: younger, someone close in my family told me "go work for a big company you have all the time in the world to start something it will give you money and credentials". I didn't, because nobody in my family really hit the jackpot starting to work for a big one, because not the same times, not the same social background. I had constructed a logic to explain why I would be better starting my own stuffasap. And starting a company in a country that doesn't value risk, has no investors, no mentors... I basically failed for ten years on different projects. Damn I must be somehow resilient or loving the loser game. It was tough, I think that's one of the thing that brought me down (above paragraph), me and my business partner. And I keep seeing this guy I know, he did an internship for a major company, and everytime I hear about him and his projects "he must be good, he has been at X". Now I think I am at a quarter of where I thought I would be at 23 when I was 20, but I have a company that works well and I have learnt a shit load.
• mikrl 4y ago
  This might sound facetious, but my biggest regret is spending time regretting things. I was socially awkward and tried to overcome it: had fun, had panic attacks, learned some tricks, but still just as socially awkward. Many other flaws of mine I’ve tried to overcome similarly and not really got anywhere. I just don’t care about them now and want to be unapologetically ME as I exist. This attitude has ended up paying dividends. No one cares if I’m awkward, or kinda mental or any of my other flaws. People actually seem to enjoy me… ? Now at 29 I can look back at my teens-20s and how things could have gone differently, but there’s no point. Me then could never have been like me now and I couldn’t have convinced myself to, even with a time machine. It’s like I’ve reached a point of “sour grapes” but without any cope. My life, successes, flaws and mistakes just… are… and I have to accept it. I’m done trying to go against my nature to transform to some state I’ll never reach, for god knows who. I’ll continue to learn from my missteps. I’ll continue to try new things and get into and out of trouble for the frisk. I’ll continue awkwardly trying to elevate the people around me and keep them in good spirits. But I’m done feeling inadequate for my flaws or wasting time trying to fight my nature. Oh, I wish I started endurance running earlier but again, there was a reason I didn’t and I do now, so fuck it.
  • mindwok 4y ago
    Authenticity is endearing. And if you’re mindful enough to try and overcome your shortcomings, you’re probably mindful enough to be a genuinely good person albeit with a few rough edges like the rest of us. You sound great!
  • kamaal 4y ago
    Recursive regrets can be a thing, and generally are what cause the most misery. Its a bit like being stuck in a ditch and digging it, making it near impossible to exit after a while.
• BiggsHoson 4y ago
  The first one (of many) that comes to mind is not looking to the future when I started life on my own. Had someone told me when I was in my 20s that a day would come much sooner than retirement age when I would be sick of my career (and had I listened--not at all a given) I would have been much farther ahead in my life now. If I had started investing right from the start, especially as the stock market was booming back then, I could have retired some time ago. Related to that, I wish I'd found and fostered some sort side gig that would have allowed me to eventually ditch the 9-to-5 work life. I wish I had realized how important it is to find some place you enjoy living (for whatever reason--friends, recreation opportunities, favorable weather, etc.), and then doing what you can to make a life there. Instead, I pursued jobs wherever they took me and I think my family paid a price for that instability. I didn't realize for a long time, but I think that I, too, paid a price for all those relocations in pursuit of the next job. And then related to that, I wish I had not been so optimistic about my jobs. I should have realized that no matter how convincing the dream being sold to me, it was never going to be that good. I should gave treated my jobs as paychecks, as means to another end, not something into which I should pour the best of my attention and purpose of life. Wow. I have never told anyone all this.
• LittlePeter 4y ago
  Garfield maybe
• swah 4y ago
  Serious: not having kids way earlier. Less serious: not playing soccer and generally avoiding all those kind of activities with the "cool kids"
• 1sembiyan 4y ago
  I wish I hadn’t spent all that time on Twitter and pop culture in my twenties, and instead devoted myself to learning and upskilling.
• deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
• BryantD 4y ago
  I should have taken Scott Hassan up on his offer to be a very early eGroups employee. I’m perfectly happy with my life so it’s not a huge regret, but I’ll always wonder.
