[HN Gopher] Ask HN: What's Your Biggest Regret?
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Ask HN: What's Your Biggest Regret?
If you could change anything about your past, what would it be?
Author : xupybd
Score : 193 points
Date : 2022-10-07 08:06 UTC (14 hours ago)
| tobbob wrote:
| 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.
| BiggsHoson wrote:
| 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.
| Sirened wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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.
| BirAdam wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| These days I regret not throwing things away sooner. Most
| long term possessions are just clutter.
| AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote:
| 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.
| geocrasher wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| > 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."
| patrakov wrote:
| 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.
| Mezzie wrote:
| 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.
| robertk wrote:
| 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.
| calebm wrote:
| I can choose my actions, but I can't choose my desires.
| Loughla wrote:
| 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.
| gilbetron wrote:
| 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!
| robertk wrote:
| I am someone for whom the two universes are the same. I
| freely choose to act exactly in accordance with how I would
| act if I were steered by neurons and atoms, and neurons and
| atoms alone. And that is also the truth, so I am perfectly
| happy. The universe with and without free will, to me, is
| metaphysically identical - because of how I have chosen to
| live and be happy.
| robertk wrote:
| What you do and think is exclusively dictated by the input of
| information going into your brain coming from perception
| encoded as electrons and ions flowing through the atoms
| consisting of your neurons. If someone had a printout of the
| small sub-manifold of spacetime that is you they could read
| out everything you ever thought and did and it would all make
| sense (meaning, follow from Schrodinger's equation). You have
| no choice and you cannot defy physics. Even if you run into
| the street, it was so decreed, because you were
| deterministically ordained to be contemplating free will and
| attempt to violate it with a "random" action, which in
| conjunction with the random seed you have chosen (the current
| state of your neural ion flows) led you to deterministically
| run into the street. With, as always, a perfect causal
| pathway and explanation -- no matter how free and random it
| seems. What you do next, always, is decided exclusively by
| what in the universe happened just before, and no other
| auxiliary or theological inputs.
| robertk wrote:
| The statement "free will does not exist" does not imply the
| world isn't Minecraft. It _is_. Arbitrary actions allowed
| by physics are indeed allowed. The problem is unpacking
| that you can do _what you want_. It is the act and nature
| of wanting that is also fully constrained by physics. There
| is no "you" and no "want," no notion of choice that isn't
| simply isomorphic to doing the basic math of quantum
| mechanics and molecular biology... you are "merely" math
| executing in time and space, and you are and shall never be
| nothing more. https://secularsolstice.github.io/speeches/ge
| n/Nothing_Is_Me...
| gilbetron wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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.
| [deleted]
| chasd00 wrote:
| I stayed at my first job for 11 years. I should have stayed 3-4
| max
| mindaslab wrote:
| JavaScript
| fullstop wrote:
| 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.
| archhn wrote:
| Nothing. I love my fate--let it eternally recur!
| themodelplumber wrote:
| 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-plann...
| irrational wrote:
| 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.
| kludgemaker wrote:
| 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.
| tommypie wrote:
| I don't know if that helps ... but I didn't that without the
| sociologist and only with the help of the Internet.
|
| I took me sometimes, I am much better on that. But it takes a
| shitload of work and just removing the blaming you put on
| yourself everytime your relaspe.
| tcrisco wrote:
| 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.
| jstx1 wrote:
| 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).
| graycat wrote:
| (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.
| gilbetron wrote:
| > [i] Boys and girls, men and women are very different.
|
| People are different, splitting people up into two groups
| generally doesn't help anything. The vast majority of your life
| will be spent dealing with individuals, not groups. Don't treat
| individuals like any of their groups.
|
| > (A) The cliche that boys pay attention to things and girls,
| to people is not fully true but significantly often is true.
|
| I have found nothing of significance in my life due to this
| purported "fact". People are people. Look at the individual,
| not the group.
|
| > (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!
|
| Uninteresting. Maybe you are less emotional. Maybe the people
| you dated were more emotional. If that is a problem, seek out
| less emotional people to date. There are plenty. More
| importantly, find someone that makes you feel good, regardless
| of any insipid advice about "women".
|
| > (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.
|
| You should do this with anyone.
|
| > (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.
|
| Men manipulate just as much as women. Again, look to the
| individual. Stop thinking in terms of men vs women. Find
| someone that isn't manipulative.
|
| > (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.
|
| Take the gender out of this statement and it is an interesting
| one.
|
| > [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.
|
| See, great statement, absolutely decent advice because you kept
| gender out of it. Although it does sound too jaded. I'd rather
| state it as, "people struggle with life, understand a person's
| struggles and make sure you can handle them before becoming too
| deeply involved with them, not just romantically, but
| platonically, too."
| graycat wrote:
| Your remarks about my post have to do with females, that is
| gender. Today that is a touchy, sensitive, politicized
| subject.
|
| You seem to be saying that, in dealing with people, should
| get more information.
|
| In a sense, you are correct: That sense is from applications
| of the Radon-Nikodym theorem. The charming proof by J. von
| Neumann is in the W. Rudin _Real and Complex Analysis_.
|
| In practice, not really: What I mentioned and you object to
| can be called _generalities_. Sooooo, in the politically
| correct world, those are called, say, _stereotypes_ and are
| offensive.
|
| So, it appears that you see the generalities as drawing some
| detailed conclusions about someone based just on the
| generalities. Instead, you want to hold off on the details
| until there is good evidence one detail and person at a time.
|
| That won't, can't, work very well.
|
| E.g, you are coaching a girl's basketball team. Some of the
| girls are not doing well. You don't know why, and they are
| not clearly, explicitly, frankly, honestly telling you why --
| such reluctance is common. Soooo, you have to guess. You
| start with, they are girls, girls tend to be emotional, in
| particular, afraid. So, try that diagnosis.
|
| Uh, in US society, women get be afraid. Men don't.
|
| You are coaching a boy's basketball team. One of the boys is
| not doing well. If you even hint that you suspect he is
| overly emotional, afraid, you would be calling him a "sissy".
| All the other boys on the team would howl with contempt,
| point fingers, bend over with laughter. So you don't do that.
| You assume he has left his emotions of fear in the locker
| room and is willing to guard Michael Jordan or foul LeBron
| James, even if Jordan fakes him into the nickel seats or
| LeBron knocks him there. Afraid? A boy on a round ball team?
| NO WAY.
|
| In WWII and the battle of Midway, the US sent fighter planes,
| torpedo planes, and dive bomber planes to attack the Japanese
| carriers. Of course, the Japanese had fighter planes in the
| air to protect the carriers. Well, the US planes were poor on
| coordination, and the torpedo planes attacked with the rest
| of the US planes still on the way. Well, it would look like
| the torpedo planes had no chance. And in fact, they didn't
| have a chance; not even one torpedo hit, and all the torpedo
| planes were shot down. The US torpedo plane pilots knew they
| were likely to be shot down, but they flew in anyway. Fear?
| No room for fear.
|
| Sure, some women can also overcome fear, but they are usually
| not expected to and still usually don't.
|
| Did I mention, boys and girls are different.
|
| It appears that you want to set aside generalities and assume
| that the girls are not afraid until it is clear they are or
| that the boys are afraid until it is clear they are not.
|
| But this clear information you want, and I agree would be
| good to have, mostly won't be available.
|
| You want to ignore the generalities. But the generalities are
| from decades of careful observation and have too much good
| information to discard, especially when the detailed
| information you want is not available.
|
| What I posted is what was requested, what I wish I'd had in
| my experience.
