Life's lessons taught

After an extended period of navel gazing recently I feel in a mood for examining what I regret and what I would change in my basic nature.

I've come up with 3 major points that I would have liked to change throughout my life relating to both career and personal relationships.

1. Not knowing when i'm on to a good thing until it's gone.

2. Not being able to read people and placing trust where it shouldn't have been.

3. Confusing arrogance with assertiveness.

Life is a trip and we're supposed to learn from our journeys but I find the above to be constant failures.

By the way, no i'm not drunk and just venting / feeling sorry for myself.

Post your own life lessons to be learnt if you will or not as you see fit.

Constant failures?

A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of litttle minds. (Ralph Waldo Emerson)

I would have thought you would have said you found some lint! BD are you going through a mid-life crisis?

Maybe time for reflection on the eve of another Oktoberfest...

I regret allowing that motherfuckingcuntfuckerarsehole of a boss I had for 18 months affect me and my family so much, and still continuing to do so long after I left the backwards, inbred company...

Surely not being able to count must also rank highly in the league table of stuff that you would have liked to change.

I regret the fact that my German isn't better than it should be after three years

I regert spending too mcuh time on this site sometimes

Ooh, I've come over all Frank Sinatra-ish now, reading the current title and subtitle:
"Regrets, I've had a few" ... but then again, too few to mention...


What's this "would have"? Once you see what you need to change, it's never too late to do it.


I think I have a similar failing: Knowing I'm on to a good thing, but somehow never quite managing to make the most of it.


i.e. you think people are being arrogant when they're just being assertive? Or vice-versa?


Some things are better left unsaid.

I regret the things I didn´t do, not so much the things I´ve done. So, my life lesson is to take opportunities and make the most of them.

Your own or that of other people?

I regret starting smoking, stopping for 10 years and starting again. I regret not listening to my grandmother when she went through family photographs (some dating to Victorian times) of our family. That history is lost forever.

I regret making fun of an old-boy that during my school years that we used to pass every lunch time (nothing malicious but just leg pulling). When he did not appear for a week or so his daughter came and asked us if we were the "gentlemen" that "made him laugh" every lunchtime. We admitted we were (nervously), and she explained that he was nearly blind from a gas attack in WWI, and that we had become a daily encounter that he had thoroughly enjoyed and liked the fact we called him "radar". We called him this as when we walked passed him he could not see us properly so used to point hs white stick at us as we spoke.

Too late now but my advice is to listen to your grandparents and show more respect for the elderly.

I feel awful now and no, I have not been drinking.

Regrets are for pussies, hard lessons are for winners.

(I may regret writing this if I see BD later tonight, at which time he will teach me a lesson.)

I've only had one major regret, and it's of an amorous nature, so that is all I'm going to say.

Most regrets, in hindsight, are just lessons learned.

Yeah, I hear a lot of people regret not using Vaseline.

KY Jelly works better.

If hadn't done the things that I did do, I wouldn't be the person I am now. Seeing as I'm currently very happy, I can't really regret things as they brought me here.
I can however learn from them. Sort of.
These days I wear fewer leopard-print items of clothing, for example ha ha.
Guess you just become whoever you are.

I would not call this a 'regret' thats to heavy. However maybe in my life I placed to much emphasis on material stuff and thought money would buy me happiness. It did not, it only helped get out of the mess I ended up in. Having too much money is not so good I learnt as you cannot judge your friends so well. Do they like me or my money?

Totally with Katrina.

Fuckups. No shortage.

Stuff I'd have done differently with more information. Tons.

Regrets. None.

Wait, I forgot one: I regret agreeing to come here as an expat.

So for those of you claiming not to be drunk... it's Friday night; are you drunk yet? Better get going!

I regret starting to read this thread

You can´t really go back and change the past. Now that you´ve brought it up, BD, there are things I regret. On the other hand, if everything went perfectly the first time you tried it, life would be pretty damn boring. I think the harder it is to achieve something, the more you will treasure having achieved it. This is how I comfort myself. When I was a kid I thought when you were an adult you were wise and had the answers. My adult life has consisted of baby-steps towards being the person I want to be in the place I want to be. If I had landed there with no effort, I wouldn´t appreciate it. But now, every achievement in that direction is something to be celebrated.

After today's thread about the Italian Ms. Fica, I regret not charging money for the forfeiture of my virginity.

Totally agree. Well, except for the eyebrow piercing. I don't regret not doing that.

I do, however, slightly regret never having gotten the nose ring I wanted in college. I listened to my mom. Other than that, very much in agreement with Renia.

