No matter how happy we are with our lives, most of us can think of at least one thing that we wish we could have done differently.
Even if that just means starting to do the same things a little bit sooner.
Feeling reflective, Redditor AbortiveBases1 asked:
"What's something you wish you started doing sooner?"
Letting People Go
"Learning that just because someone is your friend for a long time doesn't mean you have to deal with their toxicity or narcissistic behavior."
"You can leave those friendships. It sucks at first but it's worse staying friends with people like that."
- SadStone2265
Getting Divorced
"My mom and dad got divorced in 2022 when my siblings and I were all between the ages of 27 and 31."
"We couldn't be happier. It could (and should) have happened way earlier, like 10 to 15 years earlier. Our childhood definitely suffered for it."
"I have no complaints about my mom, she's the best lady ever, but things would've been a lot more pleasant at home if they divorced then."
- doomed_danny
Creative Outlet
"Making things."
"I 3D print, do woodwork, and do home renovations. It’s made me more self-confident (I now usually believe I can do anything), more creative, and changed the way my brain works."
"I can’t imagine what kind of person I’d be today if I had been doing this all throughout my 20s."
- AirZurk
Sugar Intake
"Weaning myself off sugar."
- CouldMurderACarvery
The Perfect Partner
"My wife. She's the granddaughter of a friend of my aunt, so I could have met her a lot sooner, but we only met when I was 29."
"The way we clicked together and got lost in conversation with each other... I only wish it had started sooner."
- netheroth
"You can't guarantee that you would have clicked earlier."
"It was the same with my wife, I had met a bunch of her close friends over the years through friends and vice versa. There are pictures of us at the same events when we were 17, 18, and 20, but we just never met. Ships passing in the night."
"We met finally at 29 and realized we had all the things in common and clicked immediately and are happily married with a beautiful two-year-old."
"Looking back, had we met at 17, I don't think we would have gotten together. We both had a lot of growing to do before we were right for each other."
- sirhcdobo
Ditch the Hustle
"Focusing on friends instead of the grind."
"I worked two jobs through the 2010s. As a freelance digital artist at night, I made a lot of 'friends' through conventions, online chat groups, and social media."
"However, the pandemic hit, and the conventions closed. Freelance business dried up. Our clients disappeared. With my evenings more open, I focused more intently on ascending in my day job, and now only have one or two contacts left from my digital art years."
"They're all I have left. And we don't even talk that much."
"I'm working on rebuilding a friends circle, trying to reconnect with everyone who still remembers me, lives close enough, and didn't die years ago unbeknownst."
"It's an awkward process, trying to again find similar interests now that everyone has a wife, kids, and home to take care of, while I seem to have dropped out of a time portal from 2003."
- QuarantineTitans
Understanding Mental Health
"My wife."
"But seriously, endorphins."
"And understanding the importance of endorphins on mental health."
"Even a small amount of physical activity has a major improvement on my mental health, energy, and moods."
- ksozay
Work History
"I wish I'd started working sooner."
"My mom sent me money for food and essentials while I was in college because she said a job would just distract me from getting good grades. Unfortunately, she simply forgot to send the money, a lot."
- stellathewizard
Home Yoga Sessions
"At-home yoga. It's free AND my back doesn't hurt anymore!"
- mekkimegz
Prioritizing Sleep
"Enforcing my own bedtime. My mood is 1,000% better on days when I get enough sleep."
- lights_camera_pizza
The Value of Therapy
"Therapy. Seriously, if you are considering seeing a therapist, then just do it."
- Avjycjc8ttghu478
Exercise Routine
"Two-a-day workouts. Once you figure out intensity pacing and treating one as a 'light' workout, it’s not hard."
"Getting up at 5:30 most days isn’t awesome, but I get 14, 45-min hits of exercise almost every week, and I’ve never had as much energy, positivity, and overall health. Plus, weight management-wise, I can eat d**n near anything I want to. I had a 'mostly' clean diet before, so I wasn’t going bonkers. But it makes eating pretty enjoyable."
- superstarrrr99
Better Self-Talk
"Replacing self-depreciative jokes with sarcastic compliments on myself."
