Is there anything you regret NOT doing?

[K'Ehleyr]

Sometimes there are things we have done that we regret and yet I think it's worse to have not something you later wish you had.

So to set the scale from dull to ;

I wish when the telesales guy rang tonight (in the middle of my bath) and said 'I'm not selling anything' I wish I'd said 'Oh damn, and I had my account number ready'

To... When I spent the night in a hotel with a married guy ~ many years ago I add, no understanding morals at the time ~ but I wish I'd said 'yes' to the wads of money he offered me to 'get petrol to get me home'

 

[The Boy Who Cried Worf]

Well when I was 15 I had a gun. I used to hold it to my head hoping that I could find the courage to pull the trigger. Obviously I never did. I always thought that would have been a smarter choice in life for me.

In second place, one night when I lived in San Francisco I was waiting for a bus very late at night. This attractive older woman who obviously had a few too many started waiting for the bus too and we struck up a conversation. She told me she was a bartender at a club that I knew very well and how Herb Caen(a local legendary newspaper man) had written about her in a column once. She told me about how she was pissed at her old man. We continued after we got on the bus and we were really enjoying ourselves. Sometime during the course of our conversation I pointed my finger at her. She gently cupped my finger between her thumb and fore finger and began to stroke it up and down, and looked at me longingly. About a minute later it was her stop, but I didn't get off the bus with her. As she got off the bus she looked at me strangely like she was waiting for me to do something that I never did. I am not sure how long it was after that night that it dawned on me that she was offering me a hand job.

 

[K'Ehleyr]

Well when I was 15 I had a gun. I used to hold it to my head hoping that I could find the courage to pull the trigger. Obviously I never did. I always thought that would have been a smarter choice in life for me.

In second place, one night when I lived in San Francisco I was waiting for a bus very late at night. This attractive older woman who obviously had a few too many started waiting for the bus too and we struck up a conversation. She told me she was a bartender at a club that I knew very well and how Herb Caen(a local legendary newspaper man) had written about her in a column once. She told me about how she was pissed at her old man. We continued after we got on the bus and we were really enjoying ourselves. Sometime during the course of our conversation I pointed my finger at her. She gently cupped my finger between her thumb and fore finger and began to stroke it up and down, and looked at me longingly. About a minute later it was her stop, but I didn't get off the bus with her. As she got off the bus she looked at me strangely like she was waiting for me to do something that I never did. I am not sure how long it was after that night that it dawned on me that she was offering me a hand job.

Honey, I've very glad you didn't do either. Else it may have been her boyfriend holding a gun to your head and...

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

I wish I'd gotten into baseball a lot earlier than I did.

I mean, I went to college in St. Louis; I could have had season tickets to the Cardinals! Okay, okay, their stadium they had at the time really kind of sucked (it was a cookie-cutter, after all) but I would have accepted it.

 

[RJDiogenes]

I try not to have regrets, but I do wish that I had spent more time on my writing over the years, and more time practicing cartooning; I always seemed to be too busy with other things.

And there was a girl I knew in 8th Grade that I think about sometimes. I never was interested in her at the time, because, aside from having a semi-girlfriend occupying my attention, she lived halfway across town (I was bused because one of the other junior highs burned down). But thinking back, I wonder if that wasn't one of the major missed opportunities of my life....

 

[An Officer]

I wish I'd accepted a job offer I got in 2002 which involved going to Russia and three other countries in Europe for four months. It was an all expenses paid thing... Kind of a young people's arts and culture exchange... I turned it down because I thought it was damn cheeky of them to ask me to work for four months with no wage at all. Even though they would have taken care of everything including food and transport, I thought I'd have nothing to show for it all when I got back.

Looking back, it may have been a very worthwhile experience that I let slip... I learned a good lesson from that.

 

[Amaris]

Holy hell, for me that's like asking a starving man what his choice is from a huge banquet table.

I'll see if I can whittle it down to a couple.


J.

 

[Emher]

^Yeah same here, looooooooong list!

But I guess the main one is not starting to take some chances sooner, starting to crawl out of my shell and getting my shit together sooner. I feel like I've only just begung this and I'm turning 25 this year! I should have done this five years ago!

 

[thestrangequark]

I wish I had researched scholarships more in college. I could have qualified for many, but I was too "busy" to do it. Instead I relied on loans and now I am saddled with debt.

 

[K'Ehleyr]

So far there's a lot of lost chances out there.
If this thread makes you think anything, then don't prevaricate ~ do what you're thinking about now, and do it good Or else you'll end up talking about it on BBS years later

 

[Mallory]

There were two very sweet girls that I was very good friends with in high school. I'd hang out with one or the other, party with them, go to movies and concerts with them, make out with them, let them spend the night in my bed (while I slept on the couch), etc. I regret making it a point to keep them as friends and not pursuing the obvious relationship that they both wanted. I was a coward for taking the safe road and possibly passing up a richer life than I've had.

Not that I'm complaining mind you. I've been very happily married for over 30 years and raised three good kids. I've had a good life. But the "what ifs" still occasionally bug me decades later.

 

[Bob The Skutter]

There was a girl in the last year of school who I was in to, and I'm fairly sure she liked me too, that I never had the guts to ask out.

