I'm not big on regrets. I make the best decision I know how and try to learn from my mistakes. Now, if you want to know my current frustrations and annoyances -- the things I am trying desperately to not have become regrets -- that list is reasonably long. :-D
Ask HN: What are your regrets?
51–60 of 72 posts
Re: Ask HN: What are your regrets?
#52Je ne regrette rien!
Re: Ask HN: What are your regrets?
#53Well there was this girl, whom I didn't go after...
There was this girl, who I did...
Edit: Downvote? Really? Look there are some people who you don't learn fuzzy little life lessons from despite the bad times. There are some people who are just bad for your soul, who drain the life from you with constant drama, who you really could just do without.
My regret is not learning this in time to avoid being caught up with one of them, and when finding myself so, letting it go on as long as I did.
Re: Ask HN: What are your regrets?
#54wasting time
Re: Ask HN: What are your regrets?
#55Almost everything that I would do differently with the wisdom of hindsight comes down to one of two stories: it's something I could have started immediately but didn't, so I wasted time before starting it later anyway or never did it at all, or it's something I did start but then gave up on too soon or for the wrong reasons.
Put another way, it's not so much the missed opportunities I regret, but the opportunities I recognised were worth taking that I didn't then make the most of. Usually the delayed starting or early quitting was for some reason that seemed very important and logical at the time, but with hindsight just looks like ignorance, cowardice or laziness.
If there were only one thing I could teach my children, I think it would be how to act with integrity and be a decent person. But if I could teach two, I think the second would be that you can't follow every opportunity in life, but those things you do choose to pursue are worth doing properly.
Re: Ask HN: What are your regrets?
#56There are many things I could've regretted, but ultimately all of those things made me who I am now. I'm fairly certain I've had more than my fair share of opportunities and made more than my fair share of mistakes, but all I can do is identify them as such, learn as much as I can and try to make myself a better person.
Have a screwed up? Heck yes. Do I regret it? No way.
Re: Ask HN: What are your regrets?
#57I reget not checking my email in July 2009. Yesterday, I decided that 61 unread messages was too much, so I went through them. In July 2009, Facebook emailed me suggesting I give them a quick call to discuss my "career goals/ambitions and opportunities at facebook". For real. I was right in the middle of my degree, super busy with my final project, and... somehow it must have just slipped past me. Although, as one of…
What exactly prevents your from emailing them back now?
Re: Ask HN: What are your regrets?
#58I reget not checking my email in July 2009. Yesterday, I decided that 61 unread messages was too much, so I went through them. In July 2009, Facebook emailed me suggesting I give them a quick call to discuss my "career goals/ambitions and opportunities at facebook". For real. I was right in the middle of my degree, super busy with my final project, and... somehow it must have just slipped past me. Although, as one of…
What exactly prevents your from emailing them back now?
Nothing at all. But it's still a shame I didn't pick the email up there and then - could have gone straight from uni to Facebook, would have been a good time to do it.
Re: Ask HN: What are your regrets?
#59Regrets? I've had a few; but, then again, too few to mention. I could regret having voluntarily foregone a normal childhood in favor of solitary intellectual and artistic pursuits, but then I wouldn't have had the foundation that later allowed my to do some really neat things for a living. I could regret having dropped out of high school upon learning that I'd won enough in scholarships to attend Waterloo at a tidy p…
+1 for everything mentioned here. +10 for the way it was mentioned. +100 for the Sinatra reference.
Re: Ask HN: What are your regrets?
#60I regret not forcing myself to leave my over-paid, reliable, incredibly easy job years ago. Despite building many (what I consider cool) things solo, my job search is suffering from a lack of experience developing in a collaborative environment and the problem of being too much of a generalist. This is what happens when you do everything yourself.