Hey Pandas, What's One Thing You Didn't Do And Regret Not Doing?

I had a neighbour confide in me that their spouse was beating them. The spouse was 6ft 3, regularly being physically and verbally abusive and they didn't want to leave because of their daughter.

I regret not helping my neighbour get away from his terrible wife.

My brother and I had talked about taking a year off after we both finished college to move to Japan, teach English, and practice a martial art we'd been studying since we were little kids. We have family in Tokyo and could have stayed with them for nothing, and an aunt said she could set us up as tutors. Instead, we both found jobs and settled into a grind for 30+ years. I often wonder how things would have been different had we gone.

I don't have many regrets, but one of the few I do have is probably not asking a really nice guy from camp for his number

I regret not communicating with my ex more, we might still be together and I wouldn’t be alone in fighting the disease I have. It’s scary and lonely, and being in the hospital having surgeries and no one to be with you (my family lives far away) is the worst feeling in the world.

Not going to community college. I could have worked at Archie Comics. I can draw the characters very well.

My husband traveled to Ukraine several times on business. The folks he met with offered to host me with a driver/security and translator, but for several reasons I never took them up on it. Will always regret that now.

Not staying in the Army for 20 years and being only 37 y/o with a steady retirement check. (Would have been a nice income supplement while continuing to work)

Try

this was kind of easy for me. i returned to college after 8 years. by that time i had married and had a child. while in college i was invited to go to the u.k. and study at the university of kent. my family was supportive of this and i began to make plans. another student was also invited so we thought we would make it a duet of an experience. shortly before i would have left my son came down with bronchitis. then, it turned into pneumonia and he was hospitalized. he was getting better as the time for me to leave approached but i could not leave. i knew i would probably land in heathrow, call home and the climb on another plane to go back home. ironically, my partner's dad had a heart attack and she also cancelled her plans. i remember so clearly sitting in the college lounge watching the fall of the berlin wall and turning to each other and almost saying at the same time "i know where we would be right now'. so, yes, i regret not taking the opportunity but i think i would have been haunted by my selfishness had i gone. i don't think i could have tolerated that.

I regret not going to a public college. I got the same exact degree from a private school for a lot more $$$, and now (15 years later) I don't even use my degree. The one good thing that came out of college was meeting my husband, so i definitely don't regret that part.

I regret that I didn't listen to my parents and save more money. I shudder to think about all the c**p I've bought over the years, and now don't even have anymore.

I regret not taking the opportunity to be an au pair for a family in Italy when I was in my early 20's. I live in New Zealand would have been a great opportunity to see the world.

I regret not buying the beautiful book with all the photos of St. Matthias Church (Mátyás Templom) when I was in Budapest. One of the most beautiful buildings I've ever been in, and the tour didn't stop long enough to get many photos.

Taking better care of my body when I was younger.

I played trumpet all through junior and high school and I was pretty good. Made the All-Star Marching Band and District Honor Band. Since I knew I wasn’t going to major in music, when I went to college I didn’t touch the instrument much except for a half-hearted attempt years later for the county community band. It was obvious I had lost some of my skill. Now, decades later I can only make it sound like a tortured goose. I regret that I didn’t just keep playing it for my own personal enjoyment and continue to improve my talent. Going to college I was in the mind-set that I had to buckle down and “focus on the future.”
What an idiot.

That I didn’t tell a trusted adult about my mental health problems until I had 3 or 4 panic attacks

NOT Caring what people think about me.

I regret not being more ambitious when I was younger. I have this fantasy of going back to my high school and talking to the students and warning them... do NOT sit around waiting for it to come to you. Even if you aren't sure what you want to do...find something, anything, you don't hate and try that.

If you don't think you'll need college to do what you want to do, then don't go! You're wasting time. Honestly, if the field you want is trade work....I wouldn't even finish high school. Get your GED and start NOW at the bottom. The only reason to stay in school at all is to get into college. Public school in the US teaches you nothing useful in your last 2 years of high school so get your GED and start as an apprentice in a field. By the time you're 20 you'll be way ahead of the game.

And you can go back to get specialized training if need-be or even go to community college if you really want to. But unless you're going to a great pedigree college that has job placement and you'll start somewhere making good money on that alone (Harvard, Yale, specialized schools, etc), then you're going to start at the bottom anyway and can probably get hired off the street without spending 100k on college. So save yourself the money.

I didn't have the opportunity to stay with my parents and I didn't have a friend's couch I could sleep on while I 'found' myself. If you're lucky enough to have that opportunity then don't squander it. Save money and try different jobs until you find something you don't hate. And then stick to it. I used to love cooking but once I started doing it as a job I really hated it. I wish I'd been mature enough to realize it was the actual place I was working that was bad and not the job. I wish I'd known better or had someone in my life that could have guided me more. I wish I'd stuck to it.

I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life and, in a way, I still don't. Everyone just kept telling me it would 'come to me'. That's not true and I floundered for years. Now my situation makes it almost impossible for me to start over at the bottom somewhere making minimum wage. I have a useless Master's degree and I've never been able to find anything I really love to do, so work of any kind has always been miserable for me.

Don't make my mistake; start young and stick to it.

I'm going light here...I had the opportunity to meet Metallica (25-28 yrs ago) and didn't do it because I was too hung over. And I was like 22 and they were still the s**t.

I regret not shopping colleges before I graduated high school. Our school didn't really put much focus on it, and there was miscommunication in my family about my dad paying for me to attend brown college (since defunct and closed). What he said was that he would pay the application fee. Almost 20 years later, I'm still paying on student loans for the most useless degree ever to be printed on paper.