Life is full of really difficult choices, everyday and in every way. We make a left when we should've turned right and then the journey is altered. Then there are the life choices where we've purposely affected others for our own pleasure, good and bad. The thing is, when we're in the moment we don't take a second to gaze into the future and wonder what lasting effect this decision will create. How will we feel about this action in 10 years, 5 years... 1 day from now? Will it haunt me?

Redditor _qquicksilver asked Do You Have Something Stupid You've Done In The Past That Has Made you Feel Bad For Years ? First of all... YES! We all do! And people let loose with their truth!

WORDS COUNT!

When I was about 12/13 i had a friend who was mixed race (black & white). I in love with her. She moved away to California with her mother. She came back the next summer to visit her father and called me. We hung out for a whole weekend and her father even took us to Wet n' Wild. So we have a great time the whole time she's here and are getting kind of close, but i never "pulled the trigger."

After one evening when her father is driving me home, we're in the back of the truck talking about the Jr. highs school beauty pageant. We talked about a couple of girls we knew and a girl i dated was in it and we laughed about that. For some reason, i don't know if it was me being nervous, I'm really a total a** that doesn't deserve the company of women or that there is a God and he hates me. But i blurted out the N word.

I didn't/don't use the word in most any conversation. It somehow made it's way into my subconscious and popped out at the most inopportune time EVER. There was an obvious pause in the conversation, but being such a great person, she just started talking again like nothing happened. I apologist meekly, but was mortified and couldn't say much else. They dropped me off at home and i was a stupid 13 year old to afraid to call her and explain myself. I never spoke to her again. I can imagine how hurt and betrayed she must have felt. I'd love to somehow talk to her again and really apologize and explain to her, but i have no way of contacting her. So this is something i'll be carrying around with me for the rest of my life.

This really bothers me every time i think about it and i'm in my late 30's now. Does anyone else have a similar experience ?

I still feel really bad about the time the Pope came to Toronto and a Christian monk (very traditional looking one) with a gaggle of little kids asked me which subway to take to the meeting site.

He spoke no english, and just pointed where he wanted to go on the subway map and then pointed at the subway questioningly. It was early in the morning, I wasn't thinking clearly, and I sent the poor man to a train going in the opposite direction. I didn't realize until I was on my own train that I'd given him the wrong directions.

I'm not at all religious, but I said a desperate little prayer to his God (and then briefly became religious again as I said one to mine) asking that the monk be guided appropriately. I can still see the grateful look on the monk's face. He put his hand on my shoulder and said something (in italian I think), which I tend to imagine was some kind of blessing. I think of this incident every time I go on the subway.

In third or fourth grade I placed my #2 pencil, business side up, on my neighbor's chair just as he was sitting down. I was envisioning a cartoon like jump and a great laugh from the class. What I (he) got was a pencil logged in a butt check about an inch deep. He had to go to the drs and get a tetanus shot and I got suspended. Still remember his name and still feel horrible about it.

There was a girl in my second grade class named "Heather." Heather was a rather large and homely girl who was extremely loud and obnoxious, and frequently smelled of warm, rotten cabbage. She would sometimes pee her pants in class, and go around as if nothing had happened.

Whenever she would get close to us, we would scurry off as quickly as we could, screeching "EWWWW DON'T LET HER TOUCH ME!!" If she would accidentally brush up against us, we would get a look of disgust on our face, and wipe the_"Heather Cooties" _on somebody else....then that person would wipe it on another....and this would go on until the last person couldn't wipe the _"Heather Cooties" _on anybody else. This person would then be isolated from the rest of the class for the remainder of the day.

I, of course, partook in this... and looking back on it now, I'm sure we, as a class, collectively gave her a lifetime of security problems and depression.

I was in a group of people where we would tour the town in a chopper. So the girl near me was afraid, so to make her feel less stressed I told her that the probability of being killed in a car accident is much more higher than being killed in a helicopter. She began to look at me strangely and said "I don't want to talk about that." Then I just remembered that her father died in a car accident just two months ago.

There was a girl I hung out with almost every day when I was 14-16, we were best friends. One day, sitting outside, she says that she was tired of talking to me about all the losers she dated, when I was the only one who listened, she then wanted to kiss. I was excited by the prospect, and frightened of the possibilities, I had never really been with a girl at that point and I was scared that a more intimate relationship would ruin our friendship. So I told her that I didn't think that was a good idea. She asked me if I was gay at that point, my heart sank and I felt like I was going to puke, I knew I had made the wrong choice. She stopped being a close friend after that and eventually we drifted apart. I have felt regret that decision so many times.

Gave money to a guy I thought had a genuine story, only to be approached by him again a couple months later down the road from where I had first given him money. No way he needed gas money to see his sick daughter 4hrs away that bad for 4 months :X

Because of him, I give no handouts anymore.

I was at a sushi restaurant with my wife, and said, _"wow, check out the ugly baby over there." _My wife glared at me, and when I looked at the baby again, it was super obvious it had down's syndrome. I felt like an enormous a**.

When I was a kid (10 or 11?) I was hanging out with a group of Japanese students visiting Canada. I was thinking of things I knew about Japan to relate to them and like an idiot I said "Hiroshima - Boom!" Dead Silence. One girl in particular gave me the most evil "die" look I have ever received.

Growing up I was a kind of weird gross kid, since then I've grown out of it and moved on. I've found a life outside of the computer and the whole anime obsession I had in middle school.

During one of my breaks in college I met a group of 'kids' way older than myself that were really into naruto still. They were friends with a girl I knew back in High school adn not having any friends I just sort of wandered into their group having virtually zero interest in what they were up to. I felt better than them in every possible way. Sometimes they'd call me to hang out, but I didn't play guitar hero or eat out often so I always declined.