"For example, instead of saying, 'My hair looks like something died in it,' say, 'I was born a queen. Look how great I look on a bad hair day too!'"
"Fake it till you make it kinda works. Eventually, I'm not feeling as insecure about myself as I used to."
- saagarammm
Sentimental Photos
"Taking pictures with my husband and kids. I hate the way I look in pictures so usually, I’m the one behind the camera. It wasn’t until last year that I read a post here on Reddit that made me change my way of thinking."
"It said something along the lines of, kids don't see wrinkles, extra fat, or bad hair. You know, all the things we nitpick about ourselves. They just see Mom."
- Dazzling-Nature-6380
The Next Phase
"Retirement. Did it at 68 but was enjoying running my own publishing business, so I stayed on."
"Now in retirement, I’m having a blast doing so many things I never previously had time for that I wish I’d taken the plunge at 60, or earlier. (Let that be a lesson to all you young ‘uns out there.)"
- SkepticalSenior9133
While it's so easy to regret things in our lives, sometimes it's important to think about the things we're doing right.
Sometimes we'll be so proud of what we're doing, we'll only regret not getting a jump on it sooner.
People Share Skills You Can Master In Ten Minutes That'll Change Your Life
Every now and then, we inevitably regret not having learned how to do something until it is too late.
I went dressed in my casual speakeasy attire topped with a boater hat and a bow tie around my neck that I proudly tied myself.
No other fellas I spotted at the party sported a clip-on, not that anyone would razz me for wearing one if I did.
Most party guests were either too busy doing the Charleston in front of the orchestra or on a toot and getting zozzled from their glasses of giggle water by noon.
Anyway, the event was the bee's knees, and knowing that I had taken the time to learn how to tie on a bow tie made me feel like the cat's whiskers and well-suited for the convivial affair.
In order for us to prevent lamenting, "coulda, shoulda, woulda," Redditor askgamblers-official suggested that there is no time like the present to educate ourselves about anything useful that could come in handy someday.
The Original Poster (OP) asked:
"What can we learn/know right now in 10 minutes that will be useful for the rest of our life?"Remember, you can learn how to do anything, thanks to the magic of YouTube.
For Survival
"If you ever fall through the ice and are trapped underwater, aim for a dark spot. A hole in the ice will look dark."
"And if someone tries to abduct you fight like hell even if they have weapon. Your situation will not improve if they get you to a more private location."
For Saving A Life
"How to spot someone choking and how to help them."
"Takes 10 minutes to learn and could save a life."
"If you yourself are choking, a lot of people have heard the use a chair to heimlich yourself trick. To me the better and easier method is to get into a position on the ground face down arms up like your going to do a push-up. Then drop yourself to the ground to force pressure through the diaphragm."
"And if YOU are choking at a restaurant, don't run into the restroom out of embarrassment where you might die alone and unseen."
For Rescuing
"Also, how to spot someone legit drowning. It looks nothing like the movies. Head will be barely above water, with mouth bobbing slightly in and out of the water, opening and closing like a fish would. Probably won't see their hands (because they'll be moving wildly underwater), they won't be making much sound, if at all, they'll have glassy eyes with a faraway stare."
"All this adds up to a very non-Hollywood look that we're all used to. This person looks 'calm' in the water because their amygdala has taken over and they are on auto-pilot to simply stay alive. This is one of the reasons why they don't speak...speech isn't important at this point, so their brain shuts it down."
"This is also why it's extremely dangerous to personally engage a drowning person. They will drown you to save themselves and probably have no recollection of doing it. Always use a long pole, rope, flotation device, or something else onto which they can grab."
– pgymjp
For Calculating
"Percentage is interchangable. 8% of 25 is hard to do in your head but 25% of 8 is easy, and they both equal the same. works every time."
"If you think of 8% as a fraction (8/100) the reason for this is more clear. (8/100)x25 = (8x25)/100 = 8x(25/100)"
For Further Explanation
"Think of percentages in a different way. 8% is just 8/100. So 8% of 25 is 8/100 × 25. Multiplication and division are commutative, which is a fancy way of saying you can swap the order freely. So you can do 8×25/100 or 8/100×25 and it'll come out to the same thing."
