People Confess Ideas That Still Break Their Brains When They Think About Them

Getty / Lona Photography
"Thinking is the hardest work there is, which is probably the reason why so few engage in it." ~ Henry Ford
Reddit user wildflower8872 asked:
"What theory, phenomenon or idea blows your mind when you think about it?"
In the Beginning, Only Earlier
What the f$%& was there before the big bang?
The big foreplay. Reddit
Fido Want a Cracker?
The fact that some birds can articulately mimic human speech.
If your dog said a complete sentence to you that you could fully understand, you'd lose your sh*t. film_composer

Computer Age
Everything about a CPU.
We took some sand and through sheer determination taught it to do math.
Then we fed unfathomablly long strings of 1s and 0s into it and it made these words you are reading.
What. The. F%#$.
It's a rock that we tricked into thinking. the_hesitation KaiserAbides shauber
Sometime, Somewhere
The fact that the place you're going to die already exists somewhere, just waiting for you to come by at the right time.
You live your entire life, not knowing where it is, but regardless, it's out there somewhere.
Also there is a month and a date in which you will die.
Every year you pass by that date and you have absolutely no idea what it is. Human_mind Benana
Turning a Blind Eye
Charles Bonnet (syndrome).
It's a condition that only occurs in people with severe sight loss and causes very vivid, unusual hallucinations. One of my patients kept seeing gnomes in her house, and felt totally chill about it.
One of my patients lost his vision as an adult but hadn't really internalized the concept.
One time when his wife was driving, he screamed 'Look out!' and grabbed the steering wheel.
He saw a valley filled with a river of blood and skulls, and thought his wife was driving straight into it. SmallFemale RainbowDarter
Sugar Pill
Still struggle to get my head around the placebo effect. Our bodies are truly amazing.
Placebos work on dogs. That always f*&%s with me. ssnewp_2202 BlinkedHaint

Collective Effort
How much collective work is put into every single thing around us. Pick up a book. The author was not the only one responsible for it being in your hand, so was the owner of the publishing company, the factory worker making sure it was printing correctly and many others. Look at a building. From the mind of the architect that designed it, the contractor in charge of building it, the construction worker who put his sweat and hard work into those walls. An apple you might have for a snack goes through many people like the farmer, to the distributer, to the grocer that stocked it on the shelf. Pretty much everything around us had so many people working on it, many that you don't even consider. That's pretty amazing to me -eDgAR-
Mind Over Gray Matter
The fact that our brain cannot feel anything at all, but it makes our body feel everything.
This is something that I think about fairly often. Similarly: did you know that when you get a headache from being dehydrated the reason you feel pain is because the meninges (layers of tissue that helps to protect your brain and hold it in place) actually shrink and are pulling on the inside of your skull which causes the headache?
So gross, but so cool. suckswithducks

By the Numbers
The fact that there is a finite number of times anything in your life will occur.
Heartbeats, kisses, times you say "um".
For some reason it messes with me.
Even though it's mundane, there is an exact amount of coffee, for example, I will drink in my lifetime and I have no clue what it is. yikesireddit
The Sum of Our Parts
The fact that such highly organized creatures like humans (all animals really) are just very specific interactions between different atoms. RetroRhino
Technologically Challenged Shopping
That humans have existed for thousands and thousands of years but technology like automobiles and airplanes which many of us take for granted have only existed for less than 200 years.
I can't even imagine how people in the stone age lived, the nearest Costco would be like 3 days travel away!
Yeah, I heard Costco wasn't doing too well back then. BeautifulKyle bobtheblob6 thrashette
Say What?
Can we just talk about language in its entirety? ESPECIALLY written language.
Right now, you are looking at nothing but strange connections and spacing of random lines. Within these lines however, you are able to understand, process, and interpret a complex idea about how strange it is that these symbols can be used to describe any idea at all! Let alone something as complicated as the sciences, or philosophy. But not only that! But by changing just one symbol, I can change the idea. To see what I mean, the difference between "You love me." and "You love me?" is astounding! The different scenario running through your mind when you read each of those symbols is completely different, entire stories and thoughts, dictated by a squiggle. RanaktheGreen

Woof & Tweet
Speakers. How the f#!& can they accurately create sounds just by moving a teeny bit. Its just a coil around a magnet.
