I should have taken Scott Hassan up on his offer to be a very early eGroups employee. I’m perfectly happy with my life so it’s not a huge regret, but I’ll always wonder.
Ask HN: What's Your Biggest Regret?
421–430 of 570 posts
Re: Ask HN: What's Your Biggest Regret?
#422The three big decisions:
- What you do - Where you live - Who you marry
I did pretty good on 2/3. Third one, not so much, although I think that was more me than her.
What I would change is convince my ex wife (when were still dating) that we should get married after university, not before.
Re: Ask HN: What's Your Biggest Regret?
#423I had a great job. Great pay, stock grants that are still going up, good work/life balance, and co-workers who were friends, co-workers who wanted me on their teams. I'd spearheaded an initiative which ultimately failed but had earned me a good reputation. I went on a medication with a side effect of anger. I was told that at the beginning, I was told that there were other drugs I could use instead. I dismissed the c…
My SO has a related issue. They were taking depression medication specifically for the side effects. As in, they had a disease and the side effects of the drug were the point of taking it.
Thing was, the actual effect made my SO go nutters for about a year. Because, again, my SO wasn't supposed to take the drug for the effects, but for the side effects.
When my SO, drug free and many years later, finally told this to a therapist, the therapist was aghast that my SO wasn't given therapy to help manage the actual effects too.
It seems so blindingly obvious that if you take drugs that effect your mind that you should also get therapy to monitor that effect. But it wasn't to us for some insane reason.
So, dear HN reader, take these stories to heart:
If you take mind altering drugs, get a therapist for the entire time that you are on that drug.
Re: Ask HN: What's Your Biggest Regret?
#424Serious: not having kids way earlier. Less serious: not playing soccer and generally avoiding all those kind of activities with the "cool kids"
Re: Ask HN: What's Your Biggest Regret?
#425My Ex. Fucking cheating self centered whore. I said it.
Re: Ask HN: What's Your Biggest Regret?
#426Always had an obsessive personality. Raised Christian. Always had a bent for pushing boundaries. Got interested in the nuerochemistry of psychoactive substances. Got very involved in educating myself about drug usage, until I was finally comfortable trying them. Queue ~6 years of polysubstance abuse, wasted money, and fake ass friends. Did everything under the sun I could get my hands on. I think the list of unique d…
I would love to hear your list of 40 drugs because I did a lot of them in my 20s but I still couldn’t name that many. My list would be nicotine, marijuana, alcohol, cocaine, LSD, shrooms, ecstasy, adderall, oxy, dmt, 2cb, tramadol, percocet, ayahuasca and mescaline. Other than that the only things I can think of is heroin, crack and meth. That’s only 18.
Re: Ask HN: What's Your Biggest Regret?
#427Earlier quoted context omitted.
I feel this quote badly aged. Nowadays, the choice isn't really binary anymore, there's so much between marrying or not. I never married but had two long, solid relationships so far. Which I'm quite happy with. I do note that you didn't actually say what your choice was, and whether you regret it.
Marriage was considered a core social obligation until very recently. In modern times, I take this quote to mean something closer to "choose to conform to what society expects or choose not to; you will have some regrets either way."
That’s a good point, thanks!
Re: Ask HN: What's Your Biggest Regret?
#428I'll give this a go as it took me far too long to work this out - and some might disagree with me. Taking every single ounce of advice people give to you. I've found that everyone has a pathway in life, a way they are able to unlock and achieve their full potential. I found that what works for one person, may not always work for another. When I was starting out I would listen without question to anyones advice, peers…
Listen to everyone. Just don't do what they say if it doesn't suit you.
This is not a regret, just an opinion.
Re: Ask HN: What's Your Biggest Regret?
#429Earlier quoted context omitted.
Steve Jobs turned the ideas in that quote into a commencement speech after his cancer diagnosis. It concludes with: Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure - these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is tru…
It's a shame he never took the advice to heart. Jobs' last days were unnecessarily painful for both himself and his family, who desperately tried helping him only to be pushed away and insulted. Jobs was good at echoing the wisdom of people smarter than him, but not so great at using those principles to fix his own life.
> Jobs was good at echoing the wisdom of people smarter than him, but not so great at using those principles to fix his own life.
This applies to most people.
Re: Ask HN: What's Your Biggest Regret?
#430Look up "Amor Fati". Regret is not an acceptable approach to life. You can only love what you've done so far. Obviously you can not change anything from the past so regret does not provide any value.