• isthisthingon99 4y ago
  The three big decisions: - What you do - Where you live - Who you marry I did pretty good on 2/3. Third one, not so much, although I think that was more me than her. What I would change is convince my ex wife (when were still dating) that we should get married after university, not before.
• lakomen 4y ago
  My Ex. Fucking cheating self centered whore. I said it.
• msoad 4y ago
  Look up "Amor Fati". Regret is not an acceptable approach to life. You can only love what you've done so far. Obviously you can not change anything from the past so regret does not provide any value.
• regret 4y ago
  I often say, that I only regret two things in life: Not having more kids (only have 2, they are 7 years apart, I would love to have like 3 more kids in that period). Second is getting a tattoo. I got it because I wanted to be "unique". I still enjoy being unique, that's why I regret it now.
• contingencies 4y ago
  Not studying biology in greater depth before traveling the world.
• FrankyHollywood 4y ago
  A little late to the party, but my biggest regret is not making choices earlier in life. Always had many interests. In high school I did many extra extracurricular activities, I was programming at a local software company, I played piano in a band, I took guitar lessons because wanted to be a rock guitarist, started 3 studies in university, etc etc. It caused a lot of stress, and I never was really good at any of these. Everyone always says you have to think about your what you want to do in life, but equally important is what not to spend time on. You can't have it all. If you want everything you end up with nothing. Although I'm doing fine at the moment I see old friend having advanced further in their careers, due to focus, less stress and becoming really good at something. I kind of regret not giving my life direction in the past, choosing something and go for it.
• tobbob 4y ago
  Basically everything from the age of 11 onward. I can't think of a single thing I'd do the same if I could do it all again, but probably my biggest would be not to go to university. I was too young and naive and the absolutely last thing I wanted to was work hard and study, and it had the biggest impact in terms of the direction my life took.
• sizzle 4y ago
  Not learning how to invest my money in early 20’s instead of spending it all on crap I didn’t need and not having the foresight to know I could have been in a much better position today financially had I just put my money away in the market rather than lighting it on fire with stupid material purchases that are in a landfill somewhere today. If you are young and have an income stream, do your future self a favor and invest in a diversified fund as much as you can and a 401k and don’t touch it until you’re ready to retire. Compound growth is insane.
  • userulluipeste 4y ago
    Weren't your purchases impacted the quality of life you had at the moment? I don't know your particular context, but living in the moment vs. preparing for future is an old and common theme to many (i.e. almost all) of us, and buyer's remorse is a real but unfair frame of thought to judge ourselves. Also, investment requires discipline and foresight (intelligence) that come a bit later, as we grow. I for one, am glad for acquiring the benefits of that growth when I did, although it didn't hurt to have had it earlier.
    • sizzle 4y ago
      I like your take on this and you are kind to yourself, wish I could learn to take that perspective. I’m not talking about spending money traveling and on experiences, I think those are worth every penny. I’m talking about blowing money living paycheck to paycheck instead of growing my savings on designer clothes and modifying cars, etc. trying to look a certain way among people my age and trying to impress the opposite sex. None of that stuff matters now and didn’t back then in retrospect. I found my spouse partaking in a free hobby. I guess hindsight is 20/20 as they say, back then I was surrounded by social and single college friends looking to find partners to date.
• icu 4y ago
  Be very careful with who you shack up with. Don't settle for partners that mess you around or manipulate you. Make sure you take precautions. The last thing you want is to have a baby with someone who isn't a good person.
• deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
• kamaal 4y ago
  Leave India and Move to the US while I was young(in my 20s). Seems to make the difference between heaven and hell in terms of overall quality of life and opportunities.
• c7DJTLrn 4y ago
  On a similar theme with others, not enjoying my youth. Well, I'm still 21, but I'm strongly career focused. Didn't go to college or university. I'm very socially isolated and miserable despite raking in money working in software. I act about 10 years older than my age so when I do meet people my own age I struggle to relate. I tried filling the emptiness with money, psychedelics, and various substances but it didn't make the situation any better. Would it have been better to go to university just for the social experience? I don't know. Is signing up for a mountain of debt worth it to build a network? Some university students would surely kill to be in my position, so do I have a right to feel like this? I feel like a broken person and I don't really know how to turn things around. I think the "just go to clubs" advice is overprescribed and in my experiences it's just people way older than me that attend anyway. The door to social circles is locked and triple bolted now that I'm in the working world.