I think about this quite often. One tiny little ear bud is able to accurately mimic the sound of a complete full orchestra and the applause of hundreds of people. It's truly incredible. Pswado scissors1121
Always and Never
That either the universe always existed or there was a point where nothing existed and the universe just started. PaulTheGuy

Heavy
That gravity slows down time.
And that while we understand what gravity does, and we can determine various things that cause it, that we don't actually know why. Plankybiscuits POTUSKNOPE
This Is Not the Vacuum You're Looking For
False Vacuum Theory.
Possibly one day a single particle will drop to a true lowest energy state and set off a reaction that rewrites chemistry as we know it.
Or that our current universe might be the product of a false vacuum occurring in an earlier universe. Illier1 RobertAPetersen
8 Billion Stories on the Naked Planet
It's not exactly a phenomenon- But I think it is. More so it's just the idea that gives me chills every day, smacks me in the face every waking moment. The fact that there are over 7 billion people out there. Living lives. Every person has a world of their own. A life full of friends, foes, goodness and woes. There are hundreds of millions of places housing people. Housing memories. And every person has a tale to tell, a place to go, something to strive for. There's a backstory to every single existing one of us.
It's absolutely amazing. Absolutely mind blowing. catharticarrest
Total Meltdown
The Carrington Event.
In the 19th century, the world experienced a solar event of unprecedented scale. Called the "Carrington Event", after the astronomer who first identified and studied it, it took the form of a massive solar flare, called a coronal mass ejection (CME). The CME bombarded the earth with basically a galactic electromagnetic pulse, completely flattening the magnetosphere and immobilizing earth's inherent electromagnetic shielding until it was over. Fortunately, at the time, earth's electronic infrastructure was still in its infancy, although the event did cause telegraph wires to melt, and telegraph machines themselves to catch fire.
Then, in 2012, a CME of equal or greater magnitude than the Carrington event was recorded. It passed directly through the earth's orbit... while we were on the other side of the sun. Imagine if we had been in the splash zone of something like that, with how vital our electronic infrastructure has become in our daily lives. Reddit and the Internet would immediately cease to exist as servers become fried and destroyed. Anyone connected to a life support machine would be dead unless the life support techniques can be done manually or with analog technology. Satellites for communication, weather prediction, scientific study, GPS systems, and anything else man-made in orbit around earth would be damaged to the point of useless space junk. It would be an apocalyptic-level event... and it almost happened. The sun completes a rotation on its axis about once every three weeks, so if that CME happened either two weeks before or two weeks after it took place... well, the world would be a suddenly and dramatically different place. jdfestus

Super
Just to quote Randall Munroe a bit on supernovas.
"However big you think supernovae are, they're bigger than that. Here's a question to give you a sense of scale:
Which of the following would be brighter, in terms of the amount of energy delivered to your retina:
A supernova, seen from as far away as the Sun is from the Earth, or
The detonation of a hydrogen bomb pressed against your eyeball?
Applying the physicist rule of thumb suggests that the supernova is brighter. And indeed, it is ... by nine orders of magnitude." Dorgamund

LP Madness
Vinyl records are witchcraft and nothing can dissuade me.
I've tried really hard to find an explanation of how vinyl records work that makes sense to me. All I ever seem to get is "the sound wave is cut into the vinyl and the stylus plays it back".
It's like, yeah, okay, cool, I'm still not understanding how I'm hearing a guitar, vocals, bass, drums, and even more clearly at the same time from that. FingerBangYourFears Haven92
A Tale to Tell
Everything ever has a story behind it.
That random plastic bottle on the street?
First, the company that made the bottle was founded, which itself has a story. Then, somewhere along the lines they made that one specific plastic bottle, transported it to the store, (which again, has a story behind it itself.) Then one day, a person that has their own entire life story picked up that bottle, payed for it with cash (the money itself has went through thousands of people, which all have a story of spending it,) drank it, might've thrown it on the ground.
One day, by pure chance, you randomly notice the bottle. daney098
Heavenly Bodies
The insane coincidence that the sun and the moon appear nearly identical in size from our position. VorpalPen
Life, the Universe, and Everything
What is outside the universe, what does the universe exist in?
