I regret not learning to play a musical instrument when I was young. I just didn't have the inclination though I've always been an avid listener. I started getting interested in music theory as a young adult and eventually took O level music at night school. Back then O level was purely theory, there was no need to play anything, though it did lead to me learning viola for a few years before doing what you should never, ever do with a hobby - let work get in the way and "have a break for a bit". At the same time I packed in A level History and Appreciation of Music (I couldn't do the full A level Music as that did require playing to a high standard).
I did some choral singing on an occasional basis over a few years and then, in my 50s, decided finally to have a serious crack at what I had fancied playing at the O level theory stage - the oboe. A few years of steady and consistent application later I had my Grade 8 and I'm a reasonably competent amateur. I even got a paid gig once. Well I got expenses which paid for the Oxfam DJ and trousers.
So here's the thing, when thumbing through the UCAS booklet back in the early 70s looking at civil engineering degree courses I spotted a Tonmeister course (recording/sound engineer) at Surrey Uni. They wanted A levels in Maths Physics and Music.
So, if only I had picked up an instrument at 5 rather than 50 I might have been engineering at the proms this week.
Being born. Dunno why im here at all really.
I have simmilar thoughts sometimes, good times don't last, but niether do the bad times, it sounds like you are saying something but not saying it.
Lots of good people here if you want to talk?
I've learned to play the hand dealt at any point in my life. It's been an interesting journey with a great wife and family. My only regret is that I didn't do enough to help my dad cope after my mum died and he chose poorly with his second wife. Possibly not for him but the impact on me and my sister and our relationship with my dad has been ruinous. This card has been played to the best of my ability but he's no longer the man that raised me.
Nothing major thankfully.
Wish I'd got better A Levels (BDU) because it shows my inherent laziness. Uni and career since has been great.
Not following Lissie Smith back to her place for 'a coffee' in late 1998...
Being born. Dunno why im here at all really.
I have simmilar thoughts sometimes, good times don’t last, but niether do the bad times, it sounds like you are saying something but not saying it.
Lots of good people here if you want to talk?
From my "religious" belief you are born because of blah blah blah ... no need to explain coz nobody is interested. Besides, you can read all the religious texts to find the answers, but whether you believe it or not is another story. From scientific perspective, you are just part of human evolution to pass on the gene pool (my view).
Nothing last forever but some sufferings or enjoyments last longer. Ultimately, the end destination for our body is to go back to earth, sea or in the stomach of the birds (sky burial).
My view is to take the ride and to endure it regardless then perhaps learn from them. There is no right or wrong answer but just continue to walk the path yourself by not looking back. When you reach the destination you will know.
So, eventually I ended up back in her dorm with her and…
… and I didn’t know what to do next. Not a clue.
I had a night very much like that. Fresher's week. She was pretty and very smart. But I don't really regret it, as such. I was a hopeless prat at that age, I was scared, I couldn't have done anything else. Just one of those experiences to learn from!
Among a lifetime of regrets, several related to missed opportunities with the opposite sex or cocking up relationships and others to a few career mistakes, one of my main regrets is not having any children. This feeling of regret is compounded somewhat by the fact that in 2019 I found out from the Human Fertilisation & Embryology Authority that 12 children were born from sperm donations I made in the early to mid 1990s (4 male, 8 female born between 1993 and 1996). At the time all such donations were made anonymously, but that has changed in more recent times. Following a couple of articles and a TV documentary about people who were donor conceived who were searching for their sperm or egg donor, I decided to rescind my anonymity and become an identifiable donor. Sadly no one has tried to contact me yet.
Anyone remember around 2015 you could pick up a Ferrari 355 for about £30k. Can barely get a Corsa for that now. Was so close to pulling the trigger but thought I wouldn’t be able to fit a bike in it and the servicing would be a bit high 🤣
Got something sensible instead.
decided to rescind my anonymity and become an identifiable donor. Sadly no one has tried to contact me yet.
Dad?