|
| I'm not trying to get into current politically correct gender
| _equality_ arguments. Instead, I was describing what I wish I
| had known.
|
| What I listed that I wished I'd known was important. A lot of
| the wishing that you responded to was about love, and that is
| a challenging subject.
|
| E.g., not knowing what I listed I wished I'd known cost me
| the relationship with the prettiest human female I ever saw,
| in person or otherwise. And she was terrific in nearly all
| respects otherwise. Later I discovered by improbable accident
| that she really loved me. For me, I still have her high
| school graduation picture in the UR corner of my computer
| screen -- I'm still in love with her. That was a failure. I
| believe that had I known what I wish I had known, I could
| have saved the relationship, likely had a really good
| marriage, etc. We would have done well with children: I like
| children, and she was way over the top in adoring children,
| especially the faces of children, say, under the age of 5.
|
| E.g., my marriage (to another female) was a failure. Had I
| known what I listed I wish I'd known, I could have either
| avoided the marriage or saved it. She was quite sick.
| Visiting her mother on her family farm, she was missing and
| her body was found floating in a lake, an apparent suicide.
| Did I mention failure?
|
| So, both of those females were afraid. Did I mention that I
| wish I'd understood that females tend to be afraid?
|
| For this subject of fear, I will remind you of a 101 level of
| a little of it: In now some old and relatively solid clinical
| psychology, fear is called anxiety and _tends_ to bring
| paranoia, hysteria, and obsessive-compulsive (OCD),
| psychopathic-passive behavior. Soooo, if see a lot of
| symptoms of anxiety (fear, as my quite perceptive Mom, after
| only 15 minutes, put it, "afraid of her own shadow"), look
| also for the rest. Your approach fails here -- you are asking
| everyone to rediscover 100 years of clinical psychology one
| detail and one person at a time. Then, the anxiety _tends_ to
| bring stress, and the stress tends to bring depression. The
| depression lowers productivity and can, thus, can bring more
| stress. The extra stress can lead to _clinical depression_
| which is dangerous -- can cause suicide. And that is EXACTLY
| what happened. It is just CRUCIAL for someone to understand
| this 101 level of clinical psychology.
|
| Just what she was afraid of, a detail you would insist on,
| she would never say, in decades, never say or hint, and would
| prefer to go to her death than say. Did I mention that some
| of the details you want won't be available?
|
| And why this 101 clinical psychology mostly for women? Did I
| mention, women are much more emotional than men? And more
| afraid?
|
| You want to discard the generalities. Soooo, you discard the
| information the generalities imply and want to get that
| information one detail and one person at a time. E.g., you
| see an anxiety case but want to discard that, from enormous
| evidence, the generalities say that the anxiety can lead to
| OCD, stress, depression, clinical depression, and death.
| Okay, now that they are dead, you have your detailed
| information. Of course, you have the information too late.
| 6stringmerc wrote:
| 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.
| AlgorithmicTime wrote:
| Wish I had kids when I was in my early 20s rather than my early-
| mid 30s.
| msoad wrote:
| 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.
| michaelcao wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| _> 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| If it makes you feel better I lost the keys to Bitcoin worth a
| few orders of magnitude more.
|
| Life does go on.
| jonasdegendt wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| Was it 200k at the time, or appreciated later?
| tasuki wrote:
| The comment you're replying to starts with "Last week,
| actually."
| the-golden-one wrote:
| Given the value, I would suggest paying for a professional
| recovery service.
| cosmodisk wrote:
| Depending on how you did it, the data could still be
| recoverable.
| [deleted]
| nosleep10 wrote:
| Trusting my family.
| waterlaw wrote:
| 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.
| slevcom wrote:
| 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.
| CSMastermind wrote:
| 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]
| autospeaker22 wrote:
| 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".
| blablablerg wrote:
| You don't know what you've got till it is gone.. A classic
| theme unfortunately.
| gernb wrote:
| 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.
| analog31 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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.
| nosleep10 wrote:
| Trusting my family. Believing white ppl.
| KBeyo wrote:
| 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.
| cosmotic wrote:
| Playing video game instead of getting exercise
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| jemmyw wrote:
| 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.
| randomsearch wrote:
| 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.
| hardware2win wrote:
| I cant think of single thing which changed, could significantly
| change my life, that im aware of and i cannot change now.
| scaradim wrote:
| bluff? :-)
| rr808 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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.
| deadcore wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| Listen to everyone. Just don't do what they say if it doesn't
| suit you.
|
| This is not a regret, just an opinion.
| drakonka wrote:
| 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?
| rpsw wrote:
| Bought a family home I don't like and don't think I will be ever
| to sell leaving us stuck here.
| Gigachad wrote:
| Why don't you like it?
| Matty1992 wrote:
| 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
| reuben_scratton wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| My sympathies. Are these issues that could have been flagged by
| the current genetic pre-screeners? Eg NIPT
| elmerfud wrote:
| Not pushing myself harder when I was younger and not traveling
| the world sooner.
| bsnnkv wrote:
| 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
| zackmorris wrote:
| 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.
| stefanos82 wrote:
| 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
| ezekg wrote:
| 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.
| ta3411 wrote:
| 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.
| francisofascii wrote:
| Having 1-2 alcoholic drinks more that I should have, making the
| next day a wash. x 1000
| MrDresden wrote:
| 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.
| WheelsAtLarge wrote:
| Generally, this is the type of regret I finally came to terms
| with. The bottom line is that you did not know the future when
| you made the initial decision. After the fact you have the
| information that would have made a difference but we CAN'T, no
| mater how hard we try, foretell the future. What you are are
| actually regretting is a fantasy. Look at the world around you
| and you'll see many places where you wished you could have made
| a better decision but you can't be upset over them. Again you
| can't know what the future will be. None of us can so don't
| beat yourself over something you had no control over.
| Additionally, in your case, changing someone is not possible
| unless they want to change. You can only learn from the
| situation and hope to make a better choice in the future.
| mscarborough wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| +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 wrote:
| 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.
| biorach wrote:
| 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.
| cmt123 wrote:
| I understand completely and feel the same way about my own
| father.
|
| My dad was also an episodic alcoholic. He'd go months without
| any issues, then disappear for three days on a binge. He'd
| drink such a massive amount of alcohol he'd have to go onto a
| IV drip.
|
| My 16 year old self became so disgusted by him I refused to
| tell him I loved him and shunned him. We tried to give him the
| "tough love" we thought he needed so that he would "hit bottom"
| and then take some control back. It didn't work, and he ended
| up dying alone in a hotel room.
|
| I now see that he needed more love and support instead of tough
| love and isolation. I wish I had been more patient,
| understanding, and supportive.
| starkd wrote:
| Think of it this way: your experience with your father is
| probably what kept you away from alcohol. It's a very common
| pattern.
|
| BTW, I realize "falling off the wagon" means going on a bender,
| but shouldn't it really be the other way around? I mean, if you
| go on a bender, that's like getting on the wagon. I always
| picture this wagon with everyone drinking in the wagon. Because
| no one who drinking's drinking wants to walk. Just one of those
| things that's always bugged me.
| tenebrisalietum wrote:
| The term appears to be very old--originally referring to
| water carts. Those "on" the wagon would be drinking water.
|
| https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/fall_off_the_wagon
| Rendello wrote:
| The confusion around the term was a running joke in a
| Seinfeld episode:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7wx77L9_D84
| 2-718-281-828 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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.
| extasia wrote:
| Cheating on my ex-girlfriend when I was in university.
