If you could go back, what would you change in your life?

[Heeeere's Olesker!]

If you could go back five years, ten years or all the way to the time of your birth, and you could change anything, but just one thing -- including your origins -- is there anything you would change...and why?

[markatisu]

I would like to think I would keep things the same as I learned valuable lessons. If I had to choose though I would seriously change how I financed mine and my wife's college education in 1999. I have been paying for that mistake since and its dogged me for almost 15 years

[JonWes]

Hmmm... that's an interesting question. I'm not sure I'd change much.

I moved away from the town I was born in when I was five. I then returned to it my Junior year of high school. It was a weird experience. I was back where I would have been had my mom and dad not separated. I often thought to myself, what would my life have been like if my mom and dad had stayed together and we had stayed in that town. Would I have been very different? My dad made a lot of money. Would he have had me be more of a jock. Instead, I ended up being very poor with a single mom raising three kids who would pretty much just let me do what I enjoyed. Would I have been very different, or would the core person I am have been the same no matter what?

I guess, to me, since I like who I am I'd be afraid to change anything and mess it up. Even all the bad things (and there certainly have been plenty, as there are with most people) have had such a profound effect on my life. I'm not sure I'd want to risk messing that up.

Now to be REALLY geeky... it makes me think of Star Trek V. Let me explain. Even though it's not very well regarded, I think the central villain is fascinating. His name is Sybok, and he basically relieves people of their pain and sort of brainwashes them through it. Kirk basically tells him where to stuff it by saying he WANTS his pain. He needs his pain to be who he is. I kind of feel the same way.

If there was ONE thing I'd change, I wish I'd kept more active. I went through a little depression and then got a desk job after school. Not a good combo and I've been fighting it since. So I'd change that. But, the nice thing about that is I CAN still change it. So that's not so bad. Whew. Sorry that ended up being a very serious answer!

[Dice]

I thought about this thoroughly and have a variety of different things I'd like to do but...


I freakin love my sons. And anything I'd change would alter my life course and I'd have never made my same boys. So if the magic genie ever appeared with this offer, I'd say no thanks.

[Lord Anubis]

I woulda bought a ton of MIB Eternia's. Id be a living geek god today.

[Phil.Pastel]

I kind of got bogged down in a Judeo-christian lifestyle around the age of 21. There's no way I would make that mistake again.

If I could go back, I'd steer well clear of all religions. I might make my own religion up, but there's no way that I would believe anything that I was told by anyone else.

[wolfsfang]

Just one thing eh? Hmm in that case I would never have moved from Newcastle Upon Tyne (the city I grew up in) back to Sunderland (the city I was born in and where most of my family lives) that way I would not have had to endure

5 years of physical and mental bullying at school ranging from name calling to actual physical attacks such as being pushed down some stairs

Death threats and bricks through the window from so called "friends" who were under the mistaken idea that we had set the cops on them which was impossible as we were away at the time it happened.

My mothers ex who stole hundreds of pounds worth of my videos and games to fund his drug habits and who tried to kill me twice by trying to choke me one time and then tried to push me on to a road with a bus coming.

So ya if I had never moved I would have still been the friendly, outgoing, happy, caring people person I used to be as a child instead of the cold, hateful, mistrusting, pretty much apathetic person that my life has turned me into who wouldn't leave the house for about 4 years, doesn't like interacting with actual physical people and who has a phobia of crowds.

But then if I never moved I would never have had any of the pets I have had over the years and I really love all my pets and to me all the crap was worth it to share my life with them.

[a-star]

I do not believe this question is possible to answer. Any change to my past would create a different me. That person might go back and change something different resulting in another me, and so on. Those people would have differrnt values, expectations, ect. There would be no way to hold onto the version of myself that i know today.

I can see how one might wish their life were different, but it is impossible to know the true result of all decisions. One might go back and choose to remain in a certain place and be killed by a car the next day. There is a certain value to everyone's experience, but thats a whole different conversation all together.

[krugos]

There are a couple of incidents from my teenage years, any of which I would gladly erase from my past, both still haunt my conscience. I was a very different person back then and I'm not proud at all of some of my actions. It's too personal and painful to share the details here, sorry, I have never talked to anyone about this. One involved hurting emotionally my first girlfriend, and another unintentionally causing the death of an animal because of a stupid and cruel game. Yes, any of those I would change, my life would still be the same but at least those I did hurt would be spared from my stupidity.

[Heeeere's Olesker!]

I do not believe this question is possible to answer. Any change to my past would create a different me. That person might go back and change something different resulting in another me, and so on. Those people would have differrnt values, expectations, ect. There would be no way to hold onto the version of myself that i know today.

I can see how one might wish their life were different, but it is impossible to know the true result of all decisions. One might go back and choose to remain in a certain place and be killed by a car the next day. There is a certain value to everyone's experience, but thats a whole different conversation all together.