Being born. Dunno why im here at all really.
Same here. Don't want kids so no biological reason to be here, don't do anything fo society that anyone else could do easily do of no real economic benefit and alli seem to do is use up resources that could otherwise not be used and not contribute to the limited crisis.
It's not a "woe is me" thing, I just don't see where I fit in to anything so me not ever existing at all would make no difference whatsoever to anyone.
I just don’t see where I fit in to anything so me not ever existing at all would make no difference whatsoever to anyone.
But now you do exist you will undoubtedly have made and continue to make a difference to other people around you. Things which will enhance and improve their lives. Things which would be missed if you weren't around. Don't underestimate the intrinsic worth of that.
Not so much regrets,it all worked out well in the end ,but a few things I would change ..
Buying a Ducati as my first bike. Spent more time fixing it than riding it.
Not treating Louise better. She was a good person.
Turning down the offer of a partnership in a bike shop. Too scared of the commitment needed.( it made a fortune)
Not talking to my Dad more. Too busy rushing about.
One of the biggest for me is taking the ability to walk for granted. I really like riding my bike (and pretty fortunate I can really) but sometimes I just want to go and walk up a hill, don't think I can manage a flat km with a stick anymore though.
Losing an arm wrestle against a lass in The Robin Hood in Brighton, not that but going back for a second go and losing again.
I just don’t see where I fit in to anything so me not ever existing at all would make no difference whatsoever to anyone.
Next time I'm down your way I'm bringing the bike and booking a day off so you can wait for me at the top of every hill. Besides we need someone to keep Jon in check and you're closest.
Enjoyed reading this thread.
Can't say there's much I really regret. There are some people I should have listened to more, some I should have spent more time with.
The more life-changing regrets are a bit too depressing to type out so I’ll go with –
Not going to see Nirvana at Portsmouth Poly when I worked there.
Not going to see the White Stripes in Brighton cos I couldn’t be arsed to drive there.
A 6th form friend was going to see this old black musician in a local leisure centre in May 1984*. We took the mick out of him mercilessly for going to see such unfashionable music, with his older brother. I remember people walking past him, taking imaginary berets off their heads and throwing them. He went to see Chuck Berry. One of my regrets is being too young and foolish not to have understood who Chuck Berry was.
*I just looked up the date and found, to my surprise that Chuck Berry also played in Swansea in 2009! Regret number 2 - I didn't even know! And the 1984 tour is absolutely weird - dates in US, Budapest, London, Swansea, back to the US. What was going on there - it's not like he was touring small British venues. I regret googling this now.
The guys missing out on Nirvana. Ouch.
They played my Uni on the Nervermind tour, I worked on the door for an hour so got in free - I'd normally sell tickets but there wasn't a lot to do for a sold out gig. I'd heard of them but didn't really know who they were so I spent the gig chatting to mates at the bar and didn't watch the band at all. Oops.
Knocking up a vegetarian.
Obivously i can eat what i like when we go out (i can eat what i like at home in theory, but it would be crackers to cook two seperate meals most of the time)
Im not a "carnivore", i dont really care either way so im content enough with a 95% vegi diet.
But it does eliminate a whole host of great options for day to day meals.
Not asking out Michelle from San Francisco, who I met at Bradford Uni in the mid-1980s. I still have a thing for some American accents
still, I might not then have met Helen, who eventually married me
I absolutely wasted my 20s, drank and took drugs to excess. Had already left school after GCSE's so lurched from dead end job to dead end job, based on the ability to party around it. played low level football (when i could have played higher) and jacked in cycling
Finally took the plunge to go to uni aged 28. I often wonder how different my life would be, with work, but more around sport. I was a decent cyclist in my teens, and my thirties and a decent runner now, just done the lakeland 50 for the first time. I wish I'd spent more time doing this, and less time pissed up...
@mattyfez I had tickets for exactly the same gig. I was gutted on all fronts when the news came through.
At 16 I was offered a YTS scheme with Exeter City… my late dad said … do A levels and I will buy you a car if pass them.
