What do you regret?

See What was your biggest mistake. Here are some stuff i regret
1. Going to the anti-Prom in High School which resulted in this picture (and i am not in )
2. Rejecting MIT and Princeton for UMass – -> i love UMass but my mind will always be taunted by the idea that i could have had a better future if i went to an elite school
3. Selling my premature web OS to a company because i didnt have faith in it

Also I am about to quit a job that I will also regret for years

Nothing. Everything ive done in my life has led up to who i am today. You cant change the past so dont concern yourself with it. The important thing is to look back on these past experiences and learn from them. Learn what caused the bad event to happen and what you can do to avoid it in the future.

I regret reading the title of the question! J/K :) I have a few regrets in life. None, however, I would like to discuss.

@Uber – I’d like to concur with everything you said. And I do believe my experiences have shaped who I am today, but I just can’t help saying, “Just WTF were you thinking!!!?” to myself. Kudos to you! :)

If we are really honest with ourselves, and we’ve lived long enough, we probably all have some regrets, no matter how minor or how major. It’s true that we cannot change the past, but that doesn’t stop us from wishing that we could. We are dreamers by nature, and we’ll never stop dreaming of what could have been and what could be. Though, it’s clearly much more advantageous for us to live in the present and let our minds be there as well (Carpe Diem!).

@ aaronou – well said :)

I regret that, by staying up so late to fluther, I’m going to be dog tired at work tomorrow.

I regret spending $400 on M•A•C this month…........

I regret that I let me mother talk me into waiting for her before going to see my father in the hospital. As a result, I arrived just after he had died.

Sorry to hear that, Marina

“Never regret anything that made you smile.” <—-somebody said that?
I regret letting her go. Alas, we have no power over when someone dies unexpectedly.

God, I’m getting depressed on this thread. Time to head off to bed.
Hey! That rhymed!

@AC Thanks, it was long ago, and I have come to terms with it as best I can.

@Mirza having posted that I have regrets too, I still think they are a waste of thought time since we cannot change the past at all. I work on not giving mine much head space.

I applaud you for choosing not to go the programmed, elitist school route. For another, if you sold your stuff when you did, it was meant to be, probably because you need to focus on something else. Same deal on the job. I have never left a job when a new opportunity did not come along that in hindsight seemed to make perfect sense even if, at the time, it did not make any sense.

Sorry Chuckie (can I call you Chuckie???). It’s been an emotional night here on Fluther for me…I think most of my answers revolved around my family (alive and dead) and so now, I am off to bed. Mine rhymed, too!

I regret that I got sidetracked in college by a relationship and marriage. I didn’t dedicate myself as I should have and as a result did not go onto graduate school.

No regrets I think, I agree with uberman, every single thing, good and bad ones have shaped my life, there is a song “no regrets,they don’t work, no regrets, they only hurt” very, very true…

I was on the el in Chicago, sitting next to the door. A woman stood up at a stop, and she looked incredible. Not exceptionally beautiful, but amazing. Our eyes met, and we both smiled…
Then she stepped out. For a wild, tortured moment, I considered running after her, but I stayed in my seat. Wasn’t my stop.
I looked over my shoulder as the train pulled away, and she was standing at the top of the stairs, looking back at me.
I’ll always wonder.

That I left my mama for less than a year until I noticed that I just couldn`t live without her and a daughter should always be with her mama, so I moved back to sweet home Louisiana!

Everything I have a regret about I use as a reminder of what other possibilities I had then and have now. And I use those moments of regret to teach myself and others. I had a crush on someone from 6th grade till long after I graduated HS. During HS he had ceased to taunt me and instead gained a respect for me because of my drafting abilities. I could FEEL that he wanted to ask me out but for some reason couldn’t muster the words. So another fella in the class, a good friend of his asked me out. That weekend I ended up at the crushes house with the date as he was spending the night there…and the crush was working on his car and racing it up and down the street periodically. I had this brief opportunity where the date went inside and left me standing alone with the crush. I should have told him exactly what I felt and had in mind and should have suggested we get in the car and take off for awhile. But I said nothing. Again a few years later he was hit by a car just prior to coming home from the service. Friends kept telling me I should go visit him in the hospital as he didn’t get many visitors. I kept second guessing the whole thing even though I really wanted to go and keep vigil. Another girl went…..he married her.
I tell people now that they should examine carefully what they are feeling and state with clarity what they is and what they would like to see occur with the same level of clarity. This one change in how you do things can mean the difference between seeing your desires realized or watching someone else enjoy what you could have been.