Sort of a piggy back off of the 1 regret thread. You have a choice. You can stay the course of your life, or you could go back and change 1 thing. Would you change anything, and what would it be? Knowing of course, that changing even 1 small thing could lead to a completely different life now, possibly worse, because our lives are shaped by the sum of all of our experiences.
I think I would not change anything at all. I'm happy how it's all turned out to this point. [Reply]
Originally Posted by RedRaider56:
Should never have married my 1st wife. Fell into the whole "Love is Blind" pit and got T-boned when she told me she wanted a divorce.
I was in a dark place for about 18 months and finally pulled myself back together and got on with life.
Originally Posted by InChiefsHeaven:
As has been mentioned, regardless of the good, bad or ugly in my life, to change any of it would absolutely mean I am not who I am today. Like most people, I have real regrets in life, real pains inflicted by me on others, and also on me by others. It hurts sometimes to revisit these moments in my head, and even in cases where I have been injured but forgave the person, it still hurts. Maybe it's supposed to. It reminds us all that our sins are never personal, and our actions have consequences that are way beyond ourselves.
In any case, I love my life that I have now. I have regrets, but I take solace in the knowledge that those pains were part of a past which has brought me to this present...and this has been a great life so far.
Sure, I regret things in my life. Everyone does. No one is perfect. Its part of what shapes us as humans. [Reply]
I worked with my father the summer I graduated from high school at a foundry that produced transmission parts for Allison and CAT. Nearly the entire summer had passed, and I was set to start my first year of school for mechanical engineering. We were working, primarily, 7 days a week, 10-hour days. One day he asked me to drive home because he was tired. I didn't think much of it and said yes. I fell asleep at the wheel 3 miles from home and rolled the truck. That accident left him a quadriplegic and me relatively unscathed. I do wish I could go back in time and not drive that day.
As a consequence of that accident, he ended up dying from septicemia 7 years later because the nurses at the University of Michigan hospital didn't change his catheter for 4 days because they "didn't have the correct one to fit him." Meanwhile, my mother was his primary caregiver at home and had a suitcase full of the correct ones in the van we traveled in. Never once did they ask her if she had one, and we'd assumed they were properly changing them. One day he was feeling warm and she could sense a smell, lifted his sheet to check his bag, and could see the infection in his urine. She called the doctor herself. That trip was merely for a medical and ergonomical evaluation mandated by the insurance company to determine his needs going forward.
Not only did I have to live with the accident, keeping my father, best friend, and hunting and fishing buddy, primarily bedridden and only able to speak, but he was prematurely taken because of neglect. So if you ever wonder why I'm a bitter, aging man and hate the UofM, you have your answers. [Reply]
Changes I would make are about behaviors, not core things about myself.
1. In my 20s, making walking for exercise more of an emphasis that I carried forward. I have re-engaged that in my 40s, and it has made my trips to the gym something that I look forward to, rather than force myself into.
2. Similarly, in my 20s, working on flexibility. I wish I had started yoga then rather than in my 40s.
Hoping my 30s didn't do too much irreversible damage to my body overall. [Reply]
