# Change one thing in your past ...?



## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

If you could go back in your life and change one thing about what happened to you, what you did, or what abilities you possess - well, would you? And if you would, what would it be?

There are a few things I would change if I could, but the one I'm going to mention is, I wish I hadn't given up playing the violin when I was at school. Just think how I'd be soaring now, instead of struggling!

Please don't reveal your life secrets or treat this too seriously. In fact, you can change two things if you like - one serious, and one decidedly trivial.

If I could change one trivial thing, it would be ... I'd like to have darker eyebrows and eyelashes. Not only would I save hundreds of pounds on mascara & eyebrow pencil, but I'd have been able to teach so much more effectively:

'You, boy, in the back row!' - and instead of raising my voice, it would be a quizzical eyebrow!


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## Taggart (Feb 14, 2013)

I wish I'd got into computing earlier - so much fun.

I also wish I hadn't given up the Piano and Scottish Country Dancing in the 80's. I'd really be flying now! (and with such elegant footwork  )


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## Mesa (Mar 2, 2012)

It would have been good if i liked music at all as a child. I'd be far and away the greatest musician in history by now. I still plan to be, but i have a little extra work.

I'dve enjoyed an interesting middle name, such as Booker or Chrysostomus.


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## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

I wish I would have married my wife earlier. I was dating the wrong young lady too long. Fortunately, the opportunity didn't pass me permanently. I hope nobody here repeats my mistake.


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## presto (Jun 17, 2011)

I don't regret much of what I've done in life so far but I wish I had started to learn a instrument at a young age.
Coming to it later in life is much harder work!


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## Taggart (Feb 14, 2013)

Mesa said:


> It would have been good if i liked music at all as a child. I'd be far and away the greatest musician in history by now. I still plan to be, but i have a little extra work.
> 
> I'dve enjoyed an interesting middle name, such as Booker or Chrysostomus.


Just cause you want to be reserved or a golden tongued rascal?


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

That I had been started with piano lessons around age two-and a half or three, rather than age six.

That's about it, really.


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## Turangalîla (Jan 29, 2012)

I, too, wish that I had started piano a few years earlier than five years old.

I wish that my parents had homeschooled me and made me practice more than I did.

I also wish that they took my musical education a bit more seriously and entered me in more competitions when I was younger. Most people have strong negative feelings towards "tiger parenting", but think that it can sometimes be a positive thing.


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## Crudblud (Dec 29, 2011)

For better or worse, if I had lived differently I wouldn't be the person I am right now leading the life I am leading right now, as such I would change absolutely nothing.


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## Kieran (Aug 24, 2010)

Too many things, I'd be typing all night. But I'm happy as I am, too...


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## EricABQ (Jul 10, 2012)

There was this one chick I'm pretty sure I could have scored with if I had put forth any effort. 

So, my answer is I would change that I didn't try to score with her.


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## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

'To travel hopefully is better than to arrive...'

You're probably better off with the 'might-have-been'. Courtly love & all that!


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## maestro57 (Mar 26, 2013)

I would have dumped every dollar I had into Google and Microsoft stocks.


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## Ukko (Jun 4, 2010)

There are times - quite a few of them over the years - when I wish my birth date was in or around 1920. It's no fun being the kid brother if it means you're the last one to leave.


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## Praeludium (Oct 9, 2011)

I wish my parents had treated my education/my current studies more seriously, whether it's arts or sciences or languages. But it recquires a huge dedication from the parents and it seems quite rare. They only cared a little bit about my grades in middle school - they weren't good looking/sounding enough.

Phew, I'll just stop ranting here.


I wish I were less fat and more athletic (even though I'm not sure I'm even overweight) that's an old complexe of me. And also I'd like to be someone who speaks well and can please people by doing so - it must open so many doors....


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## superhorn (Mar 23, 2010)

I've always wished I could be a good pianist , but unfortunately, I've always had a lot of difficulty co ordinating my two hands at the keyboard, so I never got beyond playing the most simple beginnier exercizes with difficulty . 
In order to achieve nay proficiency at the piano ,organ,harpsichord etc, you need to have that ability to co ordinate your two hands, but unfortunately, soem people just have a defecit of this kind of motor neuron function which enables people to do this , and no matter how hard they try, they can never become even so-so pianists ,let alone accomplished ones . 
This gave me a lot of difficulty in music classes as an undergraduate, where you have to learn a bit of piano skills to take certain classes, such as th e one called keyboard harmony . 
This was never a problem with playing the French horn, as you don't need any co -ordination between your two hands to play it, and the right hand just stays in the bell of the instrument .


