# What is the biggest mistake(s) you have ever done, and what have you done about it?



## peeyaj

*What is the biggest mistake(s) you have committed in your life, and what have you done about it?*

It maybe a miscalculation, an error of judgment, someone you hurt, or anything that you have been remorseful, in hindsight. I'm betting that some of us have committed mistakes and learned from it..

In my part, I'm still technically a teenager, so there are not so many experiences that I've committed big mistakes of. I'm still learning in life, and hoping that those experiences would make me stronger.

For now, I will say, that my biggest mistake, is, not following my heart's desire in taking a degree.

I am hoping that our more experienced members could share some of their stories, and maybe, ''us'', the younger generation would learn from it.


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## science

I do have regrets, but if I could go back and do things differently, I really don't know whether things would turn out better for me or anyone else.

If I could give advice to the younger generation it would be - be ambitious, work hard, be generous, stand firm on those occasions when your values are challenged, and find a partner that you really respect.


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## Edward Elgar

I haven't made a big mistake yet, just lots of little ones!


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## Chi_townPhilly

Insufficient work-ethic as a young adult. 
(Subsequently, I've atoned.)

Academically, I settled for being "okay" and "good enough" in spite of being capable of a lot more. I can't visit the alternate universe my life would have been if I'd taken matters more seriously back then.

It took a while to live it down- 
but I alighted in a good situation, eventually.


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## Weston

peeyaj said:


> I am hoping that our more experienced members could share some of their stories, and maybe, ''us'', the younger generation would learn from it.


But the younger generation rarely believes more experienced people. I think it would upset some kind of natural order if they did.

Very well. The biggest mistake I made was as a teenager myself. I believed that I was an unattractive geek who would never have a relationship. There couldn't possibly be a bigger dork than me. I was skeletally skinny, spotty faced, had a big nose, thick glasses and I was a complete wreck around people. I believed with all my heart that I would never be in love - that was forever out of my league, while everyone around me was flirting and poised. I resigned myself to being a social misfit, stayed to myself most of the time and worked on my art. I did once go on a blind date at the invitation of some acquaintances to a girl who was not very attractive to me herself. She was a lot like me, equally skinny and not in a good way exactly, though I wouldn't have considered her ugly. We sort of settled for each other and eventually got married.

It was a wretched existence. It was more like being married to a sibling. The chemistry was all wrong and our personalities were like oil and water.

I threw myself into my art. Eventually I became successful at it, after a fashion. I became a medium-sized fish in the very small pond of the genre I worked in. This naturally brought unaccustomed attention. I had to develop a persona whom I thought of as "Mr. Artist," a person I was pretending to be who was cooler than I was. This enabled me to interact with people more professionally, be on panels, give talks -- things I could never do as my real misfit self.

Then middle age dawned and my metabolism started to slow. I filled out to more normal proportions (and have since exceeded those unfortunately). I began to realize much of my life I was already surrounded by women - all kinds, lovely ones, charming ones, interesting ones. Yet I wasn't even aware of it and the attention they were giving me, because I was stuck in the mind set of the skinny geek I used to be. I thought they were just being polite to me

Then one magnificent day, the most beautiful woman I have ever seen made it clear in no uncertain terms she was attracted to me -- by some miracle I will never understand. It changed everything -- my entire outlook, even my capabilities seemed to grow exponentially.

I am not bragging. I still don't deserve this attention, nor am I some kind of ladies' man, all smooth and confident. I am I think merely normal now. But that is a huge revelation.

What I am getting at is this. If you think you are unworthy, that may be true for now. But things change, even though you think they never will. Life does not end at 40, nor does attraction. Never settle for someone you are not really attracted to. There is time.

[The rest of the story is - something similar happened to my former spouse. Others did find her attractive even if I didn't. She has since re-married to a nice fellow whom I like a lot. They are happy and I have no regrets whatsoever since she was in truth more like a sibling than a spouse.]