How does the universe even exist? How can something exist? If it exists in something, what does that thing exist in?
What happened before the big bang, what was the nature of the universe before that? Why did the big bang happen?
Sh*t like this makes me a bit anxious sometimes, see the absurdity of reality. All the other things can be explained by the laws of physics, but how do you explain the laws of physics and reality itself. I really cannot handle not being able to understand. Better not to dwell too much on it. ArrogantlyChemical
52 Pickup
If you shuffle a deck of cards you probably made history.
A deck of 52 cards can be ordered in 52! = 52 x 51 x 50 x...x 2 x 1 ways. This is because there are 52 ways to choose the first card, 51 ways to choose the 2nd, 50 ways to choose the 3rd, etc. But 52! is a very large number: larger than 8 x 10 to the 67th power
How big is this number? Well, someone shuffling a deck of cards once per second since the beginning of the universe (believed to be about 14 billion years ago) would not have shuffled the deck more than 10 to the 18th power times.
Thus it is quite likely that any given configuration achieved through random shuffling has never appeared before in the history of shuffling! bethelmayflower

Chain of Love
That I am the offspring of an unbroken chain of reproduction that spans back to the first living being on this planet. RasperGuy
Infinity, Plus 1, Minus 2
There is an infinite amount of numbers between 0 and 1.
Adding on to this, there are an infinite number of numbers, but it is not an all-inclusive list. For example, there are an infinite amount of numbers between 0 and 1, but 2 isn't one of them.
Adding on to this. There are infinitely many numbers between negative infinity and positive infinity. There are just as many (infinite) numbers between 0 and 1 (or between any two distinct real numbers). There are infinitely many integers. But there are "less" of them than there are real numbers. shibeoss jdfestus mc_safety
Gravity Wells
Black holes. shibeoss
Hollow
The amount of empty space inside an atom is similar to the amount of empty space inside the solar system.
So the vast majority of your body, or your car, or your desk is just empty space.
Estimates are about 99.9999999999996% empty. Powellwx
The Library of Babel
"A vast library containing all possible 410-page books of a certain format and character set."
Basically, it contains all the possible permutations of a given alphabet over a certain number of pages. While most books are going to be nonsense, there is also your complete biography and every possible version of your life.
There is also Hamlet, same as the original, just with a mistake on page 23. And another version of Hamlet with a mistake on page 22. And so on. There is also a cure for cancer, a unified theory of physics,...well there is an answer to every question one might ask.
The only problem is that if you were to find such library, you would not know where to start ; there are approximately 25 to the 1,312,000 power books in it. _anjou
Ghost In The Shell
The Neverending spiral of consciousness.
I am aware. What a humbling gift. I didn't do anything to deserve it and BAM!
I know sh*t!
And I know that I know sh*t. hamsterenema

When in the beginning stages of dating, it's important to know as much as humanly possible.
The element of surprise is no longer a fun aspect of romance.
Ask the small questions. Ask the hard questions.
Interrogate. Grill. Investigate.
Of course, you should do it with a subtle hand instead of an interrogation lamp.
The truth is all we have.
Ask everything.
Redditor RedditPenguin02 wanted to make a list of the best inquiries to make when starting a relationship, so they asked:
"What is a good question to ask before you start dating someone?"
From what I've learned in my past, always ask... "Are you into Buffy the Vampire Slayer? The TV show."
If it's a no, then it's a dealbreaker.
I Do
"Are you married?"
wrenchmonkey135
"I would ask that. If they said no, the next question was 'Would your wife agree?'"
"If they laughed, they were telling the truth. If they got indignant and pissed off that I thought they were lying…they were married."
"Worked every time."
Squibit314
We Lived!
"Do you clap when the plane lands?"
dont_u_know
"I swear people used to do this all the time when I was a kid (early 2000’s), and I don’t think I’ve heard anyone do it in 5+ years. I guess 9/11 really made people afraid of flying for about 10 years and then most folks decided they didn’t need to applaud when the plane landed safely?"
jmims98
Family Planning
"Do you want kids in the future? If one person wants kids and the other wants to stay child-free, then they are not compatible. And it is better to try dating someone else."