| kieckerjan wrote:
| 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.
| methusala8 wrote:
| 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.
| MrGilbert wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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. :)
| ultra_nick wrote:
| Not asking anyone working in the career I wanted about the
| career. It's been a decade of floundering.
| hypertele-Xii wrote:
| 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.
| 6stringmerc wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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.
| controversial97 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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.
| hestefisk wrote:
| Was the diagnosed with borderline personality disorder? Surely
| sounds like it.
| olivierestsage wrote:
| 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.
| CSDude wrote:
| 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
|
| 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.
| dankai wrote:
| 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.
| bartvk wrote:
| If that is your biggest regret, don't you reckon that you have
| a very good life so far? (I'm assuming that you live a
| comfortable lifestyle right now.)
| gilbetron wrote:
| There are investments you can make right now that will have the
| same return - why aren't you making those?
| gberger wrote:
| You would have sold at $100 ;)
| Yizahi wrote:
| Worse, he would have probably bought them on MtGox, since it
| was the most popular during those prices.
| subpixel wrote:
| 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.
| derekp7 wrote:
| 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.
| spacemadness wrote:
| I feel like investment regret is a trap as there are so many
| winning investments we overlook as they are far exceeded in
| quantity by possible bad investments. Hindsight creates the
| illusion of perfect information. At least this is what I tell
| myself to sleep better at night.
| jghn wrote:
| Mine is that I said the whole idea was stupid in 2010. When any
| desktop computer could crank them out at a decent clip, but
| they were worthless.
|
| I console myself in the knowledge that I'd never have kept the
| coins long enough for the dream to play out.
| Aeolos wrote:
| I mined a few bitcoins on a GPU back in the beginning, but
| threw them away as useless.
|
| In hindsight...
| spaceman_2020 wrote:
| I ordered an ASIC miner back when they were first coming up.
| My shipment got held up by customs and they asked me to pay a
| hefty import fee. I didn't have the extra cash at that time
| so I just let it go and forgot about it a few months later.
|
| If I had plugged that machine in, I would have probably
| retired by now. A few months of mining back then was enough
| to have life changing amount of BTC today.
| rippercushions wrote:
| If it's any consolation, while they may not be worthless,
| they're still useless.
| epmatsw wrote:
| Gotta be this. Spent hours and hours on Folding when Bitcoin
| was just getting started, if I'd spent a single day mining I'd
| be retired now. Doubt I'll see an opportunity like that again
| in my lifetime.
| missedthecue wrote:
| 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.
| higeorge13 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| She was in fact alone/single for at least 1 or 2 years after
| last I heard. I haven't stalked her... ha
| throw0101c wrote:
| 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-...
|
| * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Pillemer
| ThalesX wrote:
| <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.
| throw0101c wrote:
| A selection of highlights from a review:
|
| * The 50/50 Fallacy: this notion is self-explanatory. No
| marriage is a 50-50 balance of energy. Contribution levels
| will vary across situations and over time. If you expect a
| 50/50 situation, you're likely really expecting something
| more along the lines of an 80/20 exchange in your favor, as
| in you wish your spouse would do 80% of the lifting. Check
| yourself, and realize there should be zero competition
| involved in relationship contribution.
|
| * No one-- not a single person out of a thousand-- said that
| to be happy you should try to work as hard as you can to make
| money to buy the things you want.
|
| * I uncovered one underlying principle behind their emphasis
| on interpersonal skills: maintaining a healthy humility.
|
| * Isolated work is an illusion to be avoided. Your job can be
| autonomous and flexible AND be connected to many people and
| environments.
|
| * What if out of the enormous muddle of child-rearing advice
| there was a "magic bullet"? What if there was one course of
| action you could take that would create loving relationships
| with your children, serve as an early warning system for
| problems they are having, and lead to a lifelong bond with
| them? According to the experts, there is: spend more time
| with your children. And if necessary, sacrifice to do it.
|
| * This extra time spent with children should be interactive.
| Time spent with children is not simply being in the same room
| with them or just keeping an eye on them. You want to be
| engaged in their experience as often as reasonably possible.
|
| * No one has perfect children. They all admit it: their kids
| had at least some difficulty, a flaw, a period of
| unhappiness, a major wrong turn. The reassuring thing is that
| most of their kids turned out pretty well nevertheless. The
| message is clear: abandon all thoughts of raising the
| "perfect child" or being the perfect parent, and do it as
| early as possible.
|
| * By making healthy lifestyle decisions as early as possible,
| you can to some degree control whether you spend the last
| decades of your life in healthy productivity and contentment
| or in a downward spiral of physical misery.
|
| * ALWAYS reach out. You do not want to become isolated.
|
| * Be honest above all. If you're honest with all the people
| around you, no matter what happens, you can look at yourself
| in the mirror in the morning and say, "I haven't done
| anything wrong." In other words, you've made the right
| decision if you're honest.
|
| * One particular virtue was mentioned over and over again -
| honesty. Just be respectfully honest. If you present the
| facts as necessary - no more, no less - then you never have
| to be nervous. The facts are what they are. Withholding or
| distorting relevant facts when interacting with others
| generates anxiety and discomfort.
|
| * Don't worry so much. There is not enough time in our lives
| to trade off the gold of our existence for the dust of what-
| ifs or what-if-nots.
|
| * Once people reach a certain age (70s and beyond), it's
| almost a certainty that they have experienced significant
| loss and significant joy. The elders have become experts in
| walking a balance between accepting loss and maintaining an
| awareness of life's pleasures. The elders overwhelmingly
| believe that each of us can choose to be happier and that we
| can do so in the face of the painful events that inevitably
| accompany the process of living.
|
| * They see a distinct difference between worry and conscious,
| rational planning that greatly reduces worry.
|
| More at:
|
| * https://versatilebeing.com/2018/01/19/book-
| notes-30-lessons-...
|
| Did your advice come from one person, a dozen, or a thousand?
| Because the book is the distillation of a thousand: the
| common threads from all sorts of people from all walks of
| life.
|
| Reading the book costs nothing except some time (and no money
| if you use a library like I did).
| ducharmdev wrote:
| I come from the Bible belt, and was religious as a teenager
| before life circumstances led me to quickly and dramatically
| turn away from faith. When that curtain was pulled, suddenly
| many of the adults in my life seemed misguided at best, and
| downright evil at worst.
|
| But college gave me a different view on this. I went to a
| small university, where some professors made a real effort to
| mentor students - not only to make them better academics, but
| better people too. These professors were people I really
| looked up to.
|
| I think they empathized more with students, recognizing that
| while they did have advice to give, context matters - some
| may be relevant nowadays, some may not. They also were quite
| analytical; they'd only truly believe some advice they gave
| if they'd spent lots of time critiquing, testing, and
| thinking about it.
|
| I guess I mention all this to say: respect for someone's
| advice must be earned. It sounds like your family did not
| earn this, so IMO you have the right idea.
| kadabra9 wrote:
| 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.
| pwdisswordfish9 wrote:
| Wasting time on Hacker News
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| soueuls wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| Can't you go back?
| suranyami wrote:
| 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_ wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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.
| possiblydrunk wrote:
| 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.
| spaceman_2020 wrote:
| 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...
| weeksie wrote:
| I had been focused on work through my 20s and had always wanted
| to write. Shifted gears in my 30s and have developed myself as
| a writer. It wasn't without cost, of course.
|
| If you want to give more time to developing yourself as a
| writer or musician or artist, there's time. You can shift
| gears, you just have to understand the tradeoffs because just
| like neglecting social life and artistic development led to
| those parts of yourself being underdeveloped, so will shifting
| gears in your thirties in regards to your career.
