If you could do it all again

[O maestre]

Oh god so many years to pick from, I guess the most crucial would be a reboot to January or August 2011. My life right now is slowly getting a bit better, but man I could have saved myself a huge amount of trouble, pain and shame if I got a second chance to turn back time to those dates.

There are other interesting "divergence" points, but the above mentioned days were without a doubt times where I had to make very crucial choices, that are still biting me in the ass today... and will probably continue to do so unfortunately. It is amazing how some choices can utterly fuck your life up, makes you wonder how many other crucial choices you overlook simply because they didn't cripple your future.

sigh.. this was depressing.. time for alcohol!

 

[happyninja42]

I would've held that boys hand in the backseat of the car as he was dying from being blindsided in a wreck. I couldn't bring myself to see what he might look like in there, and stayed outside of the car, helping his other injured friends. He died shortly thereafter, alone.

 

[Quazimofo]

Knowing what I do now? Do you mean personality and all memories intact? Just personality but no memories? Knowing key events but not everything? If so.... I'd wait a few years. I'm only a rising sophomore in college, and this last year has been arguably the best in my entire life. Not because everything was all sunshine and rainbows, but because of how I've changed and am continuing to change. It's all just getting started though. I'm not sure who I'll be in 3 years, and I'd want to ask that guy's opinion before I decide to do it all again.

Also, I'd definitely not go all the way back to birth regardless. Let's skip ahead to where I can walk competently on my own. That shit would suck (and it'd be awkward as hell to very consciously breast feed among most other things we do as infants and/or toddlers.)

If we're just talking reset to x years ago and it has to be now and not a few years down the line? I'd go back to.... 7th or 8th grade. I honestly can't remember much before that, and I have a very good idea of what I did in those years that were good decisions, bad decisions, and what led me to where I am today. If I could still have those memories but do that shit again? Man, high school would be a breeze and this past year of college would be hands down the best year in my life so far as opposed to arguably.

I would have spent more time with my grandfather and asked him about his life growing up.

Ah, man, how could I forget? I'd do this so hard. It's only in the year following her death that I'm realizing how much I took my grandmother's presence for granted, and how little I actually know about her and her life. Not that I regret the time I had with her, she was one of the sweetest old ladies you'd ever met, but we could have been a lot closer, and we could have done more.

 

[Batou667]

Usual caveats about the butterfly effect, if I changed even the smallest thing about my past I wouldn't be the preset-day me, etc. With that out of the way:

I'd have given serious thought about which university degree to do, and in fact whether to study at university at all. When you're in college it's presented as the logical next step, very rarely does anybody point out it's a minimum 3 years you're investing in the hopes that you'll eventually recoup the student loan and years of missed earnings.

Instead of just fantasizing about punching my bullies in the face, I'd actually punch them in the face. You get through day-by-day hoping the next day will be better, but in hindsight you have to nip that shit in the bud the minute you realise somebody's taking liberties. That also applies to the moochers, freeloaders and emotional leeches I came across.

I'd also tell my circa-2000 self to invest all my savings into gold and ride the boom that occurred... although if we're going that route, I suppose I might as well go the whole hog and write down a year's worth of lottery numbers...

 

[farscythe]

i dont think i'd change anything..
all the shitty events events in my life..led to me finally being happy now... somehow.. basically.. its a huge pile of shit.. that led me to leave school.. and the country.. and is how i met the wife n made a family...if i fixed the shit.. id never have met them... but id probably be in a better job.

im good being a bitter old asshole with a nice family thank you

 

[J Tyran]

Really not sure, I made a fair few mistakes and a few where pretty f***ing terrible but so much turned out well and perhaps some of the things where out of my hands anyway. There are three, maybe four things I actually would change for certain. Even then how would you know what would happen after you changed a few things?

What's to stop you from making worse mistakes?

 

[viscomica]

I guess I would have tried to enter that high school I wanted instead of remaining in my old school just because it was the safe option.

 

[Random Argument Man]

I think about this question often. What would be different if I lived my life back with the things I know now?

School: I have a bachelor in education right now. I would probably call a lot of bullshit on a lot of teachers. There's some teachers that I would given them a break since I now know what was going in their lives at the moment.

Friends: I would've treated some friends better and there's some people that I wouldn't even approach now.

Love: ? Yeah, there's a lot of mistakes that I wouldn't have done if I knew what was going to happen.

Life: I would've been more careful around power tools since I had an accident with one that still have some psychological effects on me to this day. The choices that I've made would've been more easy since I know how to confront obstacles now. I would've used my childhood and teenage years to learn things instead of closing my mind.



Look, there's a lot of things that I would love to change. But each time that I think about this question, I arrive to the same conclusion: I'm only thinking about the bad stuff in my life and changing this life would mean that I also reject the good stuff that have happened to me. "What if" scenarios always make you think of a better life. If we changed something bad in our lives, it doesn't mean that it will absolutely change into something good.

Here's an example: You relive the part of asking out your high school crush and you get her. You imagine a happy scenario where you had a happy relationship. The sad fact is that your happy scenario might not happen. She would maybe not have been right for you.

It's a hard lesson to accept things as it is. It is however a necessary one.

