1/ A woman who stalked me and made my life a misery for a year after I dumped her.
2/ Leaving a cushy well paid number on a local council to become self employed. Five weeks holiday, all the sick leave you could handle and a final salary pension.
3/ Not emigrating to Aus with my cousin in 1972.
4/ Leaving a letter from someone else where the first Mrs RR could find it. Fast way to lose half a house.
5 Started smoking.
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Funnily, if I could turn back the clock, there is nothing I did that I would change. No regrets.
So far
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Regrets, I've had a lot... Not sure I could post them here though :(
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Regrets ? I've had a few........but then again, too few to mention.
Ted
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Zero, not even parking in a bus??
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>> Zero, not even parking in a bus??
No. OK come the groundhog day when approaching the spot, I am not going to deliberately do the same thing again because it hurt, a lot, but Its events like this that shape us and make us what we are now, how our lives have turned out.
And I am pretty happy with that.
I would have liked to have been a police dog handler tho.
Last edited by: Zero on Thu 2 Sep 10 at 08:38
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>> Fast way to lose half a house.
The half that was hers presumably.
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I can only think of one thing because all of the others lead back to that one.
I wish I had never discovered how to be stubborn/bolshy/sarcastic or caustic and listend to my Mum, some 50 years ago when she used to say, 'Pat, you're cutting off your nose to spite your face again'.
And still I do it, if it wasn't for a small matter of principle, I would be enjoying 9 weeks holiday relief lorry driving now:)
Pat
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My instant reaction is to agree with RF.
But then I thought
1) I wish I'd not taken that corner so fast.
2) I wish I'd looked at that quiet junction before emerging
3) I wish I hadn't taken my eyes off the road on that occasion ...
4) ... or that occasion.
I guess there are plenty more. But most of them are not very interesting.
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So Pat, last I remember you were heading back to trucking for a few weeks cover. I take it from your post that didn't work out? Thats a pity - you seemed happy about it and "raring to go"?
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1. Stayed with my first wife as long as I did ( cheater ) - and missed out on the superb girl who was courting me.
2. Bought about 25% of the cars ive bought.
I dont have a long list of regrets, life happens with or without you.
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I'm not a big believer in regrets either. Every stoopid thing I've done has somehow helped me in the long term. You chalk it up to experience and move on. SWMBO and I got into a lot of debt in our 20s which is still impacting our lifestyle now, but the end is in sight and we will come out better at the end of it. Id do that differently if I had my time again, but that's only based on the experience I've had as a result of doing what we did.
Hindsight is 20/20. As long as you learn from your cockups and don't repeat them, they are just part of life as far as I am concerned.
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I was BobbyG, but let's just say I've had a bit of a love/hate relationship with my old TM over the last 17 yrs.
I agreed T&C's with the owner before he went away on Holiday, and the TM decided to alter those!
I stood my ground as per usual, and probably cut off my nose to spite my face, but my pride is intact!
Pat
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>>but my pride is intact!<<
In almost every list Pride is considered the original and most serious of the seven deadly sins,
and indeed the ultimate source from which the others arise.
It is identified as a desire to be more important or attractive than others,
failing to acknowledge the good work of others, and excessive love of self.
:)
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I have a few:-
1) Buying that Corsa - it costs me £1000's
2) Loosing my car key.
3) Things that happened too long ago to mentiion.
4) Not giving a toss about anything important but worrying about the silly things.
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Well, for the purpose of this I would argue with that description.
Mine goes something like this.
In 17 years he never managed to get one over on me, and he certainly isn't going to start now:)
Pat
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1) Wish I'd bought the mini 1275GT as my first car instead of the Viva...
2) Sort of wish I'd waited on the lecturing job in Leicester and not taken the post-doc
3) Wish I hadn't sold my Ducati Monster
4) Wish I hadn't sold my Volvo 940 estate
5) Wish I hadn't smoked (given up now).
Nothing terribly serious, which is good I suppose.
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In no particular order, I wish I had never:
1) Started smoking, about 5 months after it almost killed my mother (who's still going strong 20 years later, thankfully). Have been off them for >9 years but still cough every morning.
2) Bashed my Ibiza Sport TDI into Findon roundabout, and traded it once mended for a distinctly suboptimal Stilo 1.6 Active.
3) Goofed off when I should have been studying for GCSEs, A-levels, degree - although I got OK grades in the end, I could have done better and in career terms, it's made getting to where I am now a great deal more difficult than it need have been.
4) Match-maked for a mate when we were students - the unanticipated result of that (a young lad now aged 12) ended up being adopted. Goodness knows how, but I am still friends with both parents...
5) Done something ill-advised with a family member's car, many years ago.
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From a university point of view I was 23 in my final year (due to messing about changing colleges courses when I was 16) and I just had enough after getting my degree which nearly made me ill I just wanted to work.