|
| If you don't throw yourself full-bore into those new pursuits,
| you can still pick them up as hobbies, choose modest projects,
| and split the difference.
| ilamont wrote:
| Writing is one of those pursuits/passions that often doesn't
| really get going until later in life. Author Hilary Mantel, who
| just passed away at age 70, didn't publish her first novel
| until her mid 30s. Science Fiction author Gene Wolfe was a
| plant engineer (helping to design the machine used to make
| Pringles, incidentally) and later the editor of a technical
| magazine. He wrote short stories and novellas on the side
| starting in his 30s but wasn't able to start writing full time
| until his late 40s or 50s.
| robertk wrote:
| Dude, spaceman_2020, you are young a.f. still. There are
| predicaments and Chinese finger traps much much worse still.
| Here is your quote of the day:
|
| https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/6495956-for-what-it-s-worth...
| 29athrowaway wrote:
| It's probably the average situation for most people.
|
| In their 30s, most average people are busy with kids and work
| and have little time to socialize.
|
| But eventually they will reunite with their lifelong friends
| and make videos like these:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4g3OT7w1u5s (I have no
| affiliation with those people)
| sleepycatgirl wrote:
| Nope. It is never too late. As long as you are alive, you can
| change things. It certainly won't be easy. But it is doable.
| The only thing that is stopping you, is your own mind. And I
| believe in you. You can do it! Also I wish you a nice day,
| hopefully.
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| It's never too late, of course. I think there is a naivete to
| one's art when younger that can be refreshing if it's music,
| perhaps less so if it's prose.
|
| To be sure, the short stories and such I wrote in my early 20's
| are embarrassing to me now.
|
| Pynchon was a young published writer when he wrote the story
| "Entropy" -- I believe it was later embarrassing to him (and
| well it should be).
|
| Since I was raised by a single mother (working as a secretary)
| I took financial responsibility very seriously -- such that,
| while I had an artistic bent, I did not waste my money paying
| for college to pursue a degree as impractical as art. I don't
| think though that, like you, that I have had many second
| thoughts about the path I took. I know I would have done the
| same thing given another chance.
|
| On the other hand I have since raised three kids and encouraged
| all of them in creative expression. I made it clear as they
| grew up that college was going to be a free ride for them --
| they should pursue whatever degree that speaks to them. (My
| first daughter majored in Fine Art -- is busy getting her
| tattoo license).
|
| I kind of feel like I got a second chance through them. Or a
| chance to see what-could-have-been. They're fortunate. I and
| perhaps you were not.
|
| My regret is watching so much crap on cable TV before starting
| a family (cut the cord when the first was born, never looked
| back). Got a lot of free time back to pursue more artistic
| interests. :-)
| vanadium1st wrote:
| What surprised me in your story is that you have actually
| written those half finished books and songs. You've spend your
| time, you've tried it out and have an actual understanding of
| how this process works. Because I've heard dozens of stories
| like yours, of people regretting not following their artistic
| pursuits. Practically all of those people didn't write anything
| at all and never tried to put the pen to paper. For those
| people the path to artistry in an eternity. But you are already
| there. You've made the hardest steps and now you can only get
| better.
| some_furry wrote:
| It's only too late when you lose access to your drafts
| etothepii wrote:
| 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.
| spicyusername wrote:
| Definitely not too late. 30s are still very young.
|
| Whatever your goal is, try to stop having 0% days.
|
| You don't need to have 100% days, Just avoid having 0% days.
|
| In a few months or a year you'll be surprised at the progress
| you've made.
| kormosi wrote:
| 100% agree.
|
| Had a realization about small steps making a huge difference
| a few days ago.
|
| It was so profound to me that I've written a short essay
| about it.
|
| https://kormosi.com/small-things/
| prirun wrote:
| > Focused too much on making a living in my teens and 20s
| instead of college and social life
|
| I did this too, to avoid addressing being gay. At times in my
| life I've regretted working so much, but in my late 50's I
| developed some health problems because of a goofed-up immune
| system (CVID). Now, I'm glad I was able to retire at 45 because
| I was a workaholic in my younger days. I still enjoy my life,
| but if I had to work full time, it would be pretty miserable
| and I'd probably have to go on disability.
|
| One thing I try to keep in mind about regrets: when looking
| back, people always assume that if they had made a different
| decision, the outcome would have been better. But you don't
| actually know that: things could have turned out worse.
| incomingpain wrote:
| >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.
|
| Sounds like you are me. I worked tons, paid off my house. Got
| my retirement fund way up. Lots went well; but obviously came
| at a cost of other things.
|
| >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.
|
| Andy Weir was in his 40s when he finished his 3rd book and
| managed to get it published. Now he's a contemporary scifi
| leader.
|
| Personally managed to finish writing 3 books but I'm too
| chickenshit to actually try to get them published. I'm a tech,
| not a writer and I'm not expecting they are any good.
|
| >I reckon it's still not too late, but something tells me that
| it is...
|
| Nope, not at all too late. You have decades to get back to
| those.
| the_only_law wrote:
| > Focused too much on making a living in my teens and 20s
|
| Worst mistake of my fucking life. Did me no good anyway, as all
| of peers who had a head on them and took more traditional paths
| ended up reaching where I was or better within a few years.
| jerpint wrote:
| Sounds like something to write a song about
| MrsPeaches wrote:
| When every someone says it's too late in life to do something,
| I like to remind them that Toussaint L'Overture (a former
| slave) [1] was almost 50 when he led one of the most successful
| slave rebellions, defeating all of the colonial powers at the
| time (France, Spain and UK) and laying the ground work for the
| first independent black state in Carribean.
|
| Just a nice example that it ain't too late.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toussaint_Louverture
| mylons wrote:
| Julia Child didn't even learn to cook until she was 39. And
| it was quite a journey from there before she had her famous
| show and career.
| q7xvh97o2pDhNrh wrote:
| What would happen if you renamed that folder from "regret" to
| "work in progress"?
| carapace wrote:
| 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.
| uejfiweun wrote:
| 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.
| badpun wrote:
| > 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).
| erenyeager wrote:
| 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
| regret wrote:
| 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.
| markus_zhang wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| At age 50+ your biggest regret will be spending your 40s
| focused on past mistakes and lamenting your regrets.
| markus_zhang wrote:
| 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?
| jugg1es wrote:
| 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.
| mmmmmbop wrote:
| Love the honesty.
| Orzelius wrote:
| love this one
| burwood wrote:
| 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.
| PuppyTailWags wrote:
| 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.
| bheadmaster wrote:
| 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.
| jefftk wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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.
| gernb wrote:
| I wish I didn't believe in regret but I feel it. I do my best
| to ignore it and face forward but I still often feel very
| strong regret for moments daily.
|
| Since high school I wanted a spouse and kids (obviously I
| imagined a good relationship and good kids)
|
| Now I'm in my late 50s and it's not going to happen. I was
| always hopeful today I'm going to meet someone. That hope has
| mostly disappeared.
|
| I regret not trying harder in various ways.
| bheadmaster wrote:
| I feel regret too, there are many experiences that, when I
| remember them, make my heart sink and make me think "I really
| fucking wish I didn't do it that way".
|
| However, the perspective I've explained keeps me from
| dwelling on it for too long. What's done is done, I did the
| only thing I could do with the information that was
| available. There is no point in punishing myself (unless it's
| to remind myself of the lesson). That's what I meant by not
| "believing" in regret.