And I don´t regret not having got a tattoo.

I sometimes do. But I think it's not worth getting now. The one I really wanted I thought of when I was 18, but I listened to my mom then as well.

I don't usually regret starting things, but I do sometimes regret not stopping sooner.

Well, you´ve had longer to think about it now...and the removal methods are getting better

I totally agree. I should have ended alot of things earlier than I did... heck, I am still dragging around some -ve things/people with me, just do not have the balls for a total break.

I do not regret getting a tattoo I regret not getting the second one I really wanted and still think about.

I regret not studing in school... never really opened a book, used to just recopy my notes everynight, then read them once before the test/exam. I could have moved onto bigger better things if I applied myself.

Nah - it looks cool on the young and fit, and it's a great conversation piece once you've grown into it and all, but at some point it's just not cool to get a new one. At least not on the back of the neck. Not like I'd see it there anyway.

i'm not drinking - i'm taking a study break, but cocktails later will work.

Don't carry regrets - they make you weary and stop you moving on.

Things I'd do differently - sure, and funnily enough these are always times when I didn't listen to myself enough, or relied on the wrong people. That shouldn't be mistaken as arrogance.

Things I didn't want to happen - many - eg. falling in love with my ex-girlfriend even though my heart is aching as she is distanced now. If I could I would change the fact that I went overseas for work when I did, and the time that let us fall apart. It's not the falling in love, it's the sudden stop that hurts.

...now I'm feeling very post-secret.

My own secret - get out there and have successes. You can change yourself, but it's bloody hard work and you need people around you that help.

go do it!!!

I regret more than a handful of things, and I do strive not to let those things weigh me down.

I don't believe anyone has NO regrets.

http://xkcd.com/

I notice that you are a major poster which I have not read btw. I think this post is really putting yourself out there. Good for you.

never regretted a damn thing in life yet.

But def. have a few big things I want to work on.

I regret not appreciating Oktoberfest till I was 21. 3 years of possible drinking - WASTED.

Seriously though my biggest regret I think is time wasted - last year of school, doing a masters and working for a year placement. Feeling the pang of this more now I'm properly nearer 30 than 20!

That said perhaps Id be somewhere much different and worse right now, who knows.

"What's for you won't go by you" as they say right?

was studding or studying?

Life has its ups and downs. Sometimes, we fail and sometimes, we succeed. "All that we are is the result of what we have thought." We control our own destiny.

I have done good and bad deeds. Do I have any regrets? No. Why? Because without those life experiences, I would have never ended up with a beautiful wife and three kids.

When I am sad I put on an orange shirt.

Well that might be true for some people, but not for everyone.
In order to change it, one needs to find out WHY he made that mistake - and thats sometimes hard to figure out... especially when it comes to love life.

I dont believe in the term "mistake".
Even a bad or unpleasant experience can be an opportunity if you can see it.
In every situation there is a bright side...or an unexpected new horizon opening.
Someone said "when one door closes another door opens, but sometiems we are so regretfully looking upon the closed door that we can't see the other door open."
So, bluedave...why keep busy feeling regretful! I'd rather look for the open doors out there!

Whenver I am unsure , of anything basically, I read some Kipling - mostly "If" ... that usually sets me straight - I wish I had read it more often in the depths of my self-pity.

I lament never having had a mentor in life, that could have really guided me a bit better, so I wouldn't find myself saying I have regrets.

But, as other people say - they're lessons learned. When a lesson takes a long time to learn, that's a regret.

I regret a lot and I'm not even 30. I learned alot too. I feel too old for my age, and look too young for my age.

I regret sleeping with that irish girl without a condom.

Some people run from one open door to the next without ever learning the lesson... its not about open doors I think.
Its a lot about finding out what went wrong and WHY.
This can be much harder than to find a new open door.

I used to regret sending Text messages when Drunk...

I regret some of the drunk calls I have made...

That's why I said *in hindsight*... if one actually does some thinking, one might come to terms with why 'mistakes' were made. And then over time, at least for me personally, they are no longer regrets, just lessons learned. It's called moving on.

I think to young for my age and look not old enough for my age

I'm 80 and having fun

I know that where I am now is the result of whatever I did or didn't do. So forget the regrets, the real question is: Knowing just what was going to happen and what the final results will be, would you do it all over again the same way? I wouldn't but I'm not sure that I would be a happier or unhappier person so I make do with what I have and manage to have a hell of a good time doing it.

I regret not listening to what I feel inside when time and time again those feelings have proven themselves to be 100% correct.