– Lost-Tea
For Flexibility
"How to properly stretch your hands and forearms. Stretch arms straight out forward, point fingers up, then without moving arms ball a fist downward. Repeat as fast as possible.. taught indirectly from Bruce Lee"
For Silencing
"If you're somewhere quiet and your stomach is growling loudly DON'T tense up your tummy muscles, push your stomach out instead and it will make the growl quieter."
For Organizing
"How to use the sort and filter functions on Excel. These functions can help prevent a lot of future pain."
For Expectations
"Grasp the idea that everyone you meet knows something you do not."
"A wise man and a fool have a long conversation. The fool has the most to learn, but the wise man learns the most. (Sorry for not being gender neutral.)"
For Cleaning Bodily Fluids
"It's easier to clean up cum with cold water than with hot water."
"Same goes for blood on clothes or other material!"
"Meant to help out the ladies with this one... not someone plotting their next murder..."
For Picking Locks
"How to bypass a lock. It's actually very easy to get through most locked doors. Any kind of card (license, credit card, whatever) can open a regular latch. If the door opens away from you just slide it in between the door jam and door handle. The card will slide in between the mechanism and open it. If the door opens towards you it doesn't always work but you can slide the card in and down at an angle to get behind the latch and open it that way."
"Most pad locks take less than 10 seconds to get into as well but I don't know how to describe the technique with words."
– Ghriszly
For Life
"I mean, they're skills and not really wisdom but..."
"Warning signs of a stroke."
"How to use a fire extinguisher."
"Rolling your clothes after folding gives you more room in a drawer/suitcase. It's life changing."
"Righty tighty, lefty loosey."
"How to change a tire, check your oil and jump a car."
"Also changing headlights without using your fingers because the oils will damage the bulbs."
"How to start a campfire and put it out."
"The Heimlich maneuver."
"How to tie a knot more than one way."
"How to sew a basic stitch."
"The basics of emergency first aid."
"How to spot a rip tide and how to escape."
"How to shut off and turn on a circuit breaker and where they're located."
"What to do in an earthquake, tornado, tsunami and hurricane."
For CPR
"Push hard, push fast."
"Ribs WILL break if you're doing it properly on an adult (it is the most bizarre creepy thing). Kids are very bendy and you may not get that sensation if you need to do CPR on them)"
"If you need to do CPR, the person you are doing it to is dead. You can't make them more dead. You might be able to bring them back to life if you try. Do not feel bad if you can't. If you fail, you didn't kill them. They were already dead."
"If you don't have a one way valve to administer rescue breaths, STILL GIVE CHEST COMPRESSIONS. Chest compressions alone are better than nothing- you're still pumping oxygen to the areas that need it and it will suffice until EMS/help arrives."
"Giving CPR is stressful as hell. If you need to do CPR, it's likely going to be on someone you know. Sometimes gallows humour is necessary for your brain not to freak out. Chest compressions to 'Another One Bites The Dust' is the right rhythm and might get you smirking long enough to make you smirk/laugh (to yourself!) to take your mind off of what's actually happening."
"Even if a cardiac arrest happens IN hospital, their odds of survival are only about 10%- so much less so if it's outside a hospital. I say this not to make you think 'why bother' but so you know that if you are unable to resuscitate the person, it's OK and was nothing you did wrong- by even trying CPR, you gave them their best chance at life."
Do not judge a life hack by its cover. Sometimes the most bizarre, last ditch attempt to solve a problem was the one that actually worked.
A recent Reddit thread asked users to share the things they've discovered that finally worked. Some responses related to productivity. Otherwise were geared toward health and wellness.
And a few dealt with more abstract concepts and ideas. They probed why some things in life are the way they are, why they work.
The catch? For all the effectiveness of the examples offered, they sure would seem dumb at the outset. The Redditors accepted that critique proudly. They agreed that the solution or idea absolutely does seem stupid.
But ultimately, the solution gets the last laugh. It works. Enough said.
NecessaryPrudence asked, "What is so stupid but it actually really works?"
