What is the one thing that you wished you would've done in your life?

[backtoblue]

Me, I wish I would've taken that backpacking trip right after high school and learned to play an instrument.


What do you wish you would've done?

Someone once said that it's not the things you do that you regret - it's the things that you didn't do.

[Xyzse]

1. Ummmm... How Sanitized should this be?

Also, should I base it on reality and possibility or go as fantastical as possible without considering time and cost?

If I base it on reality, I don't actually know. I'd just have said "I should have done -points to a female ex-classmate, one after another-.

If I base it on fantasy in saying I wish I could have done some things, thinking that parents would have supported my endeavors through monetary means when I was younger. I'd have enjoyed taking a Euro Trip just before or during college.

I worked while in college, and paid my own way.

[backtoblue]

4. considering that one cannot change past reality, then you could use the term fantasy.

But, aside from the Freudian context, what else would you have liked to do?

[Xyzse]

8. Well...

I'll just say things I want to do are still a work in progress.

I intend to finish Tough Mudder is next.

[LiberalEsto]

2. wish I'd written a book and actually had it published nt

[backtoblue]

5. that's a good one, what would you have written about?

[LiberalEsto]

9. I wrote a fantasy/fairytale for kids

and sent it out to numerous agents and never even got the courtesy of one single personal reply. Just one or two mass-produced postcards saying no thanks.

It bugs me because I worked more than 25 years as a newspaper reporter and then 8 years as a marketing writer, so it's not as if I'm semi-literate or anything. But so it goes.

[backtoblue]

12. maybe you can still self publish

You finished something that you were proud of and that is an accomplishment in itself!

[AnotherMcIntosh]

3. "Gina Lollobrigida" is what Corrado Erico 'Uncle Junior' Soprano would say.

[handmade34]

27. funny

once my late husband was stopped by cops and read Miranda... "...anything you say will be used (held) against you..." he immediately replied "Sophia Loren"

[Sekhmets Daughter]

6. I wish I had learned to play the violin...

but considering my total lack of musical talent, it's probably best I never tried.

Within my limited capabilities, I wish I had gone to law school....

[cyberswede]

7. Taken a semester or two to study abroad in college

..and I should have tried out for Marching Band in college - those folks knew how to have a good time.

Oh...and I wish I'd had more kids - I like big families.

[Earth_First]

10. Thru-Hike the Appalachian Trail

This still may become a reality in the next 3-5 years...

[backtoblue]

13. Now that's an adventure!

Good luck to ya EarthFirst! I hope all works out and you'll be able to go. I love hiking and I want to do a hike/canoe/camp trip this summer. (never done it before)

[handmade34]

26. Hey Earth...

I'm headed out this afternoon to do my thru-hike on the AT... it's not too late!!!

((flying to Tampa 1st, visit dad, drive up and will be on Springer Mountain Tuesday AM!!!))

[Earth_First]

32. Best of luck to you!

Will you be keeping a blog along the way? I'd love to follow your adventure!

One foot after the other, be safe!

[handmade34]

33. go to

Spot Adventure search for - Markey's Way - I am still learning how to use the program, but hope to write and post photos... will at least have my route traveled... I will need the luck, Thanks.

[csziggy]

42. A neighbor hiked it in segments - finished at 80!

He got fit for the Appalachian Trail by climbing the stairs in the Florida Capital Building. When he got back from completing the Trail and returned to the Capital to climb the stairs again, the Capital Complex police had put up a huge poster in the stairwell congratulating him.

He still did some walking last year but he's getting dementia and I don't think his wife lets him go walking alone anymore.

[Helen Reddy]

11. Purchased gold

when it was 400 bucks an oz.

[talkingmime]

14. Other than making love to Goldie Hawn, probably parachuting.

I never had the opportunity, guts, or money to do that. Same with the parachuting.

[pipi_k]

15. The ultimate...

road trip!

