Biggest Regret(s) of Your Life

[GabyKeepsMeWarm]

Young guy at work has kinda taken a liking to me lately. He found out about my “former life”, and he’s been filled with questions and always chatting me up.

He’s a good kid; bright, handsome, and hopefully doesn’t fall into the trappings of life before he even has a chance to get started.

At any rate…. While sharing some stories, I fell upon one that turned into my total regret, combined with rummaging around in some old boxes where I found a few “treasures”, an old photo of my dad with me and my siblings. Been looking for that photo for a long time, and it’s more special after my dad’s passing a few years ago. Found my old Blockbuster member card. An old flyer from my band of 20+ years ago. A huge chunk of ticket stubs from movies and shows I went to from the early 2000’s. And a buttload of old call sheets from the first movie I worked on. Then I found an unopened card/letter that was meant for Spencer Grammer. My heart sank.

I briefly dated her in 2001/2002. We worked together at first, and I was her trainer. We had immediate rapport and chemistry in spite of our age difference. She was only 18 and I was 25. We’d worked together for several weeks before I discovered she was a star’s daughter. Was a busy Saturday and I’m working the info stand, customers everywhere, and I’m locked in on the search computer when I hear her familiar voice, “Hey Tom! Just wanted to say hi! And this is my dad!” I no longer than have the words, “hey Spence”, out of my mouth and there’s Frasier ****ing Crane. Oh. Right. Grammer. Well **** me…

Things were pretty much normal for the next several weeks as we worked aside each other. We were closing together one night and it came up that I had a bootleg DVD of Royal Tennenbaums. She hadn’t seen it, and asked if we could hang out together after work and watch it at my place. Folks, I had reservations knowing her age, but **** it, it’s just watching a movie, right? Well, we’re about 30 minutes into the movie and she puts the moves on me, flat out asking if she can kiss me. So yup. You can imagine how that played out. And it played out again several more times over the following weeks. And it was great. We got along perfectly. No games, no arguments, just pure chemistry.

And then she was going to take off to NYC for a couple months for classes…. And during this time I ran across an online article with her and her dad and according to the site, she was only 16 years old. I FREAKED. I ghosted her completely. She’d call, I never answered. Emails. Nope. Finally talked to her after hearing she was in a serious car wreck and I told her that we couldn’t see each other anymore. Well, turns out the online article’s dates were wrong, she was in fact 18 turning 19, and while it was maybe a slightly inappropriate age gap, it wasn’t illegal, and I wasn’t a sicko getting hunted by the FBI.

I ****ed up. Colossal **** up. I’ve found love a few times since. Plenty of relationships. Nothing has ever worked out. And now I’m middle aged and still single. I haven’t obsessed about her or thought too much about it, but yeah, I regret how that played out. I was naive, listening to my friends too much and not trusting myself enough at that time. I’ll never know if we could’ve continued to be a couple, but I’ll be damned if I haven’t had several moments of wondering what could have been.

Second worst regret…. I’m ashamed to admit I got a DUI after graduating college. Was on my way from the bars with a buddy to grab a bite to eat and “sober up”, but I was driving 7 over the limit, got popped, and spent the night in the pokie. Mom picked me up the following day and her favorite cousin had died the same day. I wished the world would just swallow me up. I spent a good chunk of all the money gifts from graduating college on paying fines, and I don’t think I’ve ever been more ashamed in my life.


So what about you CPer’s? What are your most regrettable moments?

[ThaVirus]

Originally Posted by Bearcat

Probably the biggest thing though would be wishing I had put more effort towards knowing my grandparents and many extended family members more so when I was younger... I was pretty antisocial growing up and my immediate family really only saw extended family at holidays (definitely didn't come from the outgoing wing of the family). As I got a bit older, I definitely could have put more effort towards those relationships (one example, my mom had a big falling out with her mom, so I didn't see my grandmother for years growing up. I saw her while I was working at a restaurant when I was ~16 or 17 and she told me "just so you know, you can always stop by anyway"... ). Grandparents have passed, as well as some other extended family members.

Damn, that hit me. Poor gran..

On a similar note, back when I was in college I had an aunt reach out to me via Facebook. This would have been back when everyone and their mom was joining FB to keep in touch. I hadn’t seen her in years so she was just like “Call me so we can catch up”. I told her I was a little busy but I’d give her a call soon. I never made calling her a priority, a few months passes, and she died unexpectedly to pneumonia. I felt terrible.