On my birthday one of them came to my house and gave me a flower and a mixed cd. I laughed and made fun of it a bit with a friend over AIM. It seemed silly but more than anything I was really flattered and embarrassed.

I'm a little disappointed in myself for making fun of the only person who remembered my birthday and bothered to drive all the way across town to give me a flower at 8 in the evening and wish me a happy birthday.

My only story I can add:

When I was about 12 (a long time ago) I got a paper route, and started earning my_"own" _money. I figured for that Christmas, I would buy my younger siblings (then 9 and 6) something really nice with the money I earned from it.

I bought my sister a really great stuffed teddy bear - cute as cute can be, and was REALLY excited to give it to her on Christmas. Because I was only 12, I promptly hid it under my bed, thinking "Who would ever look under my bed for Christmas presents"? Best hiding spot EVAR!

Anyway, a couple weeks before Xmas, I came home from school and went to my room, and when I opened the door, there was my 6 year old sister, playing with the bear she had found under my bed. She was SUPER happy saying _"Thank you for getting it for me!" _while I stood there aghast.

I told her that I was pissed she looked for it under my bed, and that I was taking it back to the store - which I did the next day - and being an a** of a brother I am, took the money for it and didn't get her anything for Christmas. She was crushed and was sad for an entire week - tears and everything.

To this day, when I think about how sad I made my sister that day, it still chokes me up. Even though I've apologized since (she laughs about it now when she tells the story!), I can't forget the look in her eyes and how awful it makes me feel.

I have WAY too many of these to remember, but one does come to mind:

It wasn't a situation in particular, just my behavior as a whole. I dated a girl in high school that was a year younger than me. For some reason, I got very possessive. Told her who she could talk to, what she could wear, etc. When I graduated, she was so distraught from not having any friends, etc, that she opted to get her GED and go to college also. We went to different schools, but I still tried to maintain a stranglehold. I would skip class and try to be nearby because I didnt trust her. Once, during an argument (I'm sure I was being controlling), I was escorted off campus by the police. She was so embarrassed -- she was crying, I was yelling, and for what?

Soon she met someone else who opened her eyes. She promptly kicked my a** to the curb -- the day after my birthday. I wasn't able to see myself for what I really was until afterward. About a year ago I found her on myspace. I tried to contact her to apologize. She made it very clear that she wants NOTHING to do with me. One day I hope she can accept my apology.

I'm married and have a son now, and never have nor ever will do that again. My wife is her own person and is free to talk to the people that she wants to talk to, dress the way she wants to dress, and quite literally, do what she wants.

Shot a friend in the eye with a homemade crossbow when I was 9!

I was at a bar and there was a guy in front of me blocking me from getting a drink. I was trying to excuse myself and get by him but he wouldn't move and he was saying something but I couldn't really understand him. I ask him to repeat himself and his speech is all garbled so I think he's either really drunk and being an a**, or he's mocking me for being _"retarded" _(because that's what he sounded like). I told the guy off and told him to get the hell away from me.

About 5 minutes later a couple guys walked up to me and said "that guy you were talking to is our buddy." I'm thinking I'm about to get jumped. _"He's deaf and he was trying to apologize for being in the way." _Oops.

I cheated on my girlfriend who was dying of ovarian cancer. We had been living together for about six months. I knew she was sick when we got into the relationship. I thought that I was man enough to handle it. I was not.

She had just found out that she was not in remission like she thought she was. I was there to hold her and comfort her the best that I could. After that, she asked me to move out because she didn't want me to see her as she was going through another round of chemo. She also thought that having another person in the house would greatly increase her chance of an infection with her weakened immune system. I moved out of her house and found a place of my own.

Often when I went over to be with her, she was tired and sick. I tried to help as best as I could, but it was clear that I wasn't much help. Our sex life, while not great before, was now non-existent. I thought I could handle this. One night, when she was scared and needing reassurance, I was a complete a**. We ended up fighting. She screamed at me to get out. I left her house and went to a bar. I was drinking, and I ran into a beautiful woman. I ended up going home with her and sleeping with her. It was a one night stand. It was stupid. It is indefensible. It is something I will regret for the rest of my life.

Rather than hide it, I told my girlfriend the next morning. I deserved everything she threw at me, both physically and emotionally. There is not a day that goes by that I don't regret it. She died six months ago without having forgiven me. I can't say that I blame her.

Getting fired from an amazing job for looking at adult videos during work. I regret it every day.

I was working in a bookstore, tending to the sci-fi section, and I see the back of some person who's looking all around for something. Ratty vest on top of a flannel shirt with a unkempt ponytail. Normally I always, always say _"Can I help you?" but for some reason, this time I say _"Can I help you, sir?"

She turns around. She says "I'm not a sir." She looks like she's going to cry. Her husband appears out of nowhere and she buries her head in his chest. She's gotten this before, I realize. I spin around, high-tail it out of there without saying anything, and hide in the back room for 15 minutes.

Retail karma got me back later, but I always felt bad that I never said anything on the spot. I couldn't even get an apology out before I ran away.

When my brother and I were younger teenagers, myself just a year and a half older than him, I asked him if he wanted to go roller skating with my cousin and I. He ran home to get his skates and as he started to walk back to where we were waiting, we got into our car and drove away, and I remember looking at him standing dejectedly in the middle of the street holding his skates while I laughed as we drove away.

I've felt guilty about that my whole life, and everytime I think about it I feel like crap.

I built a rope swing at a lake I used to camp at. The ranger scolded us and said it was dangerous but we never cut it down. A kid died on it a few years later. :(