I was offered a place on two fully funded masters courses, turned them down.
I was offered a chance to run for presidency at the student union elections as I was heavily involved in a scheme to make life more fun for 'home' students. I turned that down as I wanted to focus on my studies. I ended up getting a very high 2:1 but I could have worked quite a bit less and still got a 2:1 (but a lower grade). Getting 67.5% really hurt as it was just 1% off, but my friend (different course and university) got 68.4% abnd needed 68.5% to get a 1st - ouch!
Since leaving university I did a course in photography at the Open University and passed my driving test but I wish I had done a lot more. Of course I have also setup my own business and in that regard I could have and should have worked a lot harder. I am always more interested in where the nearest pint is coming from rather than the nearest cheque though.
I was very mature in my younger days and had no fun, I didn't even start going clubbing properly until about 23 so I am going off the rails a bit now to make up for that lost childhood.
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>>From a university point of view I was 23 in my final year (due to messing about changing colleges courses when I was 16)
Somehow, that doesn't surprise me in the slightest!! :)
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Leaving university at 23 or messing about with college courses?
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messing about with college courses and being unsure what you were wanting to do!!
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I've been very, very lucky in life so far, and I appreciate it. However, I do have some regrets:
1) Failed to take the chance to make peace with my Dad before he died, after a long-lasting family row.
2) Left a decent job in the UK in order to experience the "joy" of working abroad.
3) Turned down the chance to study for a Masters degree in the USA.
4) Started smoking. It was seriously tough to quit.
5) [Motoring reference] Bought my present car before test-driving it properly.
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>> 4) Started smoking. It was seriously tough to quit.
I reckon the smoking one is favourite. Even though I gave up 25 years ago, the doctors are still blaming it for the cancer I'm fighting now. Don't know if that's right or a convenient scapegoat - 25 years is a long time to wait for payback!
Still, signs are we're starting to get it on the run now even though there's 2 more years of treatments to get through!
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My sincerest wishes for a successful outcome to your treatment. Good Luck!
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"3) Turned down the chance to study for a Masters degree in the USA."
How very interesting. Same here.
I was offered a scholarship to study for a Masters in America, but decided that a Masters wouldn't do me much good, and that I really wanted to get a job. So I sent them a letter declining their offer of a scholarship, and telling them that I wouldn't be coming.
I remember speaking to a friend just after I had done it, and telling her what I had done. She said "You idiot! Phone them immediately and tell them to ignore the letter and that you will be coming." I didn't take her advice. She went on to do a PhD, but I'm not sure it ever did her much good.
As for me, getting a job turned out to be tougher than I'd anticipated, and I was unemployed for over a year when I could have been in America working on a Masters. I suppose I sort of regret it, but have tended to take the view that in the end of the day it probably didn't make any difference.
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>> As for me, getting a job turned out to be tougher than I'd anticipated, and
>> I was unemployed for over a year when I could have been in America working
>> on a Masters.
Exactly what happened to me as well!
When I eventually did get a job it was with the Civil Service, and they insisted that I take the Computer Aptitude Test. Unluckily for me, I passed the test, and I've never been able to escape the evil clutches of computers ever since.
If only I'd taken a Masters degree - I could have become a lecturer. I would have enjoyed that.
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I honestly wish I hadn't bothered going to University. Uni and I were fundamantally unsuited, and if I had gone straight into work I would have had three more years experience and hence would be earning roughly the same as I do now.
Granted, I didn't really know what I wanted to do at 18 so going to uni put the decision off for three years, but looking back it was three wasted years. Luckily I got a full grant, so at least I wasnt neck deep in debt by the end - my ex wife soon saw to that though....
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I'm now 50 and in the last five years I've jut had the odd twinge about not staying in education after A level.
In 1978 I had three A levels and the choice of further education for an HND or degree or taking up the offer of a junior manager job in the civil service. My A levels were not brilliant (too much study time watching planes or cycling) and rather like now the future jobs market looked very bleak. So I took the Civil Service job. Had I stayed in education I'd have graduated in 1981 and probably been, like many school friends, on the dole in Leeds. Instead I was earning £8k a year and living in London.
Spent the rest of the eighties and nineties in a wide range of manager/administrator jobs and never gave my further thought to choices at 18+. Then in 2002 I moved into a policy role working with 10 other people of whom nearly all are graduates. My ideas are as good as theirs but I'm missing the skill of expressing those ideas in a concise and marshalled fashion - something I suspect further education would have taught me.
Last edited by: Bromptonaut on Thu 2 Sep 10 at 23:12
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I still do sometimes wish I had done the masters but I sort of thing whats the point. I am still in debt now because of it. Looking back the one thing I would have changed was to have gone to a better college and done better A levels but at the time I didn't even want to go to university. It was never planned it sort of just happened. I suppose I am a drifter that was born to walk alone!