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## Almaviva

I think that a pivotal moment in my life was when I decided to leave France after 5 years there in professional pursuits, and came back to the United States. Before I left, I was offered to remain there in a professional capacity, and I could have legally stayed forever with all rights, given my dual citizenship and my European Union passport (Italian). While I'm very content with how my life turned out to be after this decision, I often wonder how it would have been if I had stayed there and had planted my roots there. Since the grass is always greener on the other side, I often tend to think that it would have been more fun to have stayed in Europe. A friend and colleague of mine in the exact same situation (also Italian-American with dual citizenship) did stay, and did as well there as I did here. Now I'm pretty much settled and my professional life has slowed down in favor of quality of life, and I have moved from a major hectic city and from a major academic institution to much more humble grounds. So did he in France in academic terms (ageing does it to you), but while in this pre-retirement situation I get to live in a suburban setting in America (with decent cultural opportunities like I said in another thread), he gets to live in a nice apartment in Paris, close to all that culture. So sometimes I think a lot in "what if?" terms. Was it a real mistake, since I still fared quite well here? Probably not. But it's the one thing that bugs me about my life when I look back.


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## Art Rock

My biggest mistake was dating a close colleague. She ended it after a few months, I was still hopelessly in love with her, and had to face her every working day for the next half year, before I arranged a transfer to our Singapore office. There I met my wife-to-be, so everything turned out great, but that half year was hell.


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## Almaviva

Art Rock said:


> My biggest mistake was dating a close colleague. She ended it after a few months, I was still hopelessly in love with her, and had to face her every working day for the next half year, before I arranged a transfer to our Singapore office. There I met my wife-to-be, so everything turned out great, but that half year was hell.


Art Rock, while I respect your feelings and you're a better judge of the situation, I'd say that this doesn't sound like a mistake to me. You were just in love, and this is now part of your life experience. Better to have loved and lost than not having loved at all. And then, it turns out that the result was the move that made you find your wife, with whom I understand from your posts you're deeply in love (understandably; she is quite attractive and talented), so, it was all good, wasn't it?


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## Edward Elgar

Weston said:


> What I am getting at is this. If you think you are unworthy, that may be true for now. But things change, even though you think they never will. Life does not end at 40, nor does attraction. Never settle for someone you are not really attracted to. There is time.


Your story really moved me. Thanks for sharing.


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## Polednice

I second the appreciation for Weston's story, particularly because everything up to the marriage part rings so true for me (seeing as I'm only 21!). I could say that I wish I could only have had my more depressed self hear that a few years ago, but I know I wouldn't have believed there was hope


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## Art Rock

*Weston*: 


> Life does not end at 40, nor does attraction. Never settle for someone you are not really attracted to. There is time.


So true. I was 42 when I met my wife, and we've been happy together for almost 12 years now.

*Almaviva*:


> Art Rock, while I respect your feelings and you're a better judge of the situation, I'd say that this doesn't sound like a mistake to me.


There is a reason why intra-office romance is generally frowned upon. I found out the hard way. I would strongly recommend to every one to avoid this pit fall, and look for your special one elsewhere.


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## Rasa

Golden thread


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## sospiro

Rasa said:


> Golden thread


I agree. And it takes courage to admit your mistakes.


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## mamascarlatti

The biggest mistake I ever made was once agreeing to marry someone I'd been living with for some time. As the day grew nearer I realised that this was a huge mistake, it clarified to me that I was actually falling out of love with him. I bailed out a week before, badly hurting this nice guy. I really wish I had never said yes. His pain and humiliation will be on my concience forever. I am married to someone else now and have two children I would not be without for anything in the world, but if I could go back in time and change just that I would.


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## Almaviva

Art Rock said:


> There is a reason why intra-office romance is generally frowned upon. I found out the hard way. I would strongly recommend to every one to avoid this pit fall, and look for your special one elsewhere.


It depends. My wife and I were working together when we started dating and continued to do so for 7 more months until I got another job (not because of my relationship with her; I just got a job offer that was tempting). We've been happily married for almost 27 years. To complete the cycle, for the last two years we've been working together again. There was another stretch of 3 years a decade ago when we found ourselves working for the same institution.

Just by doing a quick memory check I can easily remember at least five other couples who are friends of ours who also met in the workplace and are happily married for many years. I think that sometimes we all over-react to this idea that you can't date anyone from your workplace. This is not how human beings are built. We feel attraction to each other in all walks of life, and if it happens in the workplace, I don't see anything wrong with it except in cases of unbalanced power with exploitation going on. But consensual relationships between two adults who are wise enough to do it discreetly without making a big deal of it at work shouldn't be a problem. Of course, if there is a break-up, it can be painful since you'll keep seeing the person, but time heals it all, and this may be true of other settings as well (such as school, church community, etc.).