Then a few years later I had a great uncle pass from cancer. It was a drawn out battle in which he basically wasted away, according to my grandma. I wanted to give him a call but it always sounded like he was pretty weak and had his hands full as it were so I never called. Fast forward maybe a year or so after he passes, I randomly went through my message requests on Facebook and I had one from him, reaching out to me. That shit made me sick. I don’t know why the **** that message never came through to me.

I really wish I could go back and change the outcomes there.

Originally Posted by Rain Man

In recognition of the butterfly effect, I think an interesting alternative to the 'regrets' question is this: if you could see a magical YouTube video that documents your life in an alternate reality where you made a pivotal decision, what fork in the road would you choose as your starting point?

I don't know if it's a good idea to even watch such a magical video, but it would be really interesting. A lot of us, or likely all of us, have made decisions that put our lives on a fundamentally different course compared to making a different choice. It would be weird to see myself with perhaps a different wife (though we've already confirmed that the universe set me on an irreversible course to my current wife) and a different job and maybe kids and living in a different place.

I would be interested in seeing the results of three different forks in the road.

Fork 1. When I was eighteen, I was going to be an architect. No question about it. That was the plan. Then my high school had a career day. I went to the architect's talk, and heard how it was not a great job and it paid low, and all the cool stuff you see about being an architect is fiction. I then went down the hall where an engineer told us how fantastic engineering was and how it paid great, so my plan changed on that day. I'd like to see how my life would have turned out if I had stayed home sick that day in high school.

Fork 2. When I was eighteen, I won a full-ride four-year scholarship to my dream college. I was stoked. I was all in. Then a couple of really bad things happened, and I couldn't go. Both were out of my control, so it really hurt to give that up. I'd be interested in watching the video of my life in a scenario where I was able to do that.

Fork 3. This one is more of a lark because I didn't really consider it seriously. But it would be a great video to watch to see how far off my life path I could have wandered. When I was graduating college, the Navy was hiring engineers to run nuclear reactors on submarines and aircraft carriers, and I found it really intriguing. I didn't have the gumption to do it, but I wonder how my life would have progressed if I had jumped out of my normalcy to do it.

I wouldn't trade any of these alternate lives for my current life, but it would be fun to see how they would have turned out.

Ohhhh, yes. I think about this pretty frequently, actually, though it is tough to settle on what exactly you consider pivotal. Personally, I think you could argue that damn near any decision made about who your friends are, who you date, the job you take, school you go to, etc. could be considered pivotal. All of those will literally change the course of your life.

To make it easy, I would say..

Fork 1: Trying to figure out what to do with my life. I graduated high school at 17 with no concrete life plans. At that time, I had no job, no car, no money, and wasn't enrolled in secondary education. I ended up getting a restaurant job to get my money up, took a gap year, then did the traditional four-year college thing..

But my dad was pressuring me heavily to join the military. I never had any desire to join and always felt like he was just trying to get me out of the house. I also never liked the ides of being what amounts to government property. They tell you where to go, what to do, all that. I wanted some autonomy. In retrospect, I think he just had some remorse for leaving after only 8 years and wanted to live vicariously through me in a way. I remember when he turned, like, 38, which would have been right around the time I graduated high school, he’d always talk about how he could retire now if he'd only stayed in. He always said he loved it.

In my early 20s I knew quite a few people who chose the military path. Some were stationed in really awesome places like San Diego, Hawaii, Japan, etc. Maybe I wouldn’t have been that lucky but who knows? Even if I hated it, I could have left after 4 years. I’d have been 22 with a great resume addition and a GI bill to pay for school.

Fork 2: Still trying to figure out what to do with my life. Like I mentioned, I did the four-year college thing. That’s totally fine, but I’d like to see it done differently. Long story short, I worked full time throughout school. I didn’t have a plan so I started by taking Gen Ed classes. I got my Associate’s at the local community college, then transferred to UCF to finish. In doing so, I had to pick my major and just went with Poli Sci since it most closely matched the classes I’d already taken. I didn’t choose the pre-law track and I didn’t want to get into politics so from the jump, I didn’t make the optimal choice. That’s landed me in some roles/industries I’m not fond of.

A major fork is that I had a good friend who joined a nursing program right around the time I was transferring to the university. She told me I should sign up so we could do it together. She became a nurse, did that for a few years, and is now a nurse practitioner. I’d like to see an alternate reality where I took her up on her offer.

Fork 3: I seriously considered breaking up with my wife back about 1 year into our relationship.

10 years later we’re still together and doing well but it would be interesting to see an alternate reality where I ended the relationship.