I got a Renault 5!!
All the old men on here still thinking about the fit girl who they didn’t get to sleep with 20+ years ago. ha ha ha
Haha! There was one i should have followed through with about 25 years ago, but bottled it as she was a bit younger than me and the situation was 'complicated'
And another who i was working with until about 6 months ago, who i stupidly fell totally in love with - thankfully she didn't feel the same as me (despite one or two close passes when we'd both had a drink) as i'd have probably trashed my marriage over it..
Not looking after my hearing.
I've had tinnitus since early 20s. It happenend in my left ear after I couldn't hear what somebody was trying to say to me in night club and told them to shout...Woke up with ringing ears, like normal after a night out, but this time it never went away.
Right ear. I'm not sure. Could be a symptom of the eustachian tube dysfunction or because of the wind-noise ringing a motorbike I had. Doesn't matter how, really. The tinnitus isn't going away.
Regrets? I've had a few.
Biggest one was turning down an invitation to join Team GB Olympic development squad for XC skiing. Long story, and I'm not actually very good at skiing but it was a genuine opportunity that I ignored because I was a stupid teenager.
Leaving for a pre-arranged family lunch and not staying in bed with EY on a Sunday morning, until her mum left the house, as she wanted me to.
Deciding I definitely had to head off as usual to the boldering wall one Wednesday night when EG wanted me to stay over at her house, while her fiancée was away.
Not picking up on the fact, until many years later, that SM was the girl who sent me a Valentines card when we both worked in the same small office room together.
I'm sure there are a few others. I just don't seem to be able to pick up on the signals... 🤦♂️
I'm so bad at picking up any signals that I don't even know I've missed an opportunity until someone tells me! Worst one is a lady I met through a friend about 2005 and we hit it off immediately but as she was taken the thought never crossed my mind. Fast forward to 2014 and she was single and I didn't go and see her when in her area for some odd reason, probably out on the bike instead, and it wasn't until her wedding day in 2018 that she told me that it could have been me with her that day if I'd visited her that specific time. We're still in contact and her husband (who is a properly sound guy and perfect for her) knows and teases me about it as I rather like the Caterham she got him for his 40th, usually by saying 'Look what you could have won!' whenever I see it. At least I got to help him build a few bits of it.
Next time I’m down your way I’m bringing the bike and booking a day off so you can wait for me at the top of every hill. Besides we need someone to keep Jon in check and you’re closest.
Currently I'd probably be just behind you! Tim and John are closer but they're probably more likely to encourage him, especially Tim!
Peter Keen badgered me to join the local cycling club - I could have been a contender 🤣
I’m sure there are a few others. I just don’t seem to be able to pick up on the signals… 🤦♂️
I even miss wide open invitations..
Not sure its a regret, as I took every opportunity I could, but not dancing enough with my kids at family/friends parties
There were nowhere near enough parties ... 🙁
My biggest one I don't fancy posting it on a public forum just incase anyone manages to tie my account to who I am IRL. Lets just say 10 years, a lot of money wasted and a landmass sized amount of crisps and sweets consumed. As a result the ages 25-30 were quite tough learning to cope without a crutch and having to learn new methods of dealing with normal emotions.
Other than that probably my efforts in school, I didn't care for it and my life ambitions were unrealistic, had a bit of a wake up call when I'd dropped out of uni at 21 and had to sign on and found it really hard getting a job, I was lucky however and managed to land an apprenticeship through a friend of my dad which started a career in IT. Not something I would have picked if I had a choice though but I don't mind where I am.
I try not to look back and regret things too often as there is nothing that can be done about them, and a part of me likes to think that everything happens for a reason
Going walkabout as a kid. Those 5 years left me with complex ptsd, hardly a day goes by without some memory popping in.
But hey, thats life and nobody can really know if you should have zagged instead of zigged. Hindsight is always a wonderful thing.
My regret is a bit strange and still eats at me to this day.