Ah but that's wonderful to contemplate -- for better or for worse. Rent FAMILY MAN or MR. DESTINY and you'll see what I mean -- both wonderful films, btw.

[Captain Wow]

I would go back to August 2006, the last time I saw my brother. He came over around 3 in the afternoon and wound up staying for about 12 hours. I had to almost kick him out because it was late and I wanted to go to bed. I should've seen that something was wrong by the look on his face when he kept turning around and looking back up the stairs at me as he was leaving but unfortunately I didn't see it. I wish I'd have asked him if he wanted to stay the night or if there was anything else he wanted to talk about but I didn't.

About 2 weeks later he committed suicide.

I miss him.

[BCreviews4628]

I would have never reached out to my Dad when I was a teenager, worst mistake I ever made.

[MrRoboto]

Wow. Great question!

Have to say, i'm saddened to read posts about other members who have gone through a pain of their own. Really hope you're far away from that nowadays!

Personally, i can't narrow it down to one thing. Mind you, not all things i'd look to change would be negative. There were some positive aspects which i wish i could change so that it'd have lasted much longer.

But the one thing i wish i could change wouldn't be about me per se, but my old man. I wish i had done more or at least had the knowledge to do more so that he'd be around today. Lost him to cancer just as we were establishing a relationship when i was just beginning my journey as an adult. It wasn't one of father to son anymore but adult to adult. Wish he were here today...

[BoShek]

I wouldn't have moved to Berwick, a town about 20 minutes from my family.

I wanted to have a place of my own and freedom. However, I did it mainly to be close to a women I thought I was going to be with. I spent three years there and didn't have very many good times at all.

She ended up moving to another town and dating another guy. With my tail between my legs I moved home with a credit card debt of $7,000, that I still have two years later, because I couldn't afford living there and used it to survive.

[BCreviews4628]

She ended up moving to another town and dating another guy. With my tail between my legs I moved home with a credit card debt of $7,000, that I still have two years later, because I couldn't afford living there and used it to survive.

That really sucks man.

[Dave-Man]

There are many things that I wish I could change, but right now I would say I am most bitterly regretful of trying to get ordained in the Lutheran church instead of not seeking a new denomination the *first* time they turned me down. You might think I'd regret wanting to be a pastor at all after all the crap, but my life has collided with a purpose and it does not seem to be one that will let me go.

I also wish I had made some different decisions in my undergrad work because I ended up with a lot of debt for a degree I never got, and had to get more debt to get the degree I ended up getting. I could have planned the finances better. Also sort of wish we had moved into a different house when we got married, that we had adopted children years ago, or done IVF a lot sooner than we did because it didn't work then, or... oh, I have a lot of regrets right now.

Is this what a midlife crisis feels like?

[mbaker]

If I could go back, I would fix all the mistakes I've made trying to socialize with women. Another thing I would change is the decisions I've made in purchasing art supplies, and other things I now regret buying. As well as changing things I now regret saying.

[Benedict Judas Hel]

If you could go back, what would you change in your life?

More women! I bloomed too late and now I got the Madness...

[krosfyah]

One change? hard question. lot's of things I would have liked to have done different, and I wonder if those things stemmed from a single misstep sometimes. Sometimes i think I should have gone to an arts school instead of a regular highschool. I should have played little league sports, well I should have bugged my dad more about letting me play, but the expense was kind of high. I guess to give a firm answer I think I would change how shy and introverted I was after grade 5. I started to shell up myself. and I think that's why I haven't gotten where I wanted and made the missteps I made.

[diosoth]

I would never have taken up writing fan fiction. It was a huge mistake.

[Thatman]

I would have been much more careful about my credit card spending, for one. (Hindsight is 20/20, as always.)

There was a period towards the end of my senior year in high school/beginning of college that I made a LOT of stupid mistakes, all in under a year. There's a lot I learned from all of that...it was a really formative time - but I will always have to wonder if the lessons were worth all I went through.

[krosfyah]

I would never have taken up writing fan fiction. It was a huge mistake.

can I ask why?

[Inhibitor]

I would never have gone to an art college. lol

can I ask why?

I'll second that, fan fiction is a great hobby... Unless you make S&M versions of everything...

[Queen Grayskull]

I thought about this thoroughly and have a variety of different things I'd like to do but...

I freakin love my sons. And anything I'd change would alter my life course and I'd have never made my same boys. So if the magic genie ever appeared with this offer, I'd say no thanks.

Me, too. Excellent thread and really hard question, Olesker! After all, the result of my thoughts on this is that if I'd ever changed anything in my life, I probably wouldn't have born my cute daughter. And she's definitely the best thing that could ever happen to me!!!

[EldestSon]

i wouldn't care what people thought of me in HS.