About being discreet, my wife and I like I said now work again for the same institution and at the same building (our offices are on different floors). By now most people know that we are husband and wife but most people were surprised when they first found out about it because we don't engage in any public display of affection and even in meetings when we're both in attendance, we don't even seat side by side or talk to each other at the end of the meeting except very briefly and superficially. At lunch time we don't take our meals together either, we prefer to sit with other people if we go to the cafeteria, or we go out with friends to different neighboring restaurants (we see each other enough at home). We don't even commute together because she is an early bird and I'm quite tardy and she doesn't want the aggravation of having to wait for me. It's not that these are absolute rules; on occasion we do eat together or visit each other in our respective parts of the building, but we try to keep it to a minimum.

In all three stretches when we worked for the same institution we had no problem whatsoever. For the second one of these three stretches we actually interviewed for the jobs together and the boss was hesitant at first to hire us both, then he decided to take a chance and trust our maturity, and three years later when she left for another job (I stayed behind) he told me that he was glad that he had made the decision of hiring both, and was pleased with how well we both had behaved.

This said, I think this is more true of "legitimate" relationships - without passing judgment on anybody's lifestyle, I'm talking about relationships when both partners are single and "officially" boyfriend/girlfriend (nothing wrong with boyfriend/boyfriend or girlfriend/girlfriend), fiancé/fiancée, or living together or married. It's a lot more unwise and dangerous when it's an "illicit" affair that will generate gossip, etc. While I definitely don't think that having an affair in the workplace is a wise choice (as a matter of fact, I don't think that having an affair is wise or fair in any circumstance, but people have different moral codes and like I said I don't want to pass judgment), I think that having a "legitimate" relationship that doesn't involve unbalanced power and exploitation in the workplace is perfectly OK, if the partners are mature enough to handle it well.


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## starthrower

Assuming people at the Talk Classical Forum would be discussing classical music. :lol:

But seriously, my biggest regret is not spending my youth traveling around the country and finding a more suitable environment/cultural community to call home. At a too young age I rushed into buying a home in a suburb(I now hate the suburbs) and filling it with a ton of stuff. Now that I've gotten older, I can't stand the snow and cold weather and I'm stuck with a tiny old house I can't give away.

My advice to young people? Life goes by very fast, so don't get bogged down with a lot of overhead that will require you to be a slave to some miserable job. Spend your youthful energy being. You can do the having later on when you figure out what you really want in life.

Oh yeah! I'm supposed to tell you what I've done about it. I've changed jobs a lot until I found a company I really enjoy working for. But the best thing that ever happened was meeting a wonderful woman many years ago who lives out in the country in a neighboring town. I now spend my weekends breathing country air, taking walks, and watching the cows graze. This has been a lifesaver! So what am I doing in front of the computer you ask? It's raining today.


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## Almaviva

starthrower said:


> Assuming people at the Talk Classical Forum would be discussing classical music. :lol:


This is the Community Forum part of the website. By definition, threads here are not about classical music.


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## starthrower

Almaviva said:


> This is the Community Forum part of the website. By definition, threads here are not about classical music.


Yes! It was a friendly joke.


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## Almaviva

starthrower said:


> Yes! It was a friendly joke.


Oh, but I didn't mean to be harsh or anything. I was just informing you of it, I though that maybe you didn't know. I should have added a friendly smile. It's the old problem that things said over the Internet are not matched to a tone of voice or body language and sometimes just a neutral observation may be interpreted as a rebuttal of some sort; it wasn't my intention.


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## Chris

My mistake is going to be a bit of an anticlimax after all the serious stuff on this thread.

When I was 10 or 11 I attended a grim junior school in Southsea. Most of the teachers were male and they didn't do TLC. In this particular year my form teacher was the fearsome Mr. Hoad.

The school had a house system where you earned points for your house. The houses were Shaftsbury, Wilberforce, Brunel and Keller. Their colours were red, green, blue and yellow. In the assembly hall there was a big chart made on an outsize piece of shiny white card. At the top was a key; the house name, and next to it an oblong of gummed paper of the appropriate colour. The main portion of the chart was a series of rows and columns showing dates and a larger coloured paper oblong to show which house had accumulated the most points that week. It was all beautifully lettered because there was a little weekly ceremony when the winner was announced and the new coloured strip gummed on.

Eventually this chart filled up and Mr Hoad constructed a new one, carefully caligraphed with the next 30 or 40 weeks. As I was shortly to find out, this had taken him a very long time to make. The new chart was put up on the wall and after assembly Mr. Hoad asked for a volunteer to 'put the coloured strips on it'. I volunteered, saying 'What do you want me to do Sir?' to which he replied 'Copy the old chart'. I was left in the hall to do it while everyone else went to classes.