GoodAlicia
"It confuses me whenever some couples who disagree on this end up in a conundrum because one expected the other to change their mind. This is something I bring up early cause I see no future with someone who wants kids when I do not."
GoodAlicia
"You should always put childfree on your dating profile. It's not a small thing. Either you agree on it or not. If I had to date, I would put childfree on my profile too."
GoodAlicia
Carb it on...
"Do you like bread? That is the extent of my flirting skills."
HumpieDouglas
"Being German, bread is like a frickin' cultural phenomenon here, we have around 300 kinds of bread, there's a bread museum, every time I go on vacation I'm like yeah it's nice here but the bread ain't it yall, never as good as home lol. So yeah, valid question and the only answer to this is an enthusiastic yes."
Nayeliq1
Room Temperature
"What temperature do you set the thermostat to throughout the year?"
OneFingerIn
"Haha this one always gets me as someone who needs low temps - you can always put on more clothes, I can't peel my skin off to get cooler."
djdante
The thermostat is a dealbreaker for me.
It's gonna be 60. Love it or move on.
Discovery
"When was the last time you changed your mind about something?
"Opens a window to how they think."
youcantkillanidea
"If that was really early on in the dating I’d think it was a bit of a head-f**k question. I’d probably find that question a red flag, tone dependent, although I agree with the sentiment."
LivestockMarc
Personal Time
"Aside from major differences about finances, kids, politics, or religion, a big one is; What are your hobbies? If they don’t really have any, you may be the next hobby, which isn’t going to work unless you’ve got that kind of time. If the hobbies are time-consuming ones generally done with a SO."
"But you have no interest in them, that could be an issue as well. If only one of you likes camping, wanted to spend vacation lounging instead of exploring, didn’t like sports, etc either that partner is annoyed or the other feels like they don’t get to enjoy what they love."
Githard
Past Issues
"Ask them about their exes. If they think every single one of them is an a**hole... they are likely the real a**hole."
CantTakeMeSeriously
"I have mixed feelings about that - I've been in three previous relationships and all three were emotionally abusive towards me (one wasn't nearly as bad as the other two, though) in various ways. I know this is a common sentiment and it always makes me afraid that people won't believe me or something.
"I mean, I realize in your comment you said 'likely' and not '100% sure' and there's plenty of room for nuance."
phiore
Values
"I would try to take care of any dealbreakers. If I find out that she has different political values than I do, it's not going to work out in the long run, so I wouldn't bother. Same thing with other factors (religion, financial values, etc.). I would also ask how much cuddling she likes to engage in, as I prefer a lot."
SkullKrusher9000
Essentials
"When I was dating my three essential questions were always kids, sex, and money. If you're not on the same wavelength for any of those three things, just don't even try."
KhaosElement
TRUTH PLEASE!!
"So, how much personal debt do you have?"
"Source: the guy who dated a woman with huge debts and was asked to pay for everything and then some".
"After that, I'd go with, 'Have you ever been diagnosed with borderline, narcissistic, or histrionic personality disorders?"
extracensorypower
The questions are basic.
Just ask for the truth.
Do you have any good Qs to add to the queue? Let us know in the comments below.
As much as we always hop for our dating efforts to be worth it and for every relationship to work out, we all know that some relationships are not destined to work out.
But sometimes relationships end for totally valid reasons, and sometimes the reasons are painful, if not devastating.
Redditor overIorded asked:
"What went wrong with your last partner?"
History Repeating Itself
"He cheated on me. And I was glad because that was finally reason enough to allow myself to leave."
"Now I know somebody who's in the same situation. They're trapped. And she's such a gentle and fun person who's afraid to leave him because 'well, it's always been like this, I'm used to it,' and 'I deserve it.'"
"She wants to leave him, she knows she should leave him, but it's so hard to do it, and I know that feeling."
"I'm thinking I should give her my phone number like when the day comes you've had enough, I'll gladly come to help you move out from that s**thole."
- NmlsFool
Mental Health Struggles
"I'm lost in my own trauma and mental illness and he deserves better than anything I have to offer right now."
- Last-Celery7146
"I’ve been on the receiving end of this, and mildly said, it absolutely ruined me. Her trauma and mental problems were BAD, but I still wanted to be with them. So if you ask me, as long as they can give you the space and support you need, and want to be with you, let them make the decision."