Originally Posted by Bearcat

In college, a buddy of mine got an internship at DisneyWorld along with several other people... I didn't get it and was pretty bitter about it at the time. I don't think life would have turned out better, but it would be interesting to see it play out (my buddy never left Disney; guessing I would have after one summer, since the initial intern was mostly just amusement park labor and had zilch to do with IT.. but who knows, maybe just the name on a resume would have helped, too)."

The Disney College Program! I have so many memories from the other side of that. I’m local so during my fun college years, that program was in full swing. So many girls rotating through that program every few months lol

Don’t mean to rub it in or anything but you would have had a ****ing blast. Those people were wild.

[Zebedee DuBois]

rugrats, I had a few...

[BigRedChief]

Originally Posted by Rain Man

I have a couple of younger relatives who are sisters. The older one got one of those Disney internships, and my impression is that it was just a fun summer lark for her. She's a competent person so I'm sure she did a good job. The younger one had a complete Disney obsession, embracing all things Disney growing up, so she applied a couple of years later and was very excited about going ... and didn't get it.

Remember a couple of years ago when Disney whacked 75% of their I.T. staff and used HB1 visa techs from India to save money. Make them train their replacements. It was a disaster. They did what they were told to do and nothing more. and their code was for shit. Full of errors.

That following year they called me asking to meet to have me get them back on track. I thought they had seen the error of their ways and was bringing back the Americans to bail them out. But, no..... They wanted me to supervise them and take control of their Architecture. I told them to **** off to their faces. I understand Americans are not cheap. Disney is as an
American company as they get, using these indentured servants is total BS.

The HB-1 visa program is just a way for these huge businesses pay a foreign indentured servant shit instead of paying Americans to do that job. Rant over....

[ShortRoundChief]

Originally Posted by BigRedChief

Remember a couple of years ago when Disney whacked 75% of their I.T. staff and used HB1 visa techs from India to save money. Make them train their replacements. It was a disaster. They did what they were told to do and nothing more. and their code was for shit. Full of errors.

That following year they called me asking to meet to have me get them back on track. I thought they had seen the error of their ways and was bringing back the Americans to bail them out. But, no..... They wanted me to supervise them and take control of their Architecture. I told them to **** off to their faces. I understand Americans are not cheap. Disney is as an
American company as they get, using these indentured servants is total BS.

The HB-1 visa program is just a way for these huge businesses pay a foreign indentured servant shit instead of paying Americans to do that job. Rant over....

Hopefully you got some poontang for your trouble.

[George Liquor]

I also wish I would have gotten along better with my brother and parents when I was growing up. I feel bad looking back on it and have spent my adult life trying to make up for being a shithead teenager.

When my brother turned 21 I gave him a choice to pick anywhere in the USA to go and party it up on me as an apology and we went to Vegas and lived it up. So hopefully he has forgiven me for being a prick.

[Bearcat]

Originally Posted by ThaVirus

The Disney College Program! I have so many memories from the other side of that. I’m local so during my fun college years, that program was in full swing. So many girls rotating through that program every few months lol

Don’t mean to rub it in or anything but you would have had a ****ing blast. Those people were wild.

He did meet his wife during that internship... I think there's something to be said about forging closer relationships in higher stress environments, and that's the gist of what happened from what I was told. A lot to learn, tons of hours in less than ideal conditions, in an ultimate work hard/play hard environment of early-20-somethings.

[BlackHelicopters]

Divorce.

[threebag]

Not being a better aim when throwing a rock at a dipshit in a Morono

[rtmike]

Going out on the sand dunes all tuned up.
Chasing after a buddy that sprayed me with sand. I followed him right over a widows peak. Snap of fingers, my life was ruined.

[duncan_idaho]

Side note:

The girl that I met at the party where I didn't meet Mrs. Idaho was a college gymnast who had grown D cups since retiring.

And I still regret not meeting Mrs. Idaho that night instead. How do I tell her this while making it sound sweet?

[philfree]

I was given advice by short, fat, balding salesman who worked for my dad. Went by the nickname of Fudge. The guy pulled more pussy than most. Fudge said whatever you do don't cull your pussy. Well there's a few times I did and those times always creep up in my mind and I think "you dumbass you should have pounded that shit". I also think I let those gals down because they wanted it and I didn't provide. Regret!

[Buehler445]

This is an interesting question. Continuous improvement has been my thing for awhile. I've spent real introspection on regrets over the years, and one thing that I've realized is regrets change.

I used to regret ****ing up some opportunities with some ladies that I blew because I was ****ing dumb/obtuse/scared. Hard for me to regret that now with my wife and kids being for better than I deserve. I don't really regret that stuff now. I admit it would have been fun and still wish I'd not been ****tarded. But I don't really regret it.