What Mr Hoad meant was to use four bits of gummed paper for the key at the top. But I took 'copy the old chart' literally and started filling in future winners, using the colour that corresponded to the same position on the previous chart. I had filled in half of it when some kids came into the hall to do gym and I heard one of them say 'How does he know who's going to win months ahead?'

Words cannot describe the mixture of horror, remorse and dread I felt as realisation dawned. I pulled one of the oblongs as gently as I could. It pulled the shiny surface of the card and ripped a long triangular strip out of the calligraphed date. The same happened with the second oblong. And the third. And all of them.

I crept back into Mr Hoad's class. Eventually the bell rang for dinner and we were all back in the hall. Mr Hoad came in on dinner duty and I watched his eye meet the wrecked chart. He stormed over to me and launched into a thunderous tirade of abuse that froze every one of the hundreds of kids present. After dinner time he had the chart in the classroom and he used an entire lesson to bellow at me from the front as I cowered at my desk. I remember the words 'that idiot' being used many times.


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## peeyaj

I appreciated all of the posts here.. What a moving experience reading some of them.

I think I have to expound my situation, and *ask advice from our members.*

So here:

I am taking a degree of Petroleum engineering, and I really, really hated it. I didn't choose this degree, rather my parents choosed it for me. My heart really belongs to the area of humanities (not engineering), and I'm helpless in choosing what direction of my life would lead..

My parents pay my schooling, and once, they threatened to cut financial support, when I drop my degree. I really hate it.. I didn't follow my heart, and now I'm taking this drudgery.. I am now dropping some classes, and drifting. I am thinking this is the biggest mistake I ever made.

What should I do with my life? Should I continue taking that engineering degree, or switch from the degree, I love most, while having no finances? I'm conflicted.


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## Almaviva

peeyaj said:


> I appreciated all of the posts here.. What a moving experience reading some of them.
> 
> I think I have to expound my situation, and *ask advice from our members.*
> 
> So here:
> 
> I am taking a degree of Petroleum engineering, and I really, really hated it. I didn't choose this degree, rather my parents choosed it for me. My heart really belongs to the area of humanities (not engineering), and I'm helpless in choosing what direction of my life would lead..
> 
> My parents pay my schooling, and once, they threatened to cut financial support, when I drop my degree. I really hate it.. I didn't follow my heart, and now I'm taking this drudgery.. I am now dropping some classes, and drifting. I am thinking this is the biggest mistake I ever made.
> 
> What should I do with my life? Should I continue taking that engineering degree, or switch from the degree, I love most, while having no finances? I'm conflicted.


Sounds like what you should do is have a long, long talk with your parents about all of the above. I'm sure you can make them understand that forcing you to take a degree you hate is not a good strategy and it will only lead to failure, especially since you're already dropping some classes and drifting. Do they know about this part? It sounds like communication between the parties is what is missing.


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## Polednice

Almaviva said:


> Sounds like what you should do is have a long, long talk with your parents about all of the above. I'm sure you can make them understand that forcing you to take a degree you hate is not a good strategy and it will only lead to failure.


That sounds like the best strategy to me so far, so long as your parents are horribly tyrannical! First off, you need to make sure that "degree + unhappines / different degree + no finances" isn't a (hopefully) false dichotomy - you ought to be secure in having fully explored all your options before you resort to extremes such as those.


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## Pieck

Chris said:


> My mistake is going to be a bit of an anticlimax after all the serious stuff on this thread.
> 
> When I was 10 or 11 I attended a grim junior school in Southsea. Most of the teachers were male and they didn't do TLC. In this particular year my form teacher was the fearsome Mr. Hoad.
> 
> The school had a house system where you earned points for your house. The houses were Shaftsbury, Wilberforce, Brunel and Keller. Their colours were red, green, blue and yellow. In the assembly hall there was a big chart made on an outsize piece of shiny white card. At the top was a key; the house name, and next to it an oblong of gummed paper of the appropriate colour. The main portion of the chart was a series of rows and columns showing dates and a larger coloured paper oblong to show which house had accumulated the most points that week. It was all beautifully lettered because there was a little weekly ceremony when the winner was announced and the new coloured strip gummed on.


Reminding me of Hogworth


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## Almaviva

Pieck said:


> Reminding me of Hogworth


More likely it's the other way around: the author of Harry Potter who was once herself a kid in the UK based Hogworth upon real life British schools.