 

[Ishal]

- I would have starting working out and defining my physique much sooner. I'd be twice as fit as I am now, probably.
- I would have tried to get my parents to let me read more (I.E. acquire me more books) and maybe purchase a Super Nintendo. They were strict about gaming back then
- I would have beat the piss out of my friend for leaving me in a restaurant with the tab for myself + 3 others, then driving away and leaving me
- I would have stopped hanging out with my "friends" much sooner than I did. Might have caused me to be less jaded going into college for the first year
- When my friend and I got into an argument at a meeting at Uni, and he outed my as a virgin. I should have just left the room, instead I stayed and suffered the humiliation.

- I wouldn't have taken on so much coursework my junior year of uni. I think the stress altered me in a way I'll never recover from.
- I would have declined to go to so many embarrassing mixers put on by the frats at Uni. They usually never went well.
- I would have liked to better understand the difference between malicious joking and mockery, and light hearted giving shit.
- I would have liked to see the Uni guidance counselor more often to talk about stress management and sadness
- I would have liked to do anything to stop this chronic stomach illness, or at least get it more under control

 

[bigfatcarp93]

Actually, I could take my abysmal education or leave it. I never really needed a good one, I do fine without. What I WOULD change is rather extensive:

1) I would head off a certain person's betrayal of me and my mom.
2) I would keep a closer eye on my mom's health, make her stop smoking and loose some weight so that she doesn't die as early on.
3) I'd cleverly play the stock market with my future knowledge to FINALLY stop being so dirt poor.
4) I guess I'd be a touch nicer to my brother. I was never awful or anything, but I could have done better.
5) I'd keep my head in school more, not for the work, but to try harder to make friends and forge stronger relationships with the ones I had.

 

[Summerstorm]

Eugh... so much...

I mean i turned out a nice guy (i hope), but my own happiness could REALLY do with some improvement.

I messed up so many things i barely know where to start. I REALLY would need a do-over though, so if some magical genie or fairy reads this, you know where to come.

 

[FalloutJack]

There is nothing that is particularly wrong with MY life.

 

[Xeros]

I'd stop my best friend from killing himself. Everything else is a non-issue compared to that event. Events prior, fuck ups or no, made me who I am, and I like who am for the most part. But when he died... I think everything would be much less grim if he were still around and had gotten the help he needed.

 

[ToastiestZombie]

I wouldn't do that one embarrassing social blunder that everyone's probably forgotten about but it keeps you up at night anyway.

Yeah, that one.

You're thinking about it right now, aren't you?

 

[The Rogue Wolf]

I wouldn't have spent twenty-five years of my life trying to be a writer. It was never meant to be, and I could've spent the time trying other things.

 

[Catfood220]

There are 3 things in my life I would change,

1) When people started commenting on me putting on weight when I was 10 - 11 stone. I wish I had of listened, because my body now looks like the "Stay Puft" marshmallow man from Ghostbusters. This needs to change after Leeds Festival.

2) I wish I hadn't wasted 10 years of my life doing a job that I hated. I love my job at the moment it feels good to be helping people in tough times. But I spent 10 years working in bars and hating it most of the time, I wish I could get those years back and spend them doing the job I love. But I suppose if I hadn't spent two 6 month stints of soul destroying nothingness on the dole I would never of found my work ethic and end up doing the job I do now.

3) I wish I had of given my dad my phone number. My mum got into mobiles and texting last year and my dad also had a mobile phone which to honest I didn't think he used that often. In April my last conversation with my dad basically went "I need your phone number" and me going "yeah sure get it off mum" and then a few days after he passed away due to an infection nobody knew about. It destroys me that my last conversation with my dad was such a "blow it off" affair, would it of killed me to of given him my phone number?

I suppose that last one is the main one.

 

[CrazyGirl17]

If given the chance... I probably would have avoided a few mistakes I made, tried to connect with people more, and hopefully manage to avoid a nasty falling out with a former friend in high school.

 

[Ryallen]

Yes. Within a heartbeat I would redo it all. I have so many regrets that I wish that I could fix.

First and foremost, I hated my childhood. I spent a good portion of it in front of a TV, and while I don't mind that, TV was all I had and, as a result, I can't relate to most people with things like video games or books or anything else. I would have spent more time doing other stuff. What I hated, however, was my elementary school and my classmates. My parents were divorced when I was about 8 and I wish that I had handled it with some dignity. (But which kid didn't, I guess.) The second, and probably most important, thing that I would change about my upbringing is that I would be more violent. I would lash out at my tormentors more often. I wish that I had gotten into more physical altercations and moved schools earlier. By the end of my run there, I was CRYING that I was leaving, even though my so called "friends" were assholes to me as well. Stockholm Syndrome at its finest, ladies and gentlemen. I was also an asshole as well, inadvertently making a lot of enemies for things that I now realize were shitty of me to do. So I would also want to fix that and not make enemies of literally everyone in my neighborhood, keeping me inside for the majority of my time spent in elementary school and not have gained this weight that I despise. I would have started writing more so that I would not have attempted suicide after I failed my programming class by not being interested in programming to begin with. I'd be less of a pussy as well, as I was afraid of watching PG-13 movies when I was younger because I was afraid of emotional scarring, even though the worst of it had nothing to do with movies. Less of an actual thing and more of a nitpick, I know. That's about it, actually. I'd just be more violent towards my classmates, or even more flippant and just ignore them until THEY start the fights and I can fight back. I'd be less of an inadvertent asshole to people who didn't even deserve it to begin with. And I'd spend my childhood doing something that isn't just watching TV.

 

[Starik20X6]

It'd be helpful going through the last decade or so knowing that I'm not the hideous troglodyte I thought I was. SO many missed opportunities due to no confidence.