What has been your biggest mistake in life so far?

[raisins]

God help me I agree with Peachy, somewhat.

Like she (he?) said, 'mistake' in this context is typically associated with regret. I don't regret very much at all and when there is something from the past that I have some emotion (jealousy, anger, whatever) over I generally accept that it was what I was capable of and that I now have more experience to make better choices. I've certainly done things that made me sad when I saw how the consequences of my actions effected other people and myself and I guess these are the sorts of things people are calling mistakes. I think there's a real difference between being sad about some of my past actions and regretting them. I don't know if Peachy is making this distinction but I think it's an important one. Sad is an emotional response and many times an appropriate one. Regret is building a fantasy that the past could somehow have been different. I'm not sure that it could. I don't know that the person I was at those moments could have made a different decision. I have no evidence to support that notion.

At the moment I made those choices I wasn't the person who had the knowledge or the foresight or the emotional depth to recognize that another alternative was superior. People generally make the best decisions for themselves according to the knowledge and beliefs they have. This doesn't make everyone "guilt-free", consequences surely follow. It just means that there is no point in constructing some fantasy about having perfect knowledge at an earlier point in life and imagining how great things would be. For whatever it's worth I'm not a particularly optimistic person.

Certainly one problem with the above is that it downplays free will, which I believe in. That being said it tends to keep me focused and responsive in the present and not stuck in the past so I'll let the issue with free will slide.

Anyway, to play along with this game, instead of spending so much time with the humanities I would have devoted more energy to math and physics. I would have been more respectful of the confidences that people placed in me and been more willing to listen than talk. I would have kept a journal and taken more pictures. Spent more time outside. Read less crap genre fiction. Watch less TV. blah blah blah

You could sum it all up by saying I would have paid more attention from the get go and spent less time zoning out.

regards,

raisins

[Shajen]

Probably not making a peace offering to my dad before he died.

I hadn't talked to him in 13 years, and he passed away before I got the chance to.

Of course, it was a two way street, ya know?

Otherwise it would have to be partying so damned much during the IT boom, and not listening to my gut when the crash came. I lost a lot of stock and a fairly large chunk of change because I didn't act fast enough. Luckily, I'm young enough that it wasn't a horrible mistake.

[irishpint]

not working hard enough in college my first 2 years- now im going to be a senior and applying to dental school (where im fairly certain ill get in) but it could have been much easier/less worrisome if i would have just achieved that 4.0 instead of partying 5 days a week.

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nothing in life is ever a mistake...

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Thanks, now go write some poetry and we can get to some real answers that aren't a bunch of crap.

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im being serious...nothing in my life has ever been a mistake...the majority of people that think that way are very depressed people and arent happy with life...im not one of those people

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Good for you. But I think a lot of people are effed up. And are not happy w/ the choices they've made in life. You realize this the older you get. [img]/images/graemlins/frown.gif[/img]

Getting expelled from high school. Was not a fun way to end senior year, but whatever. Still go to a great university. As long as you learn from it, its hard to keep calling it a mistake.

[CCass]

I saw that Evan had posted several times in this thread, and got excited. I was hoping to hear about some of his mistakes (other than the possible ones in Vegas).

Instead I see that he is "wrestling in the mud with a pig", and we all know how that turns out.

[SammyKid11]

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Getting expelled from high school. Was not a fun way to end senior year, but whatever. Still go to a great university. As long as you learn from it, its hard to keep calling it a mistake.

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Why are so many people in this forum so programmed to think that just because something eventually turns out okay that the word "mistake" no longer applies. Learning from a mistake does not mean that it eventually becomes a non-mistake...any more than becoming sober a few hours later does not mean that maybe you weren't actually drunk at one point.

Jeezy Creezy people -- mistakes are mistakes...why is everyone so damned scared of saying, "yeah - that was a mistake...I'm not going to DWELL on it for the rest of my life, but I can call it what it is."

[peachy]

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I saw that Evan had posted several times in this thread, and got excited. I was hoping to hear about some of his mistakes (other than the possible ones in Vegas).

Instead I see that he is "wrestling in the mud with a pig", and we all know how that turns out.

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i sit on him???

and me and evan r friends...incase u didnt catch that part as well...

[IlliniRyRy]

doing drugs

[whiskeytown]

stay away from alcohol - that is all I have to say - never even try it to see what you're missing - just stay away.

RB