|
| That perspective often helps me get out of the self-pitying
| mood.
| robertk wrote:
| Regret, like everything else, is an evolutionary corollary
| built out of destiny optimization that allows for
| counterfactual consideration of painful paths to avoid similar
| outcomes in the future. In the end, what physics decrees shall
| occur shall occur and the only thing we can do in those times
| of war is burn down the ships behind us and continue charging
| forward in this strange yet charming universe we find ourselves
| shackled within.
|
| In the end, we must imagine Sisyphus--the final mirror--happy.
| ljm wrote:
| Phaedrus, is that you?
| adamsmith143 wrote:
| No Ragrets
| phkahler wrote:
| >> Fantasies of "changing the past" are seductive, but
| ultimately pointless.
|
| As are ones about making an unlikely future come to be. When I
| find myself sidetracked by those thoughts I now say to myself
| "Get out of fantasy land where unicorns fart rainbows" and it
| seems to stop.
| dctoedt wrote:
| > _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._
|
| This. You play the hand you're dealt -- and the hand you're
| dealt includes your "wiring" (brain anatomy, brain chemistry,
| etc.) and your "programming" (past experiences, etc.). And you
| try to learn what you can.
|
| _(Warning -- tangent:)_ It all contributes to what I 've come
| to think of as The Great Project [0] of helping to build a
| universe -- where our Conway Game of Life moves (or our Boyd
| OODA Loop moves, if you prefer) are something like the
| following:
|
| 1. Aspire: Imagine some way in which the world could and should
| be different than (our mental model of) what it currently is.
|
| 2. Act -- and while doing so: (A) remain open to new evidence
| and insights; and (B) for purely pragmatic reasons, seek the
| best _for others_ as we do for ourselves (in part, because to a
| certain extent we all operate behind a Rawlsian veil of
| ignorance).
|
| 3. Learn: Update the mental model of what the world is, and
| also the mental model of what the world "should" be.
|
| 4. Repeat.
|
| [0]
| https://www.questioningchristian.com/2006/06/metanarratives_...
| shirinbajaj wrote:
| incomingpain wrote:
| >I don't really "believe" in regret.
|
| I don't believe in the past. It's much the same if you think
| about it.
|
| >Fantasies of "changing the past" are seductive, but ultimately
| pointless.
|
| If you were to jump in a tardis and were to go to the event
| that you want to change. 100% of the time you will discover the
| entire thing was a story in your mind. Something you didn't
| understand at the time and if you were to 'fix' it. You would
| end up only harming yourself of today.
|
| >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.
|
| Regrets of current day are legitimate. Perhaps it's substance
| abuse, social media. You know in your mind these things are not
| good. Nobody brags about these things. You know if you were to
| quit things would be better, but you have current day regrets
| of not doing so.
|
| Furthermore, perhaps you're a superhuman with no faults. You
| can also have regrets having not done more. PErhaps you could
| have started that business or try to get that book published.
| [deleted]
| arwhatever wrote:
| Same here. I have screw ups, definitely some big ones, but I
| don't understand regret as a concept.
| f154hfds wrote:
| It seems you define regret as: if I went back in time I would
| do <Y> instead of <X> and of course this is a pointless
| exercise if you choose to define it this way.
|
| Most people I think define regret more abstractly: back in
| time, <X> was a _mistake_, it shouldn't have happened, _I_
| shouldn't have done it that way and consequences came from it
| either for myself or those I love.
|
| It seems from your response that you're ok with admitting your
| mistakes which - by the above definition - sounds like you feel
| regret.
| ako wrote:
| I don't think that first statement is pointless, it just
| shows you have the ability to learn and to admit you're not
| perfect. And regret just means you made a choice in the past,
| that you'd done differently being the person you are today,
| and you feel it would have made your life better had you
| choosen differently. But we all make mistakes, nobody's
| perfect, I'd expect everyone to have some regrets.
| [deleted]
| nmz wrote:
| A mistake is something that shouldn't have happened, regret
| is the same thing, with the addendum of wanting to change it
| or not wanting it to happen.
|
| Time travel doesn't exist, ergo regret shouldn't exist. I
| think what op is saying is they don't ruminate on it and I
| agree, nobody should. unless you have an established pattern,
| then rumination is self invoked torture.
| mrweasel wrote:
| On the lighter end I certainly have situation where I'd like to
| know how it would have played out had I made different choices.
| It's minor things like I would what would have happened had I
| asked that girl out 15 years ago, but I was to stupid to notice
| that she liked me, or maybe I should have applied for that job
| six years earlier, because they clearly wanted to hire me back
| then already.
|
| The thing is, every choice I've made, even "the wrong ones",
| have put me in a better position overall. Perhaps I could be
| richer, but I don't really care about that. Maybe I just view
| everything in a positive light and ignore all the good things
| that could have been, who knows.
| cthulhu-bot wrote:
| The ability to make good decisions comes from wisdom.
|
| Wisdom is gained from making bad decisions.
| BryantD wrote:
| 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.
| bsnnkv wrote:
| 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
| bsnnkv wrote:
| Yeah, my previous comment definitely doesn't show up on my
| profile or on this thread when I try to view it on both this
| submission and my profile in a logged-out state.
|
| dang: I think this is because I used the full "p" word in my
| initial post, can you confirm?
| SoftTalker wrote:
| Lifting heavy will stimulate testosterone production. You
| probably won't need TRT if you continue to lift.
| Merad wrote:
| 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.
| swframe2 wrote:
| I turned down offers from good friends/classmates who were VPs at
| early start ups (viaweb, tripadvisor, paypal, vmware, google,
| yahoo).
| Pinegulf wrote:
| Doing my Ph.D in biotechnology. Turns out that EU area is really
| against bio-tech. Now I do IT to pay the bills.
| CalRobert wrote:
| 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...
| rippercushions wrote:
| 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?
| bombcar wrote:
| 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-...
|
| 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_.
| bumby wrote:
| This has been ironically known to happen on government
| property as well, where you might expect more desire to
| preserve historic property. Instead of fixing them, they
| may just be left to deteriorate until they can be razed and
| something more modern built on the site.
| CalRobert wrote:
| Lots of nosy old biddies eager to play with someone else's
| budget.
| wollsmoth wrote:
| yeah, gosh, it'd be a shame if the house were damaged such
| that it lost its heritage status.
| CalRobert wrote:
| The neighbour offered to accidently back his tractor in to
| it...
| biztos wrote:
| Maybe this is a stupid question, but why is it unrentable?
|
| Could you AirBnB it?
| sollewitt wrote:
| With no insurance?
| CalRobert wrote:
| I don't think it's a good idea to do that without insurance,
| personally. Though paradoxically if it burned down it
| probably would be worth more. I'm more worried about personal
| liability if someone hurts themselves.
| timwaagh wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| I have the opposite situation. I wish I'd spent more money on
| having fun. Time is a finite resource.
| rswskg wrote:
| Stop being afraid of failing. It was so painful that I put alot
| of things off and thus didn't grow.
| JetAlone wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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...
| 1970-01-01 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| I just did the math. Simply buying the coin and holding would
| have given me a 132,141% ROI today
| isthisthingon99 wrote:
| 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.
| yashg wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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!
| cosmodisk wrote:
| That I haven't punched a few people in the face when I should
| have.
| ChuckNorris89 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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:)
| igtztorrero wrote:
| Not learn to play piano,violin or guitarra in child ages.
| bluebus wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| Thank you for sharing your deeply personal experience, I'm
| sorry to read you've been through that.
| austinjp wrote:
| 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.