Back in about 2004 I was working with a “crafty cockney” geezer down in London. Both of us were IT Contractors, but he had his fingers in lots of pies. He was always showing me how to invest other peoples money, regularly buying small companies that were dying and he would turn them around. I was always too scared to invest, even though he had shown how to ensure my investment was safe, I just didn’t have the nuts to do it. He is now retired and living in Dubai (he’s younger than me and I’m 50). I know he made a fortune from a small CCTV company (before CCTV over the internet was big). With his banking contacts he managed to get some really good contracts looking after car parks and private garages in and around central London. The company was then sold for a good profit. He asked me to invest £30k with him on that project and even though I could see the use case for private CCTV I didn’t do it!
Women I regret….that list is endless and as I’m still single, even to this day it’s being added to….and long may it continue!
I tried wildly unsuccessfully to breed herons once.
I have no egrets.
Life was so much easier for the few years we didn’t speak at all, even if I was broke at the time! Anyway… Everyone always says they regret not having spent more time with their parents when they die… That’s one thing I can guarantee you I won’t regret when my Dad croaks! Not that I wish him ill… But when he goes, he will simplify my life fairly significantly again.
Why bother?
It took me half a lifetime to realise that my dad simply didn't care. He shouldn't have had children (though I probably should be grateful that he did...) If you don't get on then who benefits here, everyone else?
Being born. Dunno why im here at all really.
Dude, are you OK?
me not ever existing at all would make no difference whatsoever to anyone.
For what it's worth, I enjoy (both of) your contributions here.
Not following Lissie Smith back to her place for ‘a coffee’ in late 1998…
I'd have gone "thanks but I don't like coffee," suddenly understood the scenario about a decade later, and laid awake at night beating myself off up about it two decades after that.
I had a night very much like that.
I mean, I wasn't a virgin. I knew what to do in the eventuality that we'd, uh, started doing anything. It was the transition from x to y which legged me up.
Sadly no one has tried to contact me yet.
I wonder how many tried and failed, then never tried again?
That's probably not comforting, is it. Can you contact the organisation and put yourself out there somehow?
Being born. Dunno why im here at all really.
me not ever existing at all would make no difference whatsoever to anyone.
@singletrackmind and @reluctantjumper, I tend to feel similarly, and I find the arguments against feeling this way quite weak (I mean, if we'd never been born, no one would miss us, as the idea of us existing wouldn't have entered anyone's mind).
I am convinced there is a way to reconcile those feelings with a good life though. I actually find meaning specifically in the act of not having kids, for example.
Also, this little animation helps. It's absolutely brilliant:
Bear with it to the end
Well, yea, since turning 40 (and only because the perceived significance of the number) I feel less and less connected with living, if that makes sense. It's not a regret, it's just how it is.
My other regret, which is the biggest one, one that I never mentioned in my first post, is not being there for my mum who has suffered with dementia since I moved away 9 years ago. She is now in the final stages of that horrible disease and I haven't been there for her or for my dad, other than going home through the years for short periods. I have no idea how to deal with it, basically grieving for her for the last 5 years as she became a shadow of herself.
For what it's worth,
I reject the notion of 11th Hour Guilt. You've had 40 years with your mum, if she didn't know how you felt by that point then a final ten minutes ain't going to make a fig of difference.
Do what you can, don't beat yourself over what you can't. Woulda coulda shoulda changes precisely nowt.
If I was to have a regret it would be that I wish I had learned to weld off my dad.
Although like others there's a few women from the past, some I regret not going further with, some I regret going anywhere with
YTS at the local Audi dealership as a mechanic at 16 ... decided to start full time employed at the company I now manage some 35 years later ..what if?
Fast forward to 19 had apucation papers to join West Yorks police with reference from friends father high up in the force .. never took the plunge as at the time it was a £8pa pay cut ... now same money if I had progressed but I'd be retired ,not going back in work Tuesday .
My biggest regret would involve my daughter never being born ..let leave it there.
Karen