When I was younger, I swore that when my kids were grown and I was retired, I would buy a mobile home and travel the country.

And...I think I would have liked being a teacher. Fifth grade maybe.

[HoneychildMooseMoss]

50. You might not have liked 5th grade

if what I saw in my class was typical--
Boys were starting to get cocky, even to the teacher. On at least one occasion, a bunch of boys in reading class gave the teacher so much trouble that she ran out of the room crying. That was back in the days of corporal punishment, when at least one kid a week was taken out into the hall and given the "what-for" with the "board of education".

[pipi_k]

60. You could be right...

although I'm not generally one to cry when provoked by smart ass kids...

[HoneychildMooseMoss]

61. Neither was that teacher

She had the reputation of being a tough cookie. But I think those boys plotted to see if they could find her breaking point. About 10 or 12 of them just started becoming extremely unruly all of a sudden and disrupting the class, and then others joined in, and before we knew it, just about everyone was shooting spitballs, and throwing paper wads and paper airplanes, just creating all sorts of havoc. It became a madhouse until the principal came back with the teacher and her "board of education", and the instigators were taken out into the hall and given the "what-for".

[CaliforniaPeggy]

16. It's way too late now, and the time has passed...

But I wish I'd been more knowledgeable and aggressive towards the guys when I was in college...

I missed out on some great adventures.......*sigh*

But that just wasn't me at the time.

[backtoblue]

17. i bet you could make an awesome poem about that though!

wasn't me
not that time
what has passed
fear confine


i'm literacy challenged, but you've got the skills my dear!!!

[CaliforniaPeggy]

23. Hey, that's pretty good, my dear backtoblue!

I might take your idea and run with it...

Thank you for your good thought!

[SwissTony]

28. I missed out on some adventures too

...mainly with married women.

I knocked back more invitations than I accepted.

More seriously, I wish I had made much more effort with the first woman I truly loved. With hindsight, I could have done so much more. But who has hindsight at the age of 24?

[chemenger]

18. Unfortunately, too many things. Too hard to single out 'The One Thing'

although there are two or three that would make it to the short list.

I think I'm one of those who have led a life of quiet desperation.

[Victor_c3]

19. I've actually done just about everything that I would have liked to have done

Other than stuff like what was alluded to in reply number 1, I've done a lot of things in my (short) life so far. I mostly would have like to not have done certain things when I was younger.

I can't really think of anything that I haven't done that I wish I would have done when I was younger. I did some crazy stuff when I was in the Army so I have all of the sense of adventure wrung out of me during those years. I grew up music geek and I'm really good at playing the piano for someone who has never pursued it professionally (I might not play it the best and a true music snob would cringe at my playing, but I can play almost anything that I want with the exception of some of the crazy Chopin etudes and such). I lived in Germany and traveled Europe extensively for four years.

The only thing that I'd love to do in the future is spend some time in the developing world doing aide work. I've love to spend a year or two in a shit hole busting my ass to bring water to a town or work in an orphanage for abandoned girls or something like that in India or Africa somewhere. I like physical labor and I like helping people.

I have a fantasy in my head where I take my daughters when they are high school aged/college aged and spend some time working an aid project in the third world with them. It is very educational to get to know people and see how they live in the developing world. My experiences were in Iraq, but you quickly realize that most people are good people and that there really isn't that much of a difference between you. We all laugh at the same sorts of jokes and we all want the same basic thing - security and a decent chance for our kids to have a better lives than we did.

I would really like to go back to Iraq one day and follow my old patrol routes, but I might have to wait a decade or three before it is safe enough to do that again. Maybe I'll be up to bringing some of my family members with me. There is a lot of the war that I never told them about and, as much as I'm scared of telling them about it, I want them to know about it. I would also love to meet the families of the people that I impacted for better or worse when I was in Iraq. I feel like I owe it to them to stand before them and to let them ask me the tough questions or to show me the pain I caused them in their lives. Such a meeting would be rough, but I suspect that it would offer everyone a sense of closure and maybe make it easier for them to move on.