- emilersen
"It's also fair and mature to care very much about someone but realize that you only have the emotional bandwidth to take care of yourself right now."
"I'm sure it was very hard for both of you to come to terms with that decision. I don't think it's that he deserves better, I think it's that your attention needs to be on guiding yourself through this thicket of trauma and mental illness before you can be someone else's partner. You can love each other very much but also acknowledge that you don't have the tools to spare for a relationship right now."
"I'm proud of you for focusing on your own mental health and someday, when you have more emotional stability and energy, I hope you find a wonderful partner."
- SpoonAtKnifeFight
Relationship Styles
"We disagreed on how many women he was allowed to date. I’m very strong on monogamy and have no interest in someone (in a supposedly committed relationship) that isn’t."
- Altrano
At Least There's That
"Her psychotic brother tried to kill me. Thankfully he has a Stormtrooper's aim..."
- Active-Plate7939
"Hate the attempted murder, love the 'Star Wars' reference."
- letmetellyousom
Childfree Living
"He wanted a big family, like, six kids, all-natural. Obviously, he wouldn't be birthing them. This was very important to him while I was pretty ambivalent about kids, and the further into my adulthood I've gotten, the more I've realized I just don't want to be pregnant."
"I broke it off so we could both get the lives we wanted. He was also quite a bit more conservative than me, and at the time closeted pansexual person, and some stuff he believed just didn't line up with what I believed. It hurt, but it was amicable."
"Now he has a wife and kids like he wanted, and I am happily partnered and childfree. It worked out for the best."
- Free-Government5162
Family Ties
"She hated that I had a healthy relationship with my family and was trying to find ways to sabotage it."
- Cobra-Serpentress
"Similar aspect to mine, she hated my sister and mother because she had a bad relationship with her sister and mother. She would get mad at me whenever I brought my family up."
- letmetellyousom
Quality Time
"My last boyfriend dumped me because I got mad that he was coming to Dallas after I hadn't seen him for two months, but didn't want to see me."
"He was going to meet up with some friends of his he hadn't seen in a few months. I told him that was fine with me, but I felt he should make time to see me too since we hadn't seen each other in two months and we were supposed to be a couple."
"He responded to my anger by ghosting me. That was two years ago."
- dallasmysterylover
Distracted with a Punch
"A girl contacted me about him talking to her. I asked him what was going on, and he sucker-punched me in the face."
- Brilliant-Victory128
Projecting Insecurities
"He cheated on me for all six years we were together and then accused me of cheating on him, even though I wasn't allowed to leave the house."
"I'm also pretty sure he slept with my sister-in-law when my brother and I went to pick up dinner."
- Affectionate_Egg1252
Children Come First
"He was and still is no father to his kids, has anger issues, and probably has other mental health issues. I tried for years to help him and help the relationship, but he wasn't having it. After seeing how my oldest suffered under him, I had to leave."
- rintan13
Poor Communication
"I communicated how I felt about many things in the relationship. He never communicated about anything."
- aj_oof0323
"Oh look, it's the last 14 years of my life..."
- empathetic111
"I'm guilty of this, and boy, do I regret not being able to open up about my feelings. It cost me my marriage. But now I'm trying to be more open and share my thoughts and feelings. Just wished I could've done this earlier than later."
Deserving Better
"I started drinking again and became a miserable a**hole due to my own depression and my s**tty job. As such, she didn't get the attention she deserved, and had to put up with my s**tty mood all the time... so she left. I don't blame her."
"So, it was me. I don't know if I trust myself with a relationship again, but aside from the shame of knowing I hurt someone who I loved, and loved me back, but I was too self-absorbed and selfish, I am trying to be a better human to everyone."
"And to my ex: You'll find someone again... someone better."
- cracksintheegg
Big Moves
"He wanted to move to Alaska to be with some girl he was 'friends' with before me."
- dont_be_trash
Alzheimer's Disease
"My ex's early-onset Alzheimers (at the age of 50) and the resulting violence, paranoia, and irrational thinking. I tried to honor my vows, but he was so far out there, I feared for my life."
