191–200 of 570 posts
I wish I had just stopped going. I was bright enough to teach myself, there was a decent library on my commute.
I wasted over a decade of my life unhappy. It was a good life lesson, it made me stronger and wiser and more grateful, but looking back it's pretty fortunate I'm still here to reflect on that lesson.
Schools, particularly high schools, needs to be completely reformed. They are prisons for the young.
Becoming addicted to pornography and masturbation in my early teens and staying addicted throughout my 20s. I have been sober for years now, and for me, it was only possible through working the SLAA[1] program. I never actually knew it existed until a therapist suggested it to me; I wish it had been easier to find, but unfortunately whenever I would search for resources in overcoming pornography addiction, I would only ever really find places like r/NoFap.
On the one hand, I have spent more than half of my life addicted to pornography. On the other hand, I now have the gift of potentially being able to spend more than half of my time on this earth sober. The glass is definitely half full for me on this one.
Not learning how to dance until my 30s. I was once made fun of for dancing at a party as a young child (Being a lousy big brother to my one younger brother. This one probably hurts me the most and I still have not been able to forgive myself for it. Funnily enough, my younger brother loves me very much and we have a good relationship now, but when I think about all the ways I failed him when we were younger I just lose it emotionally. Working on this in therapy currently.
Not taking care of my body in my teenage years and 20s, and especially wasting all that free extra T[3] when I was going through puberty. I wish I could go back in time and drag myself to the gym when I first hit puberty! I do a wide range of physical activities now including lifting and I have a body and the kind of mass I never would have dreamed of before, but sometimes I like to imagine what I would have looked like now if I had started 20 years ago. Oh well, I can always see what I look like in 20 years' time!
[1]: My stubborn younger self would have written this due to the vaguely religious overtones of the 12 steps, but I'm glad that as a still-non-religious adult I was able to get out of my own way on this one and just focus on doing what I needed to do to get better
[2]: This is also how I found probably my most important adult friend group after the age of 30!
[3]: I will probably hop on TRT when I'm older and my T levels go down, so maybe I will get to experience something like that later in my life after all
I was surrounded by really smart people.
I regret leaving China to go back to Europe. I truly wished I was still living there.
Focused too much on making a living in my teens and 20s instead of college and social life. Never pursued artistic interests seriously because I was just too tired from working and stressing out about bills. Now I’m in my 30s with next to no social life and the realization that I’ve wasted away my time and whatever little talent I have. There’s a “regret” folder sitting in my Google Drive with two half-finished books…
I did my master degree in Tsinghua University, China. I was surrounded by really smart people. I regret leaving China to go back to Europe. I truly wished I was still living there.
Only a few days after Christmas, my sister, who was 8 months pregnant, died very suddenly and with no warning.
I missed my last chance to see her alive, and I wound up spending a month staying with my parents anyway immediately after that, trying to help them manage.
With the information I had when I made the decision, I still think it was the right one, and I'm reasonably sure I would make it again with the same amount of information.
But I'll always wish I had made it differently anyway.