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## Agatha

Polednice said:


> That sounds like the best strategy to me so far, so long as your parents are horribly tyrannical! First off, you need to make sure that "degree + unhappines / different degree + no finances" isn't a (hopefully) false dichotomy - you ought to be secure in having fully explored all your options before you resort to extremes such as those.


it would be good to tell your parents what you really want, not just what you don't want, if you have an alternative plan, real plan, they might even help you in achieving your goal, assuming you have one 
Every parent wants their kid to be happy and successful, you need to tell them what makes you happy. Your parents are not your enemies ...


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## Delicious Manager

I've made a few appalling howlers! In each case, I apologised (if an apology was called for), tried to put my mess right and (perhaps most importantly) tried not to make the same mistake again.

Oh, just thinking about some of them (and NO, I will not make them public!) makes me cringe.


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## gurthbruins

Agatha said:


> it would be good to tell your parents what you really want, not just what you don't want, if you have an alternative plan, real plan, they might even help you in achieving your goal, assuming you have one
> Every parent wants their kid to be happy and successful, you need to tell them what makes you happy. Your parents are not your enemies ...


there is something to the point here: it's not quite clear from your original request for advice whether or not you really know exactly what it is you want to do. Do you feel any particular calling in some economically viable direction? Or even in one not so viable?
"My heart really belongs to the area of humanities" - that's too large an area to be very helpful.
"I'm helpless in choosing what direction..." - Why helpless in choosing? that's not very clear to me.

If you are uncertain about your choice it might be better to get that engineering degree anyway. It could be very useful in obtaining economic independence. You can always retire from engineering early (as I did at 29, having assured my economic independence).


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## Almaviva

Yep, gurthbruins is right, maybe you need some vocational counseling.


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## Ravellian

Eh, I am regretful of many things I did when I was in the 'growing phase' (aged 12-16). Treated my parents like crap, created a permanent rift between me and my younger sister, cheated in school for a few years, etc. It wasn't until I moved out that I began acting like a sane person (granted, it was like being released from prison). Now my parents and I get along just great.


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## Sid James

Reminds me of the Frank Sinatra song - "Regrets, I've had a few, too few to mention..."

Yes, some very moving and thought provoking contributions here.

One major regret of mine is losing contact with my father after he moved back to Europe almost 20 years ago. The rest of the family - my mother, sister and I - stayed in Australia. He didn't enjoy living here & so went back. I was in contact with him by snail mail for a while, but I kept him at a distance because I held many grudges against what he had done (he was quite a negative and hurt person so he could be quite abusive). I refused to send him photos of myself and divulged little information as to what I was doing in my life, because basically I didn't trust him. The last I heard of him was 10 years ago, apparently he was quite ill (but I didn't fully believe this, as he sometimes played games to manipulate people and garner sympathy). I now don't even know if he's alive or dead, and this kind of disturbs me. I feel I don't have closure.

I have some other regrets, but this is one of them that I tend to think about quite often. & there's no resolution in sight. I'm even thinking of tracing him via the Red Cross & finding out what happened. But part of me doesn't want to know, because I rejected him, and I think he did the same with me. It's a lose-lose situation.

In contrast, my sister and mother don't care about this. It's all water under the bridge for them. But I seemed to be more closer to my father in his final years here than they were. But this was not a very positive thing, I kind of copped his abuse without resisting until the very end, whereas they had learnt to simply ignore him & get along with their lives for several years before he left...


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## Rasa

Ravellian said:


> Eh, I am regretful of many things I did when I was in the 'growing phase' (aged 12-16). Treated my parents like crap, created a permanent rift between me and my younger sister, cheated in school for a few years, etc. It wasn't until I moved out that I began acting like a sane person (granted, it was like being released from prison). Now my parents and I get along just great.


Sounds pretty normal


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## Ravellian

Well, I can't regret feeling a bit guilty over the rift between my sister and I. I was really an ******* to her back then, and our relationship hasn't recovered all the way and I doubt it ever well. And now that she's in college she's been fouling up her life with drugs, alcohol, and everything else and I can't help but feel part of that is my fault.


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## gurthbruins

To go back to post #1,

It maybe a miscalculation, an error of judgment, someone you hurt, or anything that you have been remorseful, in hindsight. I'm betting that some of us have committed mistakes and learned from it..

1. Miscalculation: some of my chess blunders have been very painful, especially getting swindled... those pains taught me not to be so proud. Investing heavily in gold cost me dear, the worst miscalculation of my life, but life is full of such accidents... teaches one to roll with the punches.