• nopmat 4y ago
  Not being able to form relationships quickly. Feeling the need to be entirely self-reliant and not asking for help or admitting difficulty. Not asserting my preferences, even though I had no problem asserting rights and formal entitlements. Lacking sexual confidence in high school.
• tomcam 4y ago
  Letting my children have unsupervised net access before age 16
• FrontierPsych 4y ago
• fhchl 4y ago
  Learning Latin in school for 8 years instead of a romanic language that is actually spoken and actually useful like frensh or Spanish. I think there is absolutely no reason to teach kids dead languages. If they are really interested, they can do so at university later on.
  • seymon 4y ago
    This! I am from germany and had chosen latin class in school. It is a useless dead language noone speaks.
• sisu2022 4y ago
  I try not to regret things because in most cases that would just amount to second guessing myself with 20/20 hindsight. I do regret this one thing. I went to boarding school from grade 5. You are probably picturing a fancy place with the "elite of tomorrow" walking around in smart school uniforms. My boarding school wasn't like that at all. It was located in a very small village, so small that it didn't even have a single shop. It cost like 250€ a month and you can accurately deduce the rest from that. Yes, some of the minders were clearly alcoholics. Yes, there were lots of troubled youths. Yes, some of the food barrels really did have "pig feed or millitary" stenciled on them. But they tried and on the whole they did a good job. I have to admit that in retrospect. There are many activities you can do there. Painting, singing, pottery, metalworking, theatre, dance and all kinds of sports. There was even a warhammer table! This being Germany you can play soccer all day everyday. I, however, was very cool, you see. I was so cool that I was too cool to do any of the activities on offer. So I spent my days on walks with my best friends just smoking and drinking and discussing how we would get rich. We did not get rich. Now at 41 I am a non-smoker and learning to play soccer. If only I had played in my youth. If only I had been a person who wasn't repulsed by sweat and effort. If only I had the confidence to really try at something hard. If only I could have seen myself as someone with the potential for strength, for speed, as a team player. If only I had known myself a little better back then.
• hn-user-2345678 4y ago
  Never being able to achieve financial security or wealth. I live in a shabby house, and never feel I can afford anything whilst also trying to save for old age and knowing it will be an improverished life. I've never been able to figure out how to make enough money to not be a salary slave. The fear of job loss and having to work til I die doing work I don't enjoy (and having no idea what else I could do and still keep a roof over our heads) is crushing. Every day. And then I see folk succeeding in every financial way, buying; building and refurbishing homes, holidays, cars, socialising, clubs, private healthcare, private schools, private tuition, retirement, none of which I can do for my wife and son. 45 now and my body, brain and brain hurt from chasing a salary each month that's just enough to keep me going for the next month.
  • jventura 4y ago
    You're not alone on this one! Although I have savings, I'm also not able to achieve enough monthly earnings to leave me in a (much) more comfortable position. Last month I did a lot of interviews for newer jobs, but got rejected at almost everything I applied. And I read a lot of indie hackers reaching 1K, 1.5K, and so on, and I can't even get a single cent out of any idea. And how have I tried to come up with ideas for web apps! My current solution is just to rest a little bit, stop reading too much internet crap (HN included), and focus on what I have and can realistically get in the short/medium term. I wish you all the best!
• baremetal 4y ago
  i regret getting hooked on nicotine.
• throwaway5959 4y ago
  I regret going to graduate school for CS. What an utter waste of time, especially graduating non-thesis. I also regret the amount of time I spent thinking about people who don’t think about me. Most people ultimately are just there for a season, and there’s nothing wrong with that.
• joshxyz 4y ago
  None. Some moments are tough and I may have acted in the most naive way but those moments have really shaped the guy that I am right now. It sucks but those are my best moves forward.