- No_Transportation258
Different Definitions of Marriage
"She cheated on me after five years total together, the last one of which was while we were engaged. She cheated on me for months, all while I was planning the wedding, working part-time, and going to graduate school so I can support us comfortably in the future."
"I planned on giving her everything I could and sharing the rest of my life with her, and apparently she didn’t care."
- Mountaingoat1001
This conversation just goes to show that relationships can end for all kinds of reasons. Even in relationships where there is still a lot of love and committment, the relationship can still end, just like how the relationship can end suddenly because of a surprising and devastating realization.
We all had our aspirations about becoming a certain type of person or accomplishing different goals when looking towards the future.
But the goals we have for ourselves can drastically change once we're adults, and that's partly due to the influence of different life experiences.
Sometimes, despite our best intentions and respective strategies to achieve something by a certain age, we can never imagine experiencing different outcomes.
Curious to hear from strangers online who never saw themselves in their current positions in life, Redditor graces-taylor12 asked:
"What about becoming an adult caught you completely off guard?"
The following Redditors were not ready to process the inevitable when it came to their parents.
A Role Reversal
"Watching your parents becoming old and frail."
– Mrbusybaconandeggs
"Dealing with this yesterday and it is an eye-opener. Its hard seeing someone you’ve known as a pillar of strength for 30+ years in a position of such weakness, and knowing that he might improve but generally the decline is coming."
– Rook1872
Age-Defying
"I've had a weird atypical experience. My dad was pretty old when I was born and always had a bad knee he could never afford to get fixed. He could barely walk and has never been able to run since I could remember. It got so bad that he couldn't even walk up or down the stairs in our house."
"Well he eventually got a knee replacement and he's now more agile at 73 than he was at 53. It's weird to see."
– Downtown_Skill
Sad Epiphany
"I'll never forget when I first realized how frail they actually were. I went over to their house to help out with some chores, and they couldn't even clean out any of the pens by themselves. They ended up selling most of their animals that year because they couldn't look after them."
– thecanadiancowboy
Life Can Be Cruel
"It’s slowly beginning with my parents, small hints here and there, they’re in their mid 50s.The big freak out for me has been watching my grandparents slowly declining over the last 3ish years. One set of grandparents have been gone since I was a kid, so these two are all I’ve got now. My Pap’s arthritis and sciatica is to the point now where it’s a process for him just to stand up. 2020 I saved him from a fall, if I wasn’t there to catch him, he would’ve easily been in the hospital for quite a while. That was the first 'Oh sh*t, he’s not immortal' moment."
– NoinePiecesOfVinyl
These Redditors discovered older doesn't always mean wiser.
Wake-Up Call
"I can do whatever the f'k I want. But I don't really want to do anything..."
– IcarusWax
"Yup, the idea of doing whatever you want as an adult was the biggest scam cartoons sold us."
"Yeah, you can do anything you want but you're gonna need money. So you get a job, there goes most of your day to your job."
"So now you have money but that'll go to bills first and by the time you can do what you want you don't have the energy or funds. Then the loop continues.."
– JimmyJackJericho
Fake It Til You Make It
"How clueless other adults are. I really thought adults had their sh*t in order while in reality most people are winging it."
–= xepci0
"Maturity is a skill. Some people learn it quickly. Others never do."
"Children are limited by their youth. Their brains aren't fully developed. But adults are not guaranteed to get more mature without working for it."
"Some people never grow up. They just get old."
– snapwillow
Being Independent
"I'm surprised by the amount of people who genuinely couldn't live by themselves if they had to. They somehow never learned basic life skills like simple cooking or cleaning and always had someone else to do it for them."
– CliffExcellent123
People became more aware of time.
Not Enough Me Time
"How little free time you have. You have to work, you have to prepare for work, drive to work, drive home from work. You also have to do household chores. You have to take care of kids if you have some. When do I get to enjoy my hobbies?"
– lllSnowmanlll
Point Of Exhaustion
"Most of the time I'm so tired from the day, I just don't have the mental capacity to do anything but go right to bed and watch tv ;_;"
– WitherWithout
Never Going Back
"Transitioning from college student + part time worker to full time worker I gained a bunch of time back. I was shocked that I could just decide to do laundry tomorrow if I didn't feel like it. Every evening I had this huge chunk of time that was just open."
