Heavy topic ahead.
Life moves on and on and we are forced to deal with all of our choices, no matter how big or small. Inevitably, we are not going to have agreed with everything we chose to do.
Hopefully, we can live without regret. But not always.
u/SunflowerSeedOfEvil asked:
What's your biggest regret?
Here were some of the answers.
Working For Me
GiphyBeing so preoccupied with what I was supposed to do that I never did what I wanted to do.
Since the chance has been afforded to me, I'm getting on a soapbox in order to help others not do what I've done.
For people coming to this thread in the coming days/weeks, please don't take this comment as instruction to say "f*ck it all" and binge netflix, or spend your last $100 for the month on stupid sh!t.
You don't actually want to waste time like that. I actually did things like that, and it was important for me at the time - I needed to 'turn off' and melt my brain a while.
But in my case what I actually wanted was to do something with myself. Take Chances, Make Mistakes. From my experience, I can tell that the chances I would have taken would have been well-thought-out, and either failing them or succeeding I would have gained something useful - important experience at the least, and very possibly incredible wealth or exciting careers at the best.
I would have followed through on my chainmail business. I would have joined the local renfest group. I would have gone all-in for roadtrips with friends. I would have an amazing body through martial arts training. I would have failed harder in romance. I would have told people important to me how important they are. I would have showed the f*ck up and done something to get people out of a situation that was very bad.
Instead, in many ways, what I'm referring to as "what I was supposed to do" is the times I took a safe road. I have a BA in psych because...well because "it suited me". 8 years later I'm starting a (surprisingly satisfying) career in IT....I should have just started with IT and I would be making nearly double at this point.
THIS ARTICLE: https://www.cracked.com/blog/6-harsh-truths-that-will-make-you-better-person/ , back from the time that cracked.com was worth reading, was part of the turning point for me.
I needed to get my sh*t together. That article helped me get my sh*t together enough to begin focusing on the things that I want to do.
History
I regret not asking my parents more questions about their past before they died.
I have a similar regret of not asking my great grandma about my families history and how it was like living through WWII in Poland before she passed away.
What If...?
Not saying yes to a girl who asked me to a high school Sadie Hawkins dance, where the girl asks the guy. This was almost ten years ago, and I still think about it
We all have regrets like that. I remember being in high school and this girl I really liked asked me over one day.
I was stoned and declined. She started dating another one of my friends a few weeks later, but we always had a flirty relationship.
I'm married now to the absolute love of my life now, but still wonder what might have happened.
Death And Taxes
One that haunts me is I didn't answer the last call my dad made to me. He had been dying of cancer and was on a significant amount of pain meds. I was having a sh*tty morning and after months of stress, and helping care for him traveling between states, just wasn't in the mood for another jibberish conversation. He left me a rambling nonsensical voicemail. He lost consciousness soon after and died in hospice.
I doubt he was hurt or would even remember it if he was alive today. Still kind of sucks.
My biggest regret is not documenting more of what my dad told me. We had months of time to sit knowing he was going to die, often on his porch when I was in town, and chat about life and stuff. But I didn't write anything down and I have a pretty bad memory for details. I enjoyed the time and the conversations but don't remember much about them.
My second biggest regret is accumulating debt. I make a ridiculous amount of money but the debt is going to have a huge negative impact on my and my family's financial situation for the next 3-5 years and that's assuming no surprises pop up (and they always do).
Toxic Friends
Giving my friendship away to people that didn't earn it.
Dear God, this. So much this. I've had more bad experiences in the past 365 days with people who don't and never did deserve a minute of my time and I was too dumb to realize the friendship wasn't being reciprocated or was being used for nefarious purposes on their end.
Still hurting from some of the events, and I may not completely get over some of it, but hey, I'm still here, I'm learning from my mistakes, and I'm moving on from the toxicity.
Capitalism Is Crushing Us All
Not finishing college. I've been on my own since I was 16 and I stayed in high school regardless. I did 1 semester in college and then left because I couldn't afford it.
Now I'm 48 and stuck in a job that I hate and I have no prospects because work experience doesn't hold value anymore.
I work in admissions at a college and it's the saddest thing to me when I see students who want to drop out. I tell them that I am the poster child for why you should stay in school.
None.