I used to regret missing out some career stuff early on. That seems like a fart in the wind now. Almost never even think about it now with my current business. And almost no impact on my life.

Regrets change.

Currently, I have some regrets on my current business, missing out on some shit because I am ****ing dumb/obtuse/scared. I'm going to have to wear some of that for awhile, because I'm going to be here for a bit.

I also harbor some regrets for letting some relationships fall to the wayside with some legitimately good people. I understand relationships go 2 ways, but the value from maintaining close, healthy relationships with good people carries far too much value.

I also have some pretty serious regrets for focusing on the work in my business as opposed to building a network. At some point, I bought into the idea that the work speaks for itself, and I'd like to believe it does on some level, but that's ****ing hogshit. People make decisions based on people. And it's cost me pretty substantially over the course of time.

Maybe all those regrets will fade with time, but but that's where I am now.

Interestingly, some things I don't regret, that a lot of people do.

I don't regret working hard. Economic security matters. I fully acknowledge that I haven't fully achieved economic security, but I'm well on the way and the equity I've accumulated ****ing matters. Financial stress is hard on your dude. I've been there and am not looking to climb back into that boat.

I don't necessarily regret waiting to have kids. The shit I was worried about was bullshit, and we would have been fine to have them earlier, but again, economic security matters, and probably at some level maturity matters too. It would have been fine, but I don't regret waiting.

I don't have any regrets w/r/t my family. I think I've done right by everyone involved, and more importantly, I think I fully grasp the impact of the selflessness that some members of my family have engaged in. I think I see the world pretty clearly in that regard, and don't harbor any regrets.

Interesting thread to read and ponder. Thanks dudes.

[Buehler445]

Originally Posted by philfree

I was given advice by short, fat, balding salesman who worked for my dad. Went by the nickname of Fudge. The guy pulled more pussy than most. Fudge said whatever you do don't cull your pussy. Well there's a few times I did and those times always creep up in my mind and I think "you dumbass you should have pounded that shit". I also think I let those gals down because they wanted it and I didn't provide. Regret!

We had this old ass crusty truck driver named Clyde that would come help us during harvest. Whatever you think he was, he probably was.

Anyway, I was going to college in the fall, and it seemed like everyone had an opinion on how I should approach my education.

His was, "go for the fat ones. They need loving too, and they'll work hard for it." Never did follow through there, but I haven't thought about that shit in 20 years and got a good chuckle about it.

[TripleThreat]

Ugh Ive said this story before but I'll say it again - Ill try to keep this short.

Senior year, was missing one class to graduate, business math... mind you I was born early 90's so this was flip phone days (she would text me randomly throughout year to wake up etc, and at one point she stopped, I think she got scared one morning when i answered and said who is this)... Well my business math teacher, was fine as all hell, and probably around 27, but to me she seemed older at that time... She always seemed to undercover flirt with me telling me "everything's bigger in texas" (she was from texas with huge boobs)

Well, turns out, there is NO way I can get even a D in her class to pass according to what she told my counselor so I would have to make it up in independent summer school w/her..

The business math teacher allowed me to do an independent version of it for 4 weeks, meeting once a week. Eventually, the last week, I text her telling her I'm done and what day of the week works best for me to come in and turn in my work. She texts me back telling me that she would instead prefer me to drop it off at her home on either Tue/Thur since her husband wouldn't be home and it would allow one on one time to review all the work I had done over the 4 weeks to determine that I was truly able to graduate...

Well, at the time I also had a fine ass girlfriend I had been dating for 2 years.. I showed her the text, and she took my phone and texted the teacher back telling her that I couldn't do that and I could only make it to the actual classroom due to independent reasons or some shit... My then GF escorted me to her classroom as well to turn in the work, teacher seemed good at shrugging it all off.... And that was that.. Missed my shot..

Heard years later rumors swirled for a few years that me and that teacher hooked up... But nope, missed a HUGE young lads dream. I also think she was down since I was theoretically no longer her student.

[Bearcat]

Originally Posted by duncan_idaho

Side note:

The girl that I met at the party where I didn't meet Mrs. Idaho was a college gymnast who had grown D cups since retiring.

And I still regret not meeting Mrs. Idaho that night instead. How do I tell her this while making it sound sweet?

There was a Car & Driver article a while back where they were rating an Alfa Romeo Giulia Quadrifoglio against a BMW M3 and came to the conclusion that the Alfa Romeo was girlfriend material and the M3 was marriage material (they went with the girlfriend material, but that's not important!).... so, tell her sure, it may have been fun to ride the curves through the Amalfi Coast for a weekend, but that still doesn't compare to the sweet daily driving and Idaho views.