"But then, moving from an apartment to a house, now there's a bunch more chores to do. Then introducing kids, now there's all that. But still, I wouldn't go back to the hectic college life."
– civilwarcorpses
Marking Time
"How it just goes on endlessly."
"When you're a kid, there's a summer break every year, and a new school to go to in a couple of years. Whatever part of your life you are in is clearly delimited and there is something new to look forward to after it."
"Once you're an adult, it's just 5 days of work and 2 days of weekend over and over and over until you die."
– Suitable_Mistake2208
After having a decent, long run in the entertainment business as a dancer, I've long held the belief I was invincible.
I was physically stronger, more agile, and foolish enough to think I could perpetually live in such a state.
All of a sudden, reality smacked me in the face one morning when I woke up and heard and felt various parts of my body crackle and pop like when milk hits a bowl of Rice Krispies.
My tired body had the audacity to inform me:
"Not today and from this day forward."
We're currently not on speaking terms.
Not much good can come from dwelling on the past.
Even so, no matter how hard we try to avoid doing so, we can't help but look back on things we've done in our lives which we regret.
In some cases, it's nothing which had any sort of lasting effect, like wishing we thought more carefully about where we had a birthday or spending more than we could afford on an outfit that didn't end up paying off.
In sadder cases though, we often wonder what our lives might have been like if he had made a different, and smarter decision.
If we didn't say certain things to certain people, not spoken up when someone needed us to or rushed too hastily into a life we weren't ready for.
"What is one thing you regret doing in life?"
Giving People Attention Who Didn't Deserve It
"Wasting time worrying about people that never spared me a single thought."- Eborys
Getting In With The Wrong Crowd
"I regret making friends with people who I knew were bad for me just because it was easier than becoming friends with good people."
"Now I don't have many solid friends."- misswallflowerr
Staying In, When They Should Have Gotten Out
"Not ending bad/unhealthy/unfulfilling relationships sooner."- Superseriouslyguys
"Hanging on to a relationship for too long."
"I should have up and disappeared the first time he was disrespectful."- Mirrorflute88
Not Taking Enough Risks
"Not putting myself out there enough."
"I probably missed out on a lot of opportunities because I'm so self-conscious."
"Working on this though!"- Fife_Flyer
"Not following my dreams and ended up sitting behind a desk for 30 years."
"Of course, I'm currently on Reddit sitting behind my desk."
"So, there's that."- CatOnTheHill
"Overthinking my way out of potentially rewarding choices."- mmmmike1590
Rushing Into Things
"Going to college before I had the slightest idea what I wanted to do with my life."- Mysterious_Shake2894
Taking Things For Granted
"Not spending more time with my mom."
"I visited her 2-3 times a week but still, there were other times she'd call and I'd ignore the call or tell her I didn't have time to talk."
"Would give anything to go back and take every one of those calls."- Fruitjustlistens
Putting Their Health At Risk
"Most of 2019–addiction bottom."
"Sober now for 432 days and counting."- CommunicationTop5231
"Smoking."
"20 years spent on expensive, self-fed poison."
"Biggest regret of my life, by far."- Itsprobablysarcasm
Undervaluing Self-Worth
"Mentally exhausting myself at work for companies that turned out to not give a sh*t about me or value my work."- fpuni107
"Being too nice to tell undeserving people to f*ck off when I should've been putting myself first."
"Lessons learned."- MrsHppy
Not Having Enough Fun
"So, this is gonna sound kinda dumb, but I kinda wish I had acted out a bit more."
"Taken more risks, gotten in trouble more, explored and pushed my boundaries."
"I was pretty sheltered growing up and really wanted to be this good person."
"It created a lot of conflicting feelings for me."
"It also contributed to me avoiding doing some stuff cause I thought it'd be bad for me."
"Now that I'm older and worked through some of those issues, I feel like I missed out on a lot of stuff other people got in their teens and 20s."
"I'm now at a point where I'm exploring that, but most people my age have already gone through it."
"I just feel like I'm trying to 'catch up' with everybody."- animewhitewolf
It's only human to look back on things we regret, or wish we had done differently.
But living in the past will only keep us in the past.
The only way to move forward and make progress is to accept the present for what it is: a present.