| brianolson wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| I sincerely enjoy this thread because it asks the harder
| questions to the audience. Human stuff are very hard.
| washedawayse wrote:
| 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.
| georgeburdell wrote:
| 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
| glutamate wrote:
| My biggest regret is wasting so much time regretting things.
| waterlaw wrote:
| This is good advice. Learning lessons is not the same as
| wallowing and reliving the past.
| tommypie wrote:
| 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.
| CM30 wrote:
| 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.
| Test0129 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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.
| eel wrote:
| 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.
| staticelf wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| How did you waste it?
| ihatepython wrote:
| Bitcoin. I knew about it from the very beginning.
| easymac wrote:
| I regret often all of the shopping I did on darknet markets
| (drugs) in the mid 2010s ... an outright waste of money &
| potential on two levels.
| matsemann wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| I sold at $100. Thought it was a massive overpriced bubble
| and insane that it was worth $100. No regrets.
| camjohnson26 wrote:
| I sold 8 Ethereum at $50 each, up from $18. Still think it
| was the right decision though, nobody can predict the
| future.
|
| Did keep a couple as a hedge fortunately.
| xupybd wrote:
| Ha! A bit coin miner was almost my honours project.
|
| I console myself in the fact that I would have sold any Bitcoin
| I might have mined well before the price really took off.
| paulgb wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| Haha. I lost all my bitcoin stored on a personal wallet.
| Doesn't even have to be Mt. Gox
| bloqs wrote:
| 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"
| 727564797069706 wrote:
| Wow, it's crazy to hear that as a person who has recently
| become aware of first such occasion at 31 years old.
|
| Thanks for sharing!
| russellbeattie wrote:
| Wow. That makes me feel so much better!! Seriously. 2011 to
| 2021 were those years for me. I've beat myself up over not
| making forward progress in life, if not regressing, for an
| entire _decade_. The idea that there 's a saying about it is
| somehow comforting (assuming of course that the decade is now
| over). It's like when you stop and realize that "existential
| crisis" is a cliche phrase because so many others have
| experienced it as well, for centuries.
| [deleted]
| selestify wrote:
| As someone who doesn't quite understand/believe it, could you
| elucidate more on that?
| CaptArmchair wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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.
| elefantastisch wrote:
| Read through the thread. Look how many stories there are of
| people losing years and years to something that they now
| regret. The realization is that this is the _norm_ , not the
| exception. We're all just fragile and fallible and trying to
| make our way through life as best we can, and we all end up
| messing up big somewhere along the way.
|
| It's easy to look back on 10 wasted years and think you
| failed, you blew your one chance at life. But if you come to
| realize that looking back on 10 wasted years is actually a
| common human struggle, it can help you reframe your regret as
| just another one of the trials of being a limited, mortal
| human and not take it so personally as your own failing.
| varjag wrote:
| This thread is self-selecting: people who have no big
| regrets clearly wouldn't be posting here.
| [deleted]
| pfdietz wrote:
| That I didn't try to intervene when my brother was spiraling down
| to suicide. The warning signs were there, but I ignored them.
| pmarreck wrote:
| 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...
| mikrl wrote:
| 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.
| Traubenfuchs wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| bad bot
| Traubenfuchs wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| Clicking 'cancel' on a buy order for 110 bitcoins at circa 2$
| each x)
| ramesh31 wrote:
| >Clicking 'cancel' on a buy order for 110 bitcoins at circa 2$
| each x)
|
| Meh. You would have sold them at $4.
| andrepd wrote:
| Hardly, I bought just two at 20 and I'm still holding on to
| them :p
| clavalle wrote:
| 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.
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| cmrdporcupine wrote:
| 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.
| kuramitropolis wrote:
| Being born. No, thanks!
| aristofun wrote:
| 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.
| DontchaKnowit wrote:
| 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.
| celim307 wrote:
| It's never too late. I consider myself very isolated and
| introverted, but over the years collected a small circle of
| friends who accept me for who I am and also have gone through
| similar things. I have an old coworker, a couple of friends
| from the gym, and someone I met at 35 that may become my best
| friend. I ask I don't say this to brag but that just because
| you missed out before does not mean you have to stay lonely.
|
| Just be open, put yourself out there, be polite to everyone but
| respect your own boundaries, and don't take it personally if
| things don't pan out right away. A lot of my close
| relationships are ones that were background characters for a
| long time too , but randomly we were brought back together.
| There's no template to life and it's poison to compare yourself
| to others. Just start taking control of what you want your life
| to be like and I promise it is a skill like anything else, you
| just gotta practice even if you fall
| therufa wrote:
| i feel like an alien too but without the drug part (maybe the
| internet). Not hooked on anything yet still unable to pursue
| meaningful relationships outside the preexisting few I have
| left. Lately I stopped expressing ideas to people, since most
| of them are just rejected or get swallowed up by the void. All
| i'm trying to say is that there *might* be something more to
| the social part.
| celim307 wrote:
| You gotta keep trying. Also could be you're in the midst of a
| social circle that isn't empathetic or just doesn't click. I
| had to move and explore until I found people I connected with
| troupe wrote:
| 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.
| par wrote:
| Promise you that it is never too late. Speaking from
| experience. You've accomplished more than you realize. Stay
| straightened out and get out there.
| andrejandre wrote:
| You will find your people. You looked underneath a stone not
| many people turn over.
|
| I don't have such a drug story, but I do feel like an alien
| often. I tend to only be capable of socializing with people who
| deeply align with my goals and ambitions. Those being:
| calisthenics, software, fitness, coding, cooking, being
| organized, etc.
|
| I don't give myself a hard time for seeking a 'strata' of
| people, etc.
|
| Be selective. Find the people only you want. Be an alien.
| bergenty wrote:
| I would love to hear your list of 40 drugs because I did a lot
| of them in my 20s but I still couldn't name that many. My list
| would be nicotine, marijuana, alcohol, cocaine, LSD, shrooms,
| ecstasy, adderall, oxy, dmt, 2cb, tramadol, percocet, ayahuasca
| and mescaline. Other than that the only things I can think of
| is heroin, crack and meth. That's only 18.
| wollsmoth wrote:
| Yeah, similar but not so bad. Spent a lot of nights and
| weekends with drinks and friends. Now I'm finding we're not so
| well connected if we're not all drunk and you can't keep on
| like that too long without great cost. Too many of my friends
| have slipped into alcoholism or major health issues.
|
| I'm in a city so there are options, but figuring out the social
| world without booze is a lot.
| the_only_law wrote:
| Yeah I used to go out a lot, even alone. Realized I was just
| spending money, beating the hell of my liver and occasionally
| talking to a crazy person.
| bigie35 wrote:
| Hi there, you're kind of me but in reverse. Raised Christian,
| initially very socially awkward as a kid and even in high
| school, it wasnt until my junior year in college that i really
| opened up and now that i'm "established" professionally and
| socially, I've been looking into dipping my toes into the world
| of psychedelics.
|
| I'd love to chat more if you're interested. You can find my
| email in my profile.
| magic_hamster wrote:
| There are a lot of people like you. Adults looking for friends
| out of college or work. Just expanding the social circle,
| hanging out online and if possible IRL at times.
|
| I suggest joining communities for topics that interest you, for
| starters. You're likely to meet some like minded people and
| make a few a friends. This happened for me every time I tried a
| new hobby.
| blockwriter wrote:
| Replace drug use with I'll-fated literary projects, and I am
| much the same.