Throwing Off the Scent
"Putting a piece a duct tape on your bike seat so people won't steal it. Who wants to try and sell a potentially ripped bike seat, let alone buy one." -- EliBeatch
"Living in NYC in the 90's bike shops would offer a service to 'ugly' your new bike. Basically they would beat the sh!t out of your new bike so it would be less likely to get stolen." -- rumpusbutnotwild
"Hehe, that's the same as placing a bag outside your door with a note on it saying 'Jimmy, i couldn't wait any longer. Here's your stuff.' Someone will steal your trash within 10 minutes." -- RandomLuddite
Not a Recommend Form of Paid Leave
"I drank creek water and got eight days off of work" -- eternalrefuge86
"I got bit by a mosquito in Africa and 'got to' retire early" -- heybrother45
"And a +2 to resistance ability" -- BoofLlama
Varying Levels of Success
"For me personally, I make a to-do list but put like 3 or 4 things that are just mind-numbingly simple. I knock them out, cross them off, feel productive, and feel motivated to hammer out the tougher pieces." -- boyvsfood2
"Here's the problem....I get through the 3 or 4 simple things, and stop because I feel that I've been productive enough today. Then I put off the real tasks until tomorrow....after 3 or 4 more simple tasks...." -- NightwingDragon
If You Can't Beat Em, Make Em Utterly Uncomfortable
"Long story short: A boorish guy was bullying my grandfather at a movie theater. My grandpa turned around and literally blew air on his face. The man was so weirded out that he left the theater." -- jollysystem75
"That's what I do when my cat tries to bite the sh** out of me." -- Rude_Dragonfruit
Home Remedies
"Putting hand sanitizer on bug bites. It's the most glorious feeling and it works better than any itch spray!" -- stoneyevora
"Another thing that works great on itchy bug bites: use a hair dryer. Set it to hot, blow it at the bug bite from 6" away until it just starts to hurt (you're not looking to scald yourself here!), then turn it away. Repeat two more times."
"Strangest thing, but it totally relieves the itch for a good 24 hours. Vastly more effective than anti-itch cream." -- fishsupreme
Stuck in the Past
"Stay at least a year behind in technology and gaming. Better, yet, two. You'll save a sh**-ton of money." -- DFSdog
"This has been my MO for almost 10 years now. I rarely pay more than $15 for a game."
"The only thing that sucks is most games with multiplayer components are usually pretty dead by the time I get to them" -- OakLegs
Living the Life
"On hot days, our neighbor turns on his lawn sprinkler and sits next to it in a lawn chair in his bathing suit." -- Back2Bach
"When I wanna be outside on a hot day, I hook the nozzle of the garden hose on the side of my hammock, than spray myself whenever I get too hot. Next year I'm getting a pool." -- Aikrose
"Before I had air conditioning my wife and I put a couple inches of hose water in a plastic kiddie pool and sat in lawn chairs soaking our feet. Turns out if your feet are comfortably cool then you will be comfortable overall."
"Over subsequent years we built it up - bought a projector and watched Netflix cast on the side of the house while watching from lawn chairs with feet soaking. Living the high life!" -- acefreese
Never Stop Questioning!
"Working a full-time office job."
"If you think about it, it's completely f***ing insane. You spend so much time, getting ready to go there, getting there, and then being there. Between all of that it's easily 60 hours a week, if you're only 'working' 40."
"Then, you get your work done in a fraction of that, maybe 6 hours--total, like for the week; not each day--but you have to look busy the rest of the time when you could be outside. Or playing with your kid. Or painting. Or choking the chicken on PH, it really doesn't matter."
"The point is, you could be doing a million other things that would make you happy but instead you're staring at a fake spreadsheet or a progress bar or sitting in a meeting that could easily have been an email."
"It's the stupidest sh*t I've ever heard of."
"It works though. You get money and so you can have a house and a car and whatever other crap you want. You can futz with these things on your time off."
-- hereticjones
Look Good, Feel Good
"Dressing well at work. You can be an amazing worker but people really do judge you by how you look. And by well I mean looking put together and professional. This applies for trades/blue collar work as well as white collar. I've worked both." -- lefouilly
"This is verified fact. Always been one to dress up for work and - routinely - folks in the elevator lobby who don't know me assume I am headed for the top floor, where the finance & C suite folks live." -- Midas_Artflower
Casting a Wide Net
"Today I fixed my refrigerator's water dispenser by forcefully pushing random buttons until it started working again. This was after reading the entire manual front-to-back twice didn't help at all." -- ostentia
"Of course the manual was no help. The person who wrote it most likely never even saw the fridge." -- HyperSpaceSurfer
Saving money can be HARD. And it's so easy to understand why: spending money RULES.
