- Working my ass off getting 3 useless degrees. I fell into the trap of believing that high grades and multiple degrees = good, stable, high paying jobs. Lmao. Looking back I can’t believe I was so naive
- Got stuck on my balcony before work one morning. Door latched as I shut it. Was approximately 6 feet off ground, so I decided to jump off. Landed on my feet. Grass was wet, feet slipped…Fractured three vertebrae, spent nine months in a hospital bed.
- Bring on a sleazy business partner whose shenanigans put me under. Even twenty-five years later, if he stepped in front of my car, I wouldn’t even think of tapping the brakes.
- I skipped a class for organic chemistry in college before finals. Didn’t get the memo that final exams would be given in a different room. Showed up 45 minutes late and my professor wouldn’t let me in. I failed the class and nearly failed out of college that semester, I was on academic probation after that.
- Dorky guy in our graphics lab at school was trying to convince us to buy Apple stock as we struggled with our POS PowerPC 6300s. “No man, they’re rehiring the CEO they fired! He started the company, he’s like…visionary! He’s gonna resurrect them!”. Riiiiiight.
- Not watching a movie with my dad before he died from cancer. My dad was months into his chemo treatments at this point, and he just asked me one day if I wanted to watch some old movies with him for a bit. I declined and said I needed to work on school stuff. I was living at home at the time, and I was taking about 15 hours of classes, so I was generally busy, but not then. It tore me apart to see my dad that way. The drugs had been rough on him, and it pained me to see him like that. My dad passed maybe a month or two later, and it is still to this day my biggest regret. We both loved movies, and I would give anything to go back and watch anything with him. I still randomly have moments of despair thinking about it, and I know he would not want me to continue beating myself up, but it’s hard.
- Meth, just once, for about 10 years straight.
- Got offered an internal promotion for double salary job as a javascript developer (I was PHP mainly at time) at UK FTSE 100 company and declined because I was humble about my skills/didn’t want to cause issues. Now I’m 8 years wiser and realise no one knows what they’re doing and I would’ve been fine with 20 hours on udemy.
- Talking to police without a lawyer. Don’t do that, kids…
- Leaving the Coast Guard after four years. I’d be retired with a full pension and still have been able to have another career.
- I don’t feel like I’ve any major mistakes in my life. Just a long series of small, seemingly inconsequential, ones that stacked on top of each other. Sometimes it feels like my entire life is a gigantic mistake without beginning or end.
- When I was a kid we used to ride our bikes to the top of a hill and peddle as fast as we could down to the beginning of a sidewalk that was pushed up by tree roots and we would hit super sick jumps off them. No helmet. My bikes front wheel and handle bars became loose from the abuse and when I landed my handles were straight but the wheel sent me right into a tree. Went over the handle bars head first and hit the tree. Knocked out cold. From what people tell me my personality changed as did my penmanship, grades and everything.
- Believing my teachers, professors and, family that I was just naturally bad at math. Turns out I just needed the right teacher to explain the reasoning behind it. Once I understood the “why”, math got a lot easier for me.
- I let go someone who was really good for me because of chronic depression and insecurities and now here I am, alone because of it.
- Ironed a shirt that I was wearing and burned my nipples. Had to put plasters on them for weeks. Alcohol may have been involved.
- Trusting the wrong person with important secrets.
- Quitting college to take a management promotion at my fast food job.
- Trying heroin. Spent 6 years chasing that dragon. I’m now 5 years clean though!
- Toss-up here. Either the first drink I ever took in secret or the drink I took this morning in secret. Hard to decide
- Not putting money away for savings early enough. start early!!! Make it automatic!!
- Getting married. Or "marrying the wrong person" would be more accurate, I guess. We got married in 2001 and just divorced in April, but I left her (for the last time) in 2015 after getting solid proof that she had been cheating. She now has 4 kids by 4 different guys. Three of them born while we were together and just 1 is mine… Tip of this depressing iceberg, unfortunately.
- Not paying off my mortgage 17 years ago when I had the money. Instead I used it to renovate my house to add two bedrooms and a den. At the time I thought it was more important for each of my four kids to have their own room (they were sharing two each before then) and a bigger family room. I’m kicking myself because had I used the money to pay off the mortgage instead, I’d have had an extra $3000 a month in my pocket. I could have saved up that money and extended my house a few years later.
- Putting absolutely everything I had into to getting a degree and subsequently a job in a field I could honestly not care less about. Now I’m rotting in a job that I can’t stand because I will never make this much money ever again.
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