| brnaftr361 wrote:
| Me too, mostly. At least... in a lot of ways. It's weird having
| lived a whole life and done a bunch of crazy shit and then
| listening to people and realizing how fucking droll most of
| their lives are even at 30, how narrow are their experiences,
| even the ones that are "woke". I find it hard to relate. I even
| find myself condescending sometimes.
|
| But nobody knows how to meet people, nobody has some magic
| playbook. You've got to press, and you've got to deal with
| rejections, because _most_ people are too afraid.
| spicyusername wrote:
| 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.
| tayo42 wrote:
| Fwiw it's hard to make friends for everybody after college life
| danesparza wrote:
| +1
| irrational wrote:
| Not in my experience. You just need to belong to a group
| outside of work. It might be a church, a volunteer group, a
| community group, whatever. I have so many friends from
| outside of work groups.
| Oneiros512 wrote:
| Regarding social skills, I feel like I can relate to how you
| describe your situation. I was extremely socially anxious when
| I was younger and basically avoided any social interactions I
| could. Throughout highschool and college I never had any
| friends to speak of or dated. I mostly shut myself away with
| video games and other solitary interests.
|
| I moved to a new city away from my family when I was 27 and
| that was when I finally pushed myself to start changing things
| as the loneliness really hit me. I started going to meetup
| events and work lunches with people. I started reading up on
| social skills and trying my hand at dating. Roughly 5 years
| since then I've actually done pretty well for myself, made some
| good friends, had some good experiences with dating, and I'm
| rather happy with how things have shaped out. I'm still kind of
| awkward socially but gotten more comfortable with putting
| myself out there anyway and found that a lot of people don't
| really mind.
| celim307 wrote:
| Just chiming in to say how proud I am of you, as I'm went and
| still going though something similar. Its scary and hard and
| you get burned a lot but I wouldn't trade the friends I made
| and the relationships I've invested in since becoming more in
| touch and open, including my family, are my absolute proudest
| accomplishments
|
| I am of the opinion that people who have gone though this are
| more empathetic caring people
| devonallie wrote:
| These comments are a nice reminder that my time on this earth is
| my most precious asset.
| asmr wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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.
| ClassyJacket wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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'
| glassconclusion wrote:
| Stange advice indeed. It will take years to become a
| doctor and you will be over 40 and starting with no
| experience.
| pfdietz wrote:
| My daughter went to med school right out of college and
| is just now doing her last year of fellowship in her
| specialty. Next year, she'll be earning much more than I
| do. It was expensive, but not enormously so compared to
| what one will earn.
| [deleted]
| ostenning wrote:
| Webdev is risky as an older person if thats all you know
| because its the most popular, and therefore most
| competitive.
|
| My advice is to use webdev as a backup to a specialisation
| of some kind, ideally something you can grow with. Embedded
| is a great choice, and its definitely more technical work.
| glassconclusion wrote:
| > 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.
|
| I was in a similar position a couple years ago. You don't need
| to catch up. Just pick a certain direction, i.e. frontend,
| backend, embedded, devops and stick to it. Once you got a
| certain years in the industry, it is easy to find better paying
| jobs and it is way easier to get hired.
| noir_lord wrote:
| > 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.
|
| I programmed from been a kid in the 80's, I truly loved it
| (still do) but I didn't start my full time career in
| programming til I was nearly 30 (I trained as an industrial
| electrician because I didn't think I was smart enough to be a
| software engineer - crippling self confidence issues and a
| horrific upbringing - ended up working minimum wage),
|
| I shot up the ladder and in my early 40's I'm exactly where I
| would have been had I started at 21 - the later start and
| working different jobs in difference industries gave me a soft-
| skillset I wouldn't have otherwise gotten.
|
| So while you are starting a few years after me its well within
| the realms of possibility if you get the right breaks.
|
| Good Luck!.
| icebergonfire wrote:
| > And I kept putting it off due to poor mental health and
| travel.
|
| I've been you, quite literally. And with an extremely similar
| age timeline even.
|
| I won't tell you _you will make it_ because we are not owed a
| specific outcome in exchange for our efforts, but I can tell
| you it can be done. Channel that regret into creating the
| proper scaffolding to propel yourself into trying to make it
| work.
|
| If you don't end up _making it_ at least you will be able to
| say you did indeed try your best until you couldn't.
|
| The ideal best time to do it was ten years ago. Next best time
| is today.
| ben30 wrote:
| I've been a software engineer for many years, I stick at it
| because I enjoy it. Paying well is secondary. It requires a lot
| of focus, but the enjoyment of solving problems and being
| creative, is what drives me, not financial. That's why I still
| do it. If you can find that enjoyment, don't worry about not
| catching up, it will come.
|
| I read the number of developer jobs doubles every 5 years. So
| with 5 years experience you'd be in the top 50%
| ChuckNorris89 wrote:
| _> I read the number of developer jobs doubles every 5 years_
|
| Is there any indication this will go on forever? Moore's law
| is also dead. At one point "software is eating the world"
| will also come to an end. In my city it's already more
| difficult to find a plumber than to find an app/web
| developer.
| ben30 wrote:
| well, nothing is certain. My point was, starting is better
| than not starting and regretting that you are too late to
| start. Deciding what to start is the question.
| [deleted]
| qwerty456127 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| FWIW, you are never too old to start. The older you get, the
| more getting in at least some exercise counts.
| lordnacho wrote:
| 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.
| mjthrowaway1 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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.
| theow7384iri wrote:
| Been there, employee #12 in 2016 at startup that created one of
| top ten cryptocurrencies. Was not crypto nut, I worked in
| research, friend gave me a gig. Disposed all crypto assets a
| few months before 2017 peak, bcos wanted simple divorce.
| Friends were telling me to convert everything to coins and run
| into Thailand LOL.
| biztos wrote:
| On the plus side, there are a _lot_ of crypto bros here in
| Thailand and you could probably still find a blockchain to do
| research for if that 's still your thing.
|
| They keep telling me to buy Bitcoin, I keep buying beers
| instead...
| lexapro wrote:
| You sold at a not so bad time then. The "mistake" was to not
| reinvest at the 2019 lows.
| djohnston wrote:
| 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.
| tiffanyh wrote:
| Not spending more time with family members to have since passed
| away.
| HealthNeed wrote:
| 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
| THENATHE wrote:
| 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.
| tsuujin wrote:
| I feel for you.
|
| My dad died earlier this year from prostate cancer. I wish
| deeply that I had spent more time with him, listened more
| closely to him. I lay awake every night thinking about lost
| opportunities I had during my life, moments when I chose to do
| anything other than just hang out with him.
|
| You have a hard road ahead, I hope you have a support network
| filled with people who love you. I am a loner with no support
| network outside of my family and it has been fucking hard.
| austinjp wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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.
| dutchbrit wrote:
| Not working on myself as much as I should (physically, confidence
| and focus).
| b3lvedere wrote:
| 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.
| [deleted]
| mikessoft_gmail wrote:
| swah wrote:
| Serious: not having kids way earlier. Less serious: not playing
| soccer and generally avoiding all those kind of activities with
| the "cool kids"
| waterfallr wrote:
| "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.". Soren
| Kierkegaard
| bartvk wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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."
| bartvk wrote:
| That's a good point, thanks!
| Nomentatus wrote:
| I've usually seen this quote attributed to Socrates:
| https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/10290499-rather-you-marry-o...
|
| If memory serves, it's not in any of the dialogues that
| survive; but was anciently attributed to him.
| camjohnson26 wrote:
| Worth noting Kierkegaard never married
| pixelmonkey wrote:
| 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."