I regret not reading the rules on that scratch card properly before I chucked it... I'd won £40,000, but threw it away because I thought I needed 3 of the same amount plus the doubler, when I only needed 2.

 

[TheGodBen]

I regret maaaaany thing, but the story that immediately springs to mind is this one.

When I was 15 I went to a bonfire with some friends and somebody threw a door onto the fire which allowed people to run across it and jump through the flames. I thought it was reckless, but then a good friend of mine said "screw it" and did it himself. After seeing that I wanted to do it too, I wanted to experience the thrill, but I couldn't convince my feet to move. I was so terrified by the possibility of tripping and falling into the fire that I just stood there for five minutes, paralysed, until the door burnt down and my opportunity was lost.

For some reason that has haunted me for years. It is a minor thing and a foolish thing and it in no way would have changed my life, but I keep on remembering just how powerless I felt over my own life at that moment.

The one thing I have wanted to experience my whole life is to sky-dive, and for Christmas last year I was given that as a gift booked for this summer. If I can manage to take that leap then I will be able to erase a lot of the regrets that I have, unless I plunge to an untimely death, in which case I will have erased all my regrets.

 

[Finn]

Not playing baseball or boys softball in high school. Never mind we didn't have either sports...

Not asking a girl out back then. But again, I wouldn't be with my current girlfriend if I did.

Seriously, I regret being too patient with the college career center or my major academic advisor my first time around. It's non-issue nowadays though.

 

[Lookingglassman]

I wished I had told her I loved her and marryed her.

I wish I had stayed in the Army.

 

[Jeyl]

This happened in June of last year during Paul's Brain Trust when Ridley Scott gave a tour of the Warner Brothers outside set that was used to shoot Blade Runner.

I was one of the 10 winners to participate in this event, and I mean this from the bottom of my heart that Ridley was a douche. he was unorganized, not prepared and put very stupid restrictions on us. We couldn't ask for an autograph, we couldn't ask for a photo with him, and at the end of the tour, not all of us got to ask questions.

What really jogs me about this is that the person who payed the most for the auction got two things. A Blade Runner poster signed by all the Q&A members (including Ridley) that were at the theater, and a BluRay copy of the film 'again' signed by Ridley. So one out of 10 of us got two autographs from Ridley Scott while everyone else was given boards showcasing where shots were filmed outside the set. They bragged and bragged about how they were specially printed in the UK just for this event, and I was like skip it. They actually promised us that it was going to be autographed at the end but nobody dared to remind him.

So my biggest regret is not having the will power to call Mister Scott out to sign the boards that everyone was going to receive and were promised that they were going to be signed by him. I really kicked myself in the rear that night.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

When I was 15 I went to a bonfire with some friends and somebody threw a door onto the fire which allowed people to run across it and jump through the flames. I thought it was reckless, but then a good friend of mine said "screw it" and did it himself. After seeing that I wanted to do it too, I wanted to experience the thrill, but I couldn't convince my feet to move. I was so terrified by the possibility of tripping and falling into the fire that I just stood there for five minutes, paralysed, until the door burnt down and my opportunity was lost.

Christopher Titus might have something to say about that.

 

[Daneel]

^Yeah same here, looooooooong list!

But I guess the main one is not starting to take some chances sooner, starting to crawl out of my shell and getting my shit together sooner. I feel like I've only just begung this and I'm turning 25 this year! I should have done this five years ago!

I hear you... I turned 25 last year, and just a few months ago decided it was finally time to move out of my parents' house -- I kind of wish I'd done so earlier, but there was no real need to. Even now, of course, there's no need for me to be on my own (especially since I have no idea where to go from here), but I had been kind of frustrated living at home for the last few years, especially since I was going to university. Living with the folks while going to school can kind of put a cramp in your style!

On that note, I kind of regret not looking into other universities a bit more thoroughly, maybe seeing which ones offered the kind of program I might be looking for. As it stands, I basically picked the one I went to for economic reasons (I may not have gotten the full university experience still living at home, but I'll tell you it saved me a bundle). Now I have a B.A., but I have no idea what to do with it. If I had taken my post-secondary aspirations more seriously before I left high school, I might now have a clearer idea as to where life will take me. Ah well... it keeps things interesting.

Other stuff... well, in retrospect, there may have been a girl or two that I was interested in who actually shared my interest, but, typically for me, I was pretty oblivious to it at the time. More often than not, if I develop an attraction for someone, I assume it's one-sided and never say anything (yeah, I have years' worth of self-esteem issues to sort through, but that's another matter). There are a few ladies from the past, though, that I regret not saying anything to; I doubt anything major or long-term would have happened --none of them struck me as being the love of my life-- but it could have resulted in something pleasant nonetheless.

 

[K'Ehleyr]

My gift to you all, if you don't know it already you should...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=22kPiPILteQ
forget should'a, would'a, could'a
and make a new day...
Kx

 

[ManOnTheWave]

There are things in life I do wish I had done, but most pass into the ether and reveal themselves to be no more important than wishing I had chocolate ice cream instead on vanilla twenty years ago. Some things do linger, but then I remember why I didn't do them in the first place. If I had told good old what'shername that I loved her, for instance, she still would have left because it was in her nature. I do regret it, but she still would have left.