Every time I think of big regrets they would have resulted in significant differences in my life. Since I didn't meet my wife till I was 35, and then only by random chance, all of them would have resulted in missing out on that. So nothing I can think of is worth that
Here Alone
I think it has to be when I told my best friend that I was a homosexual, he was completely fine with it until he told his religious father. Didn't want him being around me and that was pretty much the end of that. Closet thing to a best friend I've ever had.
Your friend's father is an *sshole. If he is 'Christian', he doesn't understand the example of Jesus. He embraced 'sinners', he didn't tell his followers to ostracize them.
Shame your friend didn't stand up for himself and find a way to keep in touch, which I gather didn't happen.
But You Got Out
I spent far too long in an abusive relationship. When I finally got out, I was utterly broken, had zero self respect, had given him all of my savings. Years later, I'm still recovering. I'm so much better off now, but I occasionally still cry out of simple, sheer regret about that time.
Twenty Years Can Still Turn Around
When I was about 30, I got married and then I got fat. For the next 20 years, I complained about being fat and tried all sorts of fad things trying to get healthier and lose weight, but they never worked. I'd start exercise one day and stop the next. Or I'd go for a week not eating carbs, then eat a whole pie out of the blue and that was it.
When I was 49, I had been reading about CICO (Calories In, Calories Out) on the r/loseit subreddit and saw the photos of people who were losing weight just by being accountable and counting their calories. I was like - no way. "All the studies" show that counting calories doesn't work! If I couldn't lose weight by eating only potatoes (which didn't last long), there was no way I'd be adding up my calories every day long term. Even so - I was 49. I had been fat for nearly 20 FREAKING YEARS. 20 years of baggy clothes, being tired, spending all my spare cash on fast food and snacks, not being happy with a single photo of myself.
So, I told myself I'd try it for a week. I gave myself a modest calorie deficit, and was shocked that I documented everything I ate that week, kept to my budget - and actually lost 5 pounds! So I did it the next week, too, and again lost 3 pounds. I then thought, well, I've done it for 2 weeks, let's do a month. And I did.
It's now been 377 days that I've tracked, and I've lost 95 pounds in that time. IT WASN'T HARD. I ate what I wanted - I just got used to eating much smaller bits. I really haven't exercised much (I need to, though, as parts of me are now a tad saggy). It still shocks me that I've been able to lose nearly 100 pounds - and I'm still going.
I feel GREAT except I have SO MUCH regret for the stupidity and laziness I did that caused me to waste so much of what could have been 20 awesome years. It's not that I think being regular-sized would have made me a big success at anything, or that my life would have been problem free. But, I know I would have been much more active, my moods have certainly evened out since I've stopped eating so much sugar and fat, I could have been wearing cute clothes all along - and my 30s and 40s could have been my Fun Adult years. Now I'm 50, and while I can still be sporty and active and feel better about myself and be more even-keeled, I'm like - I COULD HAVE BEEN DOING THIS ALL ALONG! All those nights I watched TV and ate dozens of cookies - those are not the memories I'll cherish when I'm legitimately old. And I regret the loss of years of those good memories.
All ya'll in your 20s-30s-40s - IT'S NOT TOO LATE! It's like what happens with Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz - she had the ability to do what she needed to do all along! You just have to be willing to do the work, and not try to 'game your system.' You're going to be 50 or 60 or 70 eventually anyways - don't you want to be your BEST version of yourself when you get there? I used to hate when people said this, but now I know it to be true: If I can do it, you can, too.
Being let go from your job is never a pleasant experience.
Particularly if it comes out of nowhere, without any possible warning that this was a possibility.
Even if it isn't any more pleasant, generally speaking, most people have at least an inkling of why they were let go.
Budgetary reasons, dissolved departments, being told you weren't meeting company standards, or bad blood with the boss.
As well as some less common, highly unusual reasons which at least might make a good story down the line.
Redditor Sweetlo123 was curious to hear from people who were let go from their jobs, and why they were met with this fate, leaving them to ask:
"What did you get fired for?"
For Standing Up For What's Right.
"We were told we get OT for night work."
"The new 'company manager' let it slip that we don't actually get OT for night work, so when I was scheduled for five nights in a row working on a transmission line cell site I mentioned that I expect everyone working from our company on site get OT."
"Once it was said that we won't get OT and that it wasn't an actual policy (was written in employee handbook), I forwarded the email chain to the entire company and leadership at Verizon."
"I was canned, but now everyone gets OT for night work."