I'm only 33 years old. I have plenty of time to do a lot with my life in front of me.

[ConcernedCanuk]

20. Gone to college/'university

.
.
.

quit Grade 13 to be a mechanic

I'm a good one,

but I think I would also have been a good lawyer for the people

I empathize totally with the poor/disabled/elderly etc. lack of representation to the governments

right - I wouldn't get rich off of it

but I'd love it!

clean fingernails too!

[Buffalo Bull]

35. Dirt under my nails to this day

Some nails never come clean.

[RebelOne]

21. Married a rich man.

I have accomplished almost everything in my life that I had wanted to do. But I did it all on my own, so a lot of money would have helped me do more.

[TrogL]

22. Taken that University job they'd offered as a one-year contract with possibility of extension

I'd probably be a full professor by now.

[WCGreen]

24. Say no to that first drink of booze...

[handmade34]

25. picked a different mother...

[LeftInTX]

29. Spent less time online

[Buffalo Bull]

30. A road less traveled

Backtoblue...

You wish you had taken that backpacking trip after high school.
I took that hitchhiking trip after high school('75) , three summers, 45 states and 3 Canadian provinces. I had enough fun to fill ten summers.
However the price was high.
To stay on the road I set my Career sights very low, In that three years i had gone through at least a dozen disposable jobs. When I finally returned to Buffalo I became a Machinist and for the next30 years, I had consigned my self the life of industrial slavery. Finally at 53 I had given my back to 'The Boss Man'.
Permanently dis-abled.
The road less traveled?
Although I often wonder what if I had had spent those years at the U. of Buffalo.

[Flashmann]

31. one thing that you wished you would've done in your life

This very thing has been on my mind,quite a bit lately....I'll offer up two things..

1)I wish I'd started learning a musical instrument as a child,or a teen,rather than at 58 years old....

2)I wish I'd had much earlier awareness and appreciation for the affects my words and actions might have on others....

[Phentex]

34. Moved to a cold area/state...

it's my biggest regret in life.

[HeiressofBickworth]

36. Funny you should ask

I have considered the path of my life and how things might have been different if I had made different choices at pivotal times. What I came to discover was that each of those choices I failed to make would have cut me off of my dysfunctional family long before I took the final break. I could have been out of the morass 20, 30, 40 even 50 years earlier. But the main thing is I DID make the final break and have been out of it for about 10 years now.

[aint_no_life_nowhere]

37. Not having gone to law school and continuing as a musician instead

I was barely surviving in music as a young man but I ended up hating the practice of law with all my soul.

[Jamaal510]

38. My main regret so far is being so shy in high school.

I'm still kind of a shy person now, but I was even more shy a few years ago. I totally regret waiting for girls to approach me instead of me being more aggressive and asking them out to the prom. I was told many times that I am a handsome guy and have a nice fashion sense, so I never thought that I would still have to be the one who makes the first move with girls. It was a very frustrating experience not only waiting for girls to approach me, but also seeing less attractive guys have bombshells.
Another thing I regret from my shyness is me losing contact with all of my high school friends. I never thought about asking any of my boys for their numbers so we could meet up on weekends and shoot hoop or meet some girls. Now I have nobody to hang out with, and nowhere to really be in my spare time.

[kentauros]

39. I wish I'd posted a Lounge-type thread to Meta before it disappeared

[Arugula Latte]

40. Bravo.

[Still Blue in PDX]

41. I would have gone to university instead of a business school.

"Learn to type," my mom said. "Get a job and put yourself through college," she said.

I will have been working here 40 years in May and still haven't made it to college. I'm too damned old to do it now.

[csziggy]

43. There are things I regret not doing but I'd be a different person

If I had made those choices. I could have gone to Europe for a semester my sophomore year of college - three months of structured study and a summer of traveling was the plan.