| [deleted]
| m3nu wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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...
| smeej wrote:
| 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.
| baobabKoodaa wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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.
| brandnewlow wrote:
| I'm sorry for your loss.
| sgt101 wrote:
| 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.
| alocasia-1 wrote:
| 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.
| shultays wrote:
| 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
| gadders wrote:
| 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.
| lakomen wrote:
| My Ex. Fucking cheating self centered whore. I said it.
| pc86 wrote:
| 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.
| RMPR wrote:
| > 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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.
| yamtaddle wrote:
| > What does that mean being "FAANG level"?
|
| Money.
|
| Lack of talent at the job, _or_ lack of ability to perform in
| their notoriously-grueling interviews (I 'm brain-dead after
| ~2 hours of a _normal_ interview battery, personally) means
| that a whole lot of devs can never make FAANG-tier money,
| because they can 't hack it at the job, because they can't
| hack it at the _interview_ for one or more of several
| reasons, or because being pretty sure that the second thing
| is the case means they never make the enormous time
| investment to try.
|
| So we're stuck in the middle of the trimodal dev-comp curves,
| permanently. Except for those stuck in the bottom one. Those
| two curves are _most_ developers.
|
| So we're "not FAANG-level", the most important consequence of
| which is we do alright (middle-class lifestyle, judged by
| what we used to consider middle-class before that started to
| slip downward to include all non-poor on account of the
| middle class shrinking and everyone wanting to avoid
| acknowledging it) but will never, ever get rich (upper-middle
| money or higher) working our day job.
| tasuki wrote:
| > leaving a job I hate for a job I think I will love
|
| Possible, though based on what I've seen so far, somewhat
| unlikely.
|
| Usually, the old job wasn't _that_ bad with more hindsight, and
| the new job is rarely _that_ good...
| [deleted]
| coldcode wrote:
| 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.
| runeblaze wrote:
| 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!
| philliphaydon wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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.
| joshka wrote:
| Not maxing out retirement savings early in my career. Compound
| interest FTW.
| badpun wrote:
| > Compound interest FTW.
|
| Unless hiperinflation.
| ostenning wrote:
| Not sure about this one, especially if pension funds collapse
| like they will probably do in Germany
| patwolf wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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)
| gtmitchell wrote:
| 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.
| darod wrote:
| 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.
| plodman wrote:
| 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.
| ChuckNorris89 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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.
| punkspider wrote:
| 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.
| austinjp wrote:
| Hi from an internet stranger! Have you sought help? Please do,
| even if you think the worst is past. Best wishes :)
| sandruso wrote:
| 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.
| codazoda wrote:
| 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.
| joshmarinacci wrote:
| 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.
| contingencies wrote:
| Not studying biology in greater depth before traveling the world.
| mceachen wrote:
| Prioritizing work over family and loved ones.
|
| You don't get back that time. Ever.
| TheAceOfHearts wrote:
| 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.
| incomingpain wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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.
| cranium wrote:
| 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.
| Dowwie wrote:
| 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.
| user_7832 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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._
| smoldesu wrote:
| 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.
| voisin wrote:
| > 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.
|
| This applies to most people.
| scandox wrote:
| It is handy when your heart is in something financially
| remunerative though.
|
| My heart tends toward the gutter. Not complaining though.
| matwood wrote:
| 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.
| r3trohack3r wrote:
| Wait But Why had a great take on this:
| https://mobile.twitter.com/waitbutwhy/status/157156259595748...
| l33tbro wrote:
| Is quoting a stoic on HN the same as playing 'Stairway to
| Heaven' in a guitar shop?
|
| I do love this quote of course (and all things Aurelius).
| rchaud wrote:
| Yes, and the guitar solo equivalent would be linking to a
| Paul Graham article.
| user_7832 wrote:
| ...I had no idea it was common here on HN, though I'm not
| surprised. It was just something that's helped me a fair bit
| and I hope(d) it could help others too.
| yamtaddle wrote:
| Stoics had (yet another--IIRC the last one was around the
| 1950s-60s) popular revival a few years back and now they're
| everywhere (especially Aurelius) and there's definitely a
| bit of "well I'll have to stop wearing _that_ band 's shirt
| out and about now that Wal-Mart's selling fake-faded
| reproductions of their tour shirts and most of the people
| you see wearing one can't name more than three of their
| songs" to it.
| bombcar wrote:
| It's not just HN, stoics hit a "rational coder" approach to
| life chord with those who fight computers all day.
| asveikau wrote:
| I think it might be more that a lot of people in tech
| have poor work-life balances and bad interpersonal
| dynamics, and this causes high stress and receptivity to
| coping mechanisms.
| agomez314 wrote:
| lol
| darkteflon wrote:
| Funniest thing I read today. Thanks.
|
| Thanks to GP, too. That's a lovely quote.
| throwaway2722 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| > 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 wrote:
| 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.
| rchaud wrote:
| You say you have not dated, so your skepticism is perhaps
| warranted due to lack of real life experience.
|
| There is survey data that can prove, or at least strongly
| point to pretty much any conclusion you want.
|
| And yet, bald people are out there dating. As are
| overweight people and everyone else that doesn't sit
| squarely inside society's beauty standards. Have they done
| anything differently?
| swyx wrote:
| 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.
| uberdru wrote:
| Not dumping my stock after my company was acquired in 2000. Also
| not holding that stock until 2022.
| LittlePeter wrote:
| Garfield maybe
| nvarsj wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| Why can't you still try to get into the game industry?
| nvarsj wrote:
| 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.
| anon2020dot00 wrote:
| 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.
| oldsklgdfth wrote:
| 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]
| bradlys wrote:
| 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)
| switch007 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| Still easy, don't remoan just do it
| anotherone3 wrote:
| 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.
| bluedino wrote:
| Not going to university and not moving to the valley from a
| flyover state in 2000
| j_k_eter wrote:
| Denying the existence of God (or a higher organizing intelligent
| power, if you like) until I was 45.
| mauvehaus wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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.
| ravenstine wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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.
| nineplay wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| It's not just you. Most, if not all, of what humanity knows
| is wrong. It's easy to trick ourselves into thinking our
| constructs reflect reality: we sit at the pinnacle of human
| understandanding looking forward and our constructs are
| correct enough that things mostly work.
|
| I've recently taken to adopting an "antiquity mindset."
| Instead of imagining a piece of information as the pinnacle
| of knowledge in our current context, I remind myself that in
| 10 (or 100, or 1000) years, folks are going to look back at
| these ideas with a red pen marking everything we were
| mistaken about.
|
| Stay humble in what you "know" - most of what humanity will
| discover is in the future.
| Balgair wrote:
| My SO has a related issue. They were taking depression
| medication specifically for the side effects. As in, they had a
| disease and the side effects of the drug were the point of
| taking it.
|
| Thing was, the actual effect made my SO go nutters for about a
| year. Because, again, my SO wasn't supposed to take the drug
| for the effects, but for the side effects.
|
| When my SO, drug free and many years later, finally told this
| to a therapist, the therapist was aghast that my SO wasn't
| given therapy to help manage the actual effects too.
|
| It seems so blindingly obvious that if you take drugs that
| effect your mind that you should also get therapy to monitor
| that effect. But it wasn't to us for some insane reason.
|
| So, dear HN reader, take these stories to heart:
|
| _If you take mind altering drugs, get a therapist for the
| entire time that you are on that drug._
| durnygbur wrote:
| 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...
| cmt123 wrote:
| 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.
| 1sembiyan wrote:
| 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.
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