"My life is better now anyway and got my people what the deserve."- drklunk
This Was Never Going To End Well...
"Aggressively squeezing breakfast muffins lol."
"I was a few days into working at Mcds and someone complained I gave them a muffin that was too hard-they bake them at like 3 am and sit in a warmer all day."
"This was before they had the full bakery menu, I think muffins was the only thing baked and maybe cookies."
"So my manager told me to squeeze them before I hand them out."
"Me being a dumb teenager squeezed the s*it out of these muffins and got another complaint."
"They stopped scheduling me, haha."- eatmyknuts
You Have To Do The Work To Get Paid...
"I just stopped working and began only attending meetings."
"Lasted almost 9 months that way before they let me go."- frantictossing
martin freeman sleeping GIFGiphyWrong Time, Wrong Place
"I was fired after a month into my first job at a local pizza joint when I was 16."
"They called me during the Super Bowl and said I had to come in."
"I told them I was out of state without a car so no way I could make it."
"They said I should’ve known this was one of the busiest days of the year and I should’ve stayed in the area."
"I came in to work my next shift and they just gave me my paycheck and said they had to let me go for not being a team player."
"10 years later I was fired from a job in tech because I refused to move out of state."
"This one hurt a lot more."- seventyfive1989
Hard Not To Say They Had It Coming...
"The company's timeclock software ran off of the computers time, so when I was late I would just close the software, change the time back to before shift start and then clock in and change it back."
"The supervisor who showed me the trick fired me."
"A day or two later he saw me pulling in late, and when he went over the time info that day, it showed me clocked in on time."
"He knew why."- Grief-Inc
Nepotism Always Screws Someone Over...
"Worked at a gas station and was a sucker for the free soda."
"I would drink a few 24 oz glasses of Dr. Pepper (don’t judge) per shift and had to piss relatively frequently."
"I usually worked with the same lady every shift and every shift my drawer came up short even like $10-20 bucks."
"One day my usual co-worker was off and I worked with another lady who warned me to watch my drawer around the other and hers had been short when she was around."
"That got me to thinking."
"The next shift with the usual lady I stuck some receipt paper into the lip of the bottom of my drawer and hit the bead."
"When I came back the paper was on the floor."
"My drawer was short $20 at shift change and my boss fired me."
"I told her of my findings and asked her to review the security tape."
"She told me to f*ck right off the other lady had been there years."
"I left heart broken and rented some VHS tapes to indulge in and recover."
"One of the movies was Casino and man is that a good movie."
"Come to find out the usual lady was the boss lady’s cousin and they f*ckin told people I knew I got fired for stealing money."
"I though about calling a lawyer but also, I was in high school and was delusional I suppose."
"I got out of that town after high school and rarely return, especially considering all my family moved off."- woohhaa
Snl Smiling GIF by Saturday Night LiveGiphyThe Age Old Story Of Men In Power
"Caught the boss stealing."
"So he fired me."
"His word vs. mine and it didn't go my way."- freezingprocess
People Tend To Get What They Deserve
"Embezzled almost $500,000 from the doctor's office I worked at."
"Oh no, wait."
"That was my former supervisor who did that...26 years after she fired me for taking home a left over slice of pizza after a drug rep hosted a pizza party for the office staff."
"Karma can take a long time, but it always comes through."- YourFront
Late To The Game...
"Being the last hired when they instituted layoffs."- BubbhaJebus
Some Plans Can't Be Cancelled
"1970s YES 'Close to the Edge' tour."
"I had my tickets and had the request approved for time off, they changed their mind at the last minute and would not let me off."
"Pfft."
"Left anyways and was genuinely surprised when I got back on Monday and they informed me that I was fired."-AmandaBRecondwith
Treat Others Like You Want To Be Treated
"My boss was talking sh*t about me to employees, and I confronted her with 'how would you expect the people below me to respect me when you show them that you don’t?'"
"She didn’t like it and literally went crying to the owners, who then fired me for 'causing problems'.”- Successful-Snow-562
For Literally Doing What They Were Supposed To
"I got fired for slacking off and underperforming at work by taking my legally required lunch."- 10leej
Hungry Lets Eat GIF by TRTGiphyThey Couldn't Have Waited One Day?
"Worked as a QA tester for an online game company."
"Found bug while on my personal account at home."
"Came in the next day and reported the bug."
"I was VERY clear I found the bug while playing at home on my personal account."