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## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

Hilltroll72 said:


> There are times - quite a few of them over the years - when I wish my birth date was in or around 1920. It's no fun being the kid brother if it means you're the last one to leave.


I for one am glad you're still with us!

(But I'm very sorry that you miss your brother. I'm the fourth-born in a family of six.)


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## cwarchc (Apr 28, 2012)

Accept your past without regret, handle your present with confidence, and face your future without fear


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## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

A counsel of perfection - but yeah, okay!


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## Ukko (Jun 4, 2010)

cwarchc said:


> Accept your past without regret, handle your present with confidence, and face your future without fear


A life without regrets is probably a life of impenetrable egoism.


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## cwarchc (Apr 28, 2012)

Hilltroll72 said:


> A life without regrets is probably a life of impenetrable egoism.


Hilly, I would disagree with this point.
If you can achieve a life with no regrets = you would be be moving away from ego


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## Ukko (Jun 4, 2010)

cwarchc said:


> Hilly, I would disagree with this point.
> If you can achieve a life with no regrets = you would be be moving away from ego


Taking that slant, it's responsibility for your actions you are 'moving away from'. I suspect we are thinking about different categories of regret here.


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## ptr (Jan 22, 2013)

I'd do more crazy things!

/ptr


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## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

I agree with both Hilltroll & cwarchc. To be smugly confident that one would change nothing in one's past argues that one is an egotist (Yorkshire term = 'bighead'). But to be hung up over things one did wrong and always agonising over them argues that one is self-obsessed (Yorkshire term = 'bighead'). To be smugly confident that one has an uncanny ability to reconcile conflicting viewpoints is to be ....

Oh 'eck, this wasn't supposed to be a serious thread!


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## Ukko (Jun 4, 2010)

Ingenue said:


> I agree with both Hilltroll & cwarchc. To be smugly confident that one would change nothing in one's past argues that one is an egotist (Yorkshire term = 'bighead'). But to be hung up over things one did wrong and always agonising over them argues that one is self-obsessed (Yorkshire term = 'bighead'). To be smugly confident that one has an uncanny ability to reconcile conflicting viewpoints is to be ....
> 
> Oh 'eck, this wasn't supposed to be a serious thread!


I'm not at all sure that the viewpoints conflict; we may be contemplating very different categories. If _cwarch_ is advising us to abandon regrets over lost opportunities, lost because of a failure to act, I'm good with that, mostly.


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## handlebar (Mar 19, 2009)

I'd have left the religious borg I was in much sooner, taken up running seriously at a younger age
and come out of the closet earlier. The latter was much tougher back then. 
Other than that, I'm perfectly content with life and happy as I can be.


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## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

If I could change one thing in my character, I would like to be less easily embarrassed. It has held me back on so many occasions.


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## cwarchc (Apr 28, 2012)

Ingenue said:


> If I could change one thing in my character, I would like to be less easily embarrassed. It has held me back on so many occasions.


If you are never scared, embarrassed, or hurt, it means you never take chances.


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## deggial (Jan 20, 2013)

cwarchc =


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## Ryan (Dec 29, 2012)

I wish I got in with a different crowd when I was in prison, the friends I made all went off their separate ways and we never stayed in touch. This of course is a joke........... I'm a lone wolf


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## Geo Dude (May 22, 2013)

I would change the town I grew up in. The one I grew up in was a rather nasty, violent place for a small town and has left me with medical problems (fibromyalgia, for example) resulting from the inevitable psychological problems caused by that place that have slowed down the progress of my life significantly; it also slowed down the progress of my life because the combination of psychological problems and city I ended up living in for college meshed terribly and resulted in my failing a lot of classes. Having taken some time to examine things after blaming myself for years I've become thoroughly convinced that my life would be significantly different if I had grown up in a 'normal' town and odds are I also would have been sent to a different city with a better university (and better social culture) for college.

As for something more trivial, which is quite necessary after the reading above? (Hey, the OP asked...) I would have researched picking up a hi-fi system long before now and had the process over with (..well..sort of...) and the initial investment money spent.


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## Ryan (Dec 29, 2012)

Ryan said:


> I wish I got in with a different crowd when I was in prison, the friends I made all went off their separate ways and we never stayed in touch. This of course is a joke........... I'm a lone wolf


This comment I'm afraid


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## BlazeGlory (Jan 16, 2013)




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## ZombieBeethoven (Jan 17, 2012)

I am afraid I don't have the wisdom to know what to change. I wish I could have gone back thirty some years and told that kid that everything was going to be ok even when it wasn't ok. It does turn out ok.


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## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

BlazeGlory said:


>


Oh no -smug anthem of the Millennium - the song I love to hate!


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