2. I shot a bird, when I was 11 or 12. What on earth for? God knows. It was on a farm, my father had given me his .22 to take along with me. Even the cat wouldn't eat it. This is the thing in my life that I had most remorse about. (shades of the albatross).
My second worse crime was to drown a mole that my mother caught messing up her lawn. Or at any rate, that's what I feel second most remorseful about. After that, I took the moles a kilometer down the road in a bucket and hoped they would not return.

They say life (experience) is the best teacher, but I try to learn from the mistakes of others, as you are now wisely trying to do. So I read a lot of novels. Here artists are really giving you their own experiences, in very instructive manner. Relationships are the biggest problem in life, and you can learn about them by reading works of Tolstoy, Maugham and in fact just about any good writer.

Even on this thread, there is a lot of useful experiences.


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## HarpsichordConcerto

Andre said:


> Reminds me of the Frank Sinatra song - "Regrets, I've had a few, too few to mention..."
> 
> Yes, some very moving and thought provoking contributions here.
> 
> One major regret of mine is losing contact with my father after he moved back to Europe almost 20 years ago. The rest of the family - my mother, sister and I - stayed in Australia. He didn't enjoy living here & so went back. I was in contact with him by snail mail for a while, but I kept him at a distance because I held many grudges against what he had done (he was quite a negative and hurt person so he could be quite abusive). I refused to send him photos of myself and divulged little information as to what I was doing in my life, because basically I didn't trust him. The last I heard of him was 10 years ago, apparently he was quite ill (but I didn't fully believe this, as he sometimes played games to manipulate people and garner sympathy). I now don't even know if he's alive or dead, and this kind of disturbs me. I feel I don't have closure.
> 
> I have some other regrets, but this is one of them that I tend to think about quite often. & there's no resolution in sight. I'm even thinking of tracing him via the Red Cross & finding out what happened. But part of me doesn't want to know, because I rejected him, and I think he did the same with me. It's a lose-lose situation.
> 
> In contrast, my sister and mother don't care about this. It's all water under the bridge for them. But I seemed to be more closer to my father in his final years here than they were. But this was not a very positive thing, I kind of copped his abuse without resisting until the very end, whereas they had learnt to simply ignore him & get along with their lives for several years before he left...


Thanks for sharing what is obviously a deeply personal story (I can think of no other that is more troubling than involving one's own parents who brought us out into this world), and one that is obviously still troubling you enough to write it out in a public forum and even you admitted so. Whether or not your father still or ever did reject you, now that you are an adult, is perhaps less relevant than offering yourself a peaceful resolution _forwards_ in your own life, with or without him, in your own future. Yes, in other words, you got to do what it takes to give your own years ahead without the sort of regrets you've been burdened with. That might well be tracking him down, or it might well be doing something else, I don't know, but its something you got to work on to take the burden off your shoulders.

I guess I've been luckier that I haven't been carrying any regrets involving human relationships (and hope none to come either). I don't have any life changing regrets in that sense. Perhaps a couple of financial matters (which I obviously won't disclose), but nothing that is shattering. Regret is quite a pathetic emotion in some sense because we obviously don't have perfect foresight, and so the basis on which we make decisions are often based on a partial set on information before us, often leading to mistakes/regrets. But that's this thing call life, and I very, very seldom hold onto the pass, which is largely irrelevant.


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## KJohnson

Rasa said:


> Sounds pretty normal


That's what I think too. Especially the "cheating in school part". That's the first step in squiring intelligence - learning to work around a system, realizing that you don't have to take it for granted...

I'm saying this half tongue-in-cheek, of course, but the point is being a rebel is better than a conformist.


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## Almaviva

KJohnson said:


> being a rebel is better than a conformist.


Not necessarily (something you learn with age)


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## prettyhippo

Well, like a few others, I'm still technically a teenager so I've still got a lot of time to make some uber mistakes. But so far, I can only really think of three that are worth mentioning.

My worst would be the fight that separated my best friend and myself. We were both really stupid about it and now we're not friends. 

I also regret my few run ins with drugs. Pot... But I realized how stupid it is so I don't smoke anymore. And it's really not like I did it for a long period of times. Only four. But four is enough to make an *** out of yourself.

And I guess I just regret not trying hard enough in high school. I graduated, but I really could have done better. I was just dumb and wouldn't try hard if I wasn't interested in the material.


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