"It was a nasty bug that let you duplicate very expensive items."
"A few weeks later someone in customer service was checking the logs for people exploiting the bug."
"They found mine and the company decided to fire me on my birthday."
"That was around 15 years ago but it still upsets me every year, on my birthday."- PedanticCyborg
While most believe "ignorance is bliss", anyone handed a pink slip deserves to know why.
Even if sometimes the reason gives no closure whatsoever, and instead only results in even more questions.
Certain locations really damper on a good time.
For instance, it's not fun to do it in cramped spaces.
Looking at you, airplane bathrooms and backseat of cars.
Many cannot be bothered to maneuver in some odd location.
Beds. Beds are sexy.
Always were, always will be.
Redditor sasukelikescarrots wanted to hear about the places we should all avoid when getting it on, so they asked:
"What do you think are some overrated places to have sex?"
Elevators.
One... I'm claustrophobic.
Two... there is not enough time.
Fatal Attraction lied to us y'all.
The Worst
The Beach Summer GIF by Kel CripeGiphy"The beach is the worst."
thotsnprayers68
"I hate sand so much so I agree with you."
Millionsmoney
Let Alone Two
"Airplane bathroom. Too cramped, and smells gross. Keep your Mile High Club pendant."
REUBG58
"I was thinking this too. I am also willing to bet that 99% of people who claim to be in the Mile High Club are lying through their teeth. Seriously, there's barely any space in those lavatories for one person, let alone two, and it's a little hard to get aroused when you're worrying about turbulence and people waiting to use the toilet knocking on the door."
Fresh-Hedgehog1895
Just Why?
"Public toilets... Why would you even..."
Reznik81
"The only reason I can think of is being a kid of an overprotective parent in high school and you want to desperately get it on with your boyfriend. Public restrooms are the only option sometimes. (Experience)."
I-couldbeadog
Too Wet
"The pool and the shower."
GrilledStuffedDragon
"I hate the shower. I think it was a comedian who said, 'I’ve never been having sex and thought you know what would make this better… If one of us was freezing.'"
"I personally like the shower cause my partner likes to be in the water and I like being cold so it works out cause sex gets me pretty warm anywho."
BOOboUraisin23
"The shower is for foreplay, not sex. Pretty much every time we shower together it’s a given that it will lead to sexy time, whether we were planning on it or not/in the mood or not…. intimacy and touching, etc.,?…. we just B-line for the bedroom. But sex IN the shower?… no."
Jibber_Fight
And a Happy Meal?
happy ronald mcdonald GIF by McDonald's CZ/SKGiphy"McDonalds ball pit…"
ami2weird4u
"They have a cleaning machine that can clean all the balls and it's all sanitary. I think that could be a really good time"
copper_basket
Have some decorum people.
I'd go to Burger King.
Check Please
Applebees GIFGiphy"The men's room at Applebee's during Happy Hour on a Tuesday."
Thiccaca
"Oddly specific."
some1sbuddy
Bad Idea
"Car sex."
Shrikeangel
"I spent my teens and early 20s having sex in cars. About a year ago (I'm almost 40) the wife and I are out and in the mood so let's have sex in the car like we used to. Bad idea, how the f**k did we used to have sex all the time back there, now it's uncomfortable and I got a cramp in my leg."
Psyco_diver
"Yes. The handful of times I’ve tried this, it’s always been so cramped and you need to keep repositioning or someone bumps their head. I guess it could be fine if you had one of those huge American tanks, but cars here in Australia never have that much room inside."
StellarSandDweller
Oh Lord
"Churches and graveyards. I've done it in both, and it's not really that great."
filly_fanatic
"Never in my life have I thought either of those locations sounded like a fun place to have sex. I guess if you have a kink for getting caught then it's as good as any because there's this perception of it being sacrosanct, but it just seems at best uncomfortable and at worst going to get me on a registry somewhere.
"hopeishigh
The Waves
"Waterbeds. One of my GF's had one, and I *hated* it. It's impossible to get traction or the proper angle."
disturbednadir
"Good call. There’s nothing to push off of. Nowhere to plant knees either. A true s**t show."
SocialMediaSoooToxic
"I knew there was a reason why I forgot about my waterbed! Thanks for reminding me about that abomination!"
TinyCamp7743
Wow. I mean. Y'all have really gone out and experimented fully.
Congrats.