That said I don't regret going to that college back in 2000 because that is where I met all my current friend base. Well I met one friend and then years later that is the basis of my entire social circle. He got me away from ABBA and into proper music.
Education wise I am making a half baked attempt to become Microsoft certified but lately I have been too busy. Still up now working on a diet of Pepsi, Pizzas and pain killers (for my head aches). So really need to decide what to do long term, I can't keep working 14 hours a day for less than £300 a week maybe becoming self employed should be a thing I wish I had never done.
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I assume £300/week is take home.... which is still not good for those hours. A friend got into podcasting and quit his job with us (he was probably on £50-60k)... he now earns more. He has a nice business I'd like to emulate in other areas I think. It can be done anywhere in the world with a fast enough internet connection.
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>>drifter that was born to walk alone!<<
Classic Whitesnake Rattle, good choice:)
Pat
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>...drifter that was born to walk alone!
>>Classic Whitesnake Rattle, good choice:)
The true classic is the Saints an' Sinners version, where the word is 'hobo'. Perhaps someone in the insecure 80s was afraid it would be mistaken for 'homo', hence the change to 'drifter' for the big-hair release in the US. Anyone know if that's the real reason?
My regret: not working harder to develop my modern language skills. My French is OK but hasn't been used enough to be truly fluent; and I have the basics of German and Italian but no more. I work with people from a dozen countries who can do complex business in two languages beside their own and envy them their adaptability.
Notable how many of us regret our omissions more than our misdeeds.
}:---)
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>> long term, I can't keep working 14 hours a day for less than £300 a
>> week maybe becoming self employed should be a thing I wish I had never done.
At £4.30 an hour you are charging less than minimum wage. Thats nowhere near enough for a technical rate, and is NO way to run a business.
If you want to be fair, and competitive - revise your rate.
£20 quid for the first hour, and £10 per hour thereafter.
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"My ideas are as good as theirs but I'm missing the skill of expressing those ideas in a concise and marshalled fashion - something I suspect further education would have taught me."
Don't you believe it, Bromptonaut! I recruit graduates for my firm of accountants and having a degree isn't a guarantee of anything. I'll wager you're as good as your colleagues any day. My great gripe is some universities where a student can learn...regurgitate...get a 2.1...without learning to think laterally and solve a problem on their own initiative.
Regrets - only trivial ones like PXing a much-loved Audi for a Mercedes, but nothing compared with some heartfelt stories above, so I'll shut up.
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No doubt I'll get some stick from my wife (who reads most postings here) I really regret selling my 1200GS - not the particular bike really but the actual make/model thing - loved it to bits.
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...My ideas are as good as theirs but I'm missing the skill of expressing those ideas in a concise and marshalled fashion - something I suspect further education would have taught me...
Can't agree, Bromptonaut.
Your posts on here are as clear and lucid as anyone's.
My experience of graduates is many cannot see wood from trees, and nearly all use 30 words where three would do.
My regrets?
I wish I'd kept myself fitter by doing more cycling, and got myself a steady job with a public body which would have given me a decent salary after a few years and a good pension. :)
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I sometimes wonder if giving up my secure and well paid if rather boring job with a big company to become director of a small company was one of my better decisions. We nearly went under in the crisis when our projects practically dried up overnight and we're still not out of the woods. My wife says I'm much happier though.
Car wise, I really regret not buying the immaculate, black Porsche 911 Turbo I looked at a couple of times at a Porsche dealer in Nuernberg in the late 90s. It was going for a song as it was a non-catalysed model but I dithered and someone else bought it. They're not going for a song any more...
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I'll have to ' come out ' and say I do have occasional pangs of regret about getting married at 23 before I'd had a chance to get out and see the world.........children and the usual penury settled that.
That said, we're still together, I love her to bits, we have grandkids and we're financially stable now, so we can do some of things we couldn't afford. She's as pretty as she was then, although slightly chubbier.....a situation which she is gradually rectifying.
I think your loins rule your brain in your twenties......maybe a minimum age for marriage should be set....say 35.
I also regret not buying the bright red MG TD I looked at before we wed. I didn't buy it 'cos it was a two-seater. Don't know why, there were just the two of us to consider !
Ted
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"maybe a minimum age for marriage should be set....say 35."
I was 36. But, to be honest, I would have gotten married sooner if I could have.
My Dad, by the way, was 23 when he got married. I've not asked him if he has any regrets, and I wouldn't dream of doing so, but I'm pretty sure that he hasn't.
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A lot of actions people take is suitable at that point in time based on information available at that time.
Some of them may appear wrong in hindsight but that's how life is.
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Five things you wish you'd never done - Zero