Maybe I shouldn't have dropped out any of the times I did - that would have changed my choices in majors and opened career paths.

I could have accepted the temporary position that could have been an opening to a ground breaking career.

I could have chosen not to marry - I'd never planned to but Mr. csziggy is an exceptional man. My life would have been much poorer and I would not have been as decent a person as I am. He makes me better.

Any of those choices would have turned me into a different person. I'm sure I would have had different regrets or considered the different paths not taken.

Overall, I'm pretty satisfied with the selections I made in my life.

[Generic Brad]

44. I would have been outspoken at an early age

It took decades for me to have the courage to speak my mind and stand up for myself with confidence.

What sort of stuff, you ask? My lack of belief in God. My political leanings. My support of gay rights. My intolerance of accepting blatant racism. Growing up I feared I would be ostracized by my family if I stopped being meek and spoke up. Turns out I was right. I wish I could have had the strength to do that in my teens or twenties instead of in my forties.

[GoneOffShore]

45. Posted in Meta?

Can I say that?

[backtoblue]

55. when the hell did meta disappear????????????

it was my early morning soap opera dammit!!!

[backtoblue]

57. nevermind, got it lol

[Throd]

46. Avoided Jaegermeister

[The Magistrate]

47. Once, Ma'am, I Should Have Waited About Twenty More Minutes For A Telephone Call....

[femmocrat]

48. Studied harder and partied less in college.

Or maybe that was partied harder and studied less?

I made up for it in grad school though. I wish I had stuck with the doctoral program, but I was so damn sick of grad school by then and just wanted to have a life.

[Tuesday Afternoon]

49. The things I didn't say --

[murielm99]

51. Roller derby.

I've always wanted to do that.

[kentauros]

56. If you can't physically do it any more,

maybe you can find a local league to go an watch: http://www.derbyroster.com/

[murielm99]

58. Thanks.

The closest women's league is about ninety miles from me. It is near my son. I may try to get there sometimes.

[harmonicon]

52. I think it would be hard to learn to play an instrument while backpacking.

Besides, it's just extra weight.


I wish I'd rolled more sex and drugs into my rock and roll years. Huge mistake. If I had to pick one thing, sort of related to that, was turning down a gig in Moscow. The promoter couldn't even guarantee that our airfare would be covered, and we were really poor, so it seemed like a crazy gamble. Ten years later, what would that few hundred bucks have meant to me? I would have gotten to play in Moscow.

[bluedigger]

53. Graduate school.

Got my BA in '82 and enlisted in the Army with unemployment over 10%. My adviser was pissed when he found out and didn't speak to me for years.

I enjoyed my time in the military, but I didn't make it a career, and I never caught up financially. Now it's not economically practical.

[Myrina]

54. Taken my HS German teacher's advice & gone into the military....

... 2 years at the Language School in CA & I could have had a career in diplomatic service or at an Embassy in Europe and now be retired & have my own B&B in Bohemia, happily married to the handsome retired European hockey player of my choice.

Instead I'm stuck in Indiana, working in IT and losing my mind. BLAH.

[Bertha Venation]

59. Stayed in school and studied sports medicine.

[RFKHumphreyObama]

62. Found true love, gotten a successful job

I'm undecided on whether I should have taken a gap year after high school. I would have liked to have visited the United States and Europe pre-9/11 but then again it was great studying politics and history before Bushbot and his right wing cadre came and changed everything. My first year of university (2000) was one of the best years of my life and I wouldn't have wanted to miss it forthe world

[Katashi_itto]

63. I plan on doing six months at and around Shaolin Temple in Henan, China to practice martial arts.

Soon as I finish my CPA will take a sabbatical.

Actually it's quite inexpensive.

[Ken Burch]

64. Been jailed for being a threat to the powers-that-be.

Swept Julianne Moore or Kate Winslet off of their feet.

And ordered a "Quadruple Bypass" at the Heart Attack Grill before I'd gone meatless.

That about covers it.