Trips, new things, clothes, delicious food without any effort--it's all so tempting in the moment. But later, likely while peaking at your bank account with one eye closed, comes the wave of regret and concern. Where did all that money go? Why do I still have no savings?
When nothing changes, nothing changes. For as long as someone continues to live life as they always have--same job, same habits--they'll see no difference whatsoever in their financial situation.
Big changes, however, can be very difficult to enact.
Many simply do not have the financial flexibility to save. Money troubles are the brutal result of underpaid work and necessary costs of daily life.
Others have the flexibility, but lack the will power to live according to a different cost structure than they have for awhile.
One Reddit thread addresses both forms of that big change avoidance. These smaller scale tips and money hacks are helpful tools to turn your savings upward without changing one's life too drastically.
uwrallyx asked, "What is a very useful money saving tip everybody should know?"
Know What You're Buying!
"Track your subscription-based services."
"It seems like nothing but it's Netflix here, Spotify there, HBO Max, Hulu... and you end up spending a lot of money on stuff that you don't really use that much."
-- xodagny
Listen to Jay Z
"Just because you have enough money to pay for something does not mean you can afford it." -- Sirnando138
"BOOM. This right f***ing here. I'm really really bad for this." -- RCEMEGUY289
" 'If you can't buy it twice, you can't afford it.' -Jay Z" -- sidekicket
Two Simple Rules
"Don't develop a drug addiction and pack a lunch." -- neil_striker
"What if i pack drug for lunch" -- withoutwax21
"Is that because when you're high on drug you pack a really expensive lunch?" -- philsabuster
"If you have drug, you don't need lunch." -- RonAugratin
Mindfulness
"A trick that always works for me is to think about how many hours wages I am spending on something."
"As someone who previously had a huge spending problem, this has helped me realize that I've worked hard for my money, and I'd rather be working my a** off for a stress free life financially than living pay day to pay day buying meaningless sh**."
-- kteklol
Seeing is Believing
"Develop a budget and track your expenses. It'll help you really pinpoint where/how you spend and how to best cut back and work to save money." -- BooksRock
"A lot of people are intimidated by the idea of writing a budget and sticking to it. I know I was. But if you take the first step and just start paying attention to what you spend, just map out in a spreadsheet everything you spend money on, you'll almost immediately see areas where you can improve."
"I literally didn't change anything I was doing for a couple of months, and just kept track, and then when I saw where the money was going, I became motivated to make some changes."
"Writing out a budget and sticking to it can be intimidating and overwhelming and failing can make it easy to give up. But just taking the first step and tracking what you're spending can make the next step much easier to take." -- vinbrained
Unit Price
"Order non spoiling food in bulk. I saved so much money just by buying like 5kg bags of pasta and 1kg bags of spices in comparison to the small packages I can get in the supermarket." -- Firevulturez
"Just planning what you will eat for the next week or so will help. It means no unnecessary purchases and you can review the outgoings instead of impulse buying. If you can do it for the entire month within your personal budget then that's out of the way for the month." -- NiceBottleHole
The End of Impulse Buying
"This one I've read somewhere, when you really want to order something, put it in your cart and wait for 2 days, maybe if you don't really need it the impulse would have been diminished by that time. I've saved a lot of money by just not ordering on an impulse." -- iamasedgurl
"If I want to buy something at a store I make sure I walk around with it for a little to make sure I really want to buy it. Also it helps to think of something in how many hours of work it would take to buy it. If you wouldn't work 2 hours for it but it's equal to two hours of your pay, don't buy it." -- abmuld
Take Free Money
"If your employer offers a 401k match, do it." -- TheophrastBombast
"Yes and max out your contribution each year. More contribution = more free money from your employer = exponentially more money in the long run."
"And if you can, start saving as soon as possible. If you're in your early twenties, the money you put in now will accumulate thousands more in interest than the money you'll be putting in ten years from now. If you haven't learned about compound interest, I recommend looking it up." -- silent_shivers
Investments
"Never be the guy who owns a boat."
"Find a friend who owns a boat, offer to fill up the boats gas tank when they take you out...and be a good boating buddy."
"Learn to back up the trailer. Always pick up garbage on the beach. Don't get blind stinking drunk. And Always...ALWAYS...be willing to let them throw you off the tube for their amusement."
Playing Pretend
"This doesn't apply for everyone, but when I got a higher paying job, I pretended I hadn't and socked the difference away until I had an emergency fund that I was happy with."
"That habit ruined me from buying a lot of stuff I wanted, but didnt really need, and now I just dont really desire to purchase stuff just because I can."
"I dont treat my raises the same way, but if you plan on being in a job for a while you can take a year or two and put your raise money into savings and itll be a decent chunk of change."
-- Tonaia
Inter-generational Wisdom
"If you're at new place without money, you better look where elders buy their groceries. They live here more than you and know, which stores offer most adequate prices." -- ALEXkuznetsoff
"Then I'm doing a good job because the supermarket I go to is so full with elderly people, it's impossible to walk slightly faster than extremely slow." -- MPaulina
"The slower you walk - the slower you spend" -- ALEXkuznetsoff
Consider What Comes After
"Consider everything an investment. Think twice before spending money on something that won't leave an asset in your books (e.g. eating out), is this a reasonable concession to your well-being?"
"Think before spending money on a depreciating asset (e.g. a car), are you getting a good return over its projected lifetime?. Splurge on things that will last you a lifetime or that appreciate in value."
-- Iranon79
It's Got That Goin' Broke Feel
"People often say 'pay yourself first,' but do it in cash. If it's sitting in a bank account, you can move it around and spend it with the click of a button. Pull out the amount you want to save and store your savings somewhere (in an envelope, in a safe, in a coffee pot)."
"When it's out of your account and out of your wallet/purse, you can't access it on impulse. And when you see two or three months worth of savings physically together, it becomes more tangible how much money you can save and you'll be more likely to not grab the bundle and make it disappear on some purchase you don't really need."
"Physically watching your money vanish is harder than magically swiping cards and watching numbers on screens change."
-- Deontedude
Ratios
"The 50-30-20 rule"
"When you get your paycheck, take 30% for savings, 20% for anythings you want (drinks, games, ...) and 50% for your living."
"Only 50% can be hard to manage, especially on low income, but it's a goal, and it give you limits. Same for the 20%, when you have spend it all, you don't have more money to go out, even if the bank account says different."
"Since I've applied this technique I've put a lot in savings, and my life did not become harder or sadder. And buy only stuff that you have money for, never take a loan."
-- xouma
Math Decides, Not Your Heart
"Not sure how it is elsewhere, but in my country the grocery stores put a second line under the price on the shelf, for the price per 100g or per unit. I've saved so much money by checking that second line every time and choosing the product with the best value for money. Seems simple but so many people forget."
"Also, make a conscious decision to stamp out any trace of brand loyalty in your heart - the company is not your friend, even if they're a fixture of your childhood, and you don't owe them any loyalty. A lot of the time you can buy an almost identical version of the product for much cheaper from a less established or store brand."
Automatically Comes With a New Hobby
"Meal plan based on what you already have in your pantry/ freezer/ refrigerator, and consider what grocery items can be used in multiple meals across the week to reduce waste (I.e. carrots can go in the stir fry on Monday, and the soup on Tuesday..."
"...if I buy the family pack of chicken, I can make meals for Monday-Wednesday and still have leftovers to make into chicken taco meat and freeze for later)."
-- dr239
Rethinking A Given
"Don't have kids." -- travelingunraveling
"Dont get married and dont have kids." -- Fellatio_Nelson
"Don't have kids you can't afford. It's amazingly simple yet soo many people voluntarily condemn themselves to a life of poverty by ignoring it." -- Freiheit
Want to "know" more? Never miss another big, odd, funny, or heartbreaking moment again. Sign up for the Knowable newsletter here.