WHAT IS THE BIGGEST REGRET OF YOUR LIFE?
Answers
2. Standing up to bullies in school and in life. Believe it or not, a lot of our biggest regrets in life have to do with things that happened to us in grade 4 or some other early age. We never seem to forget - or forgive ourselves - for not speaking up against the bullies. We were too scared. We wish we had been more confident. And by the way most of us have also met up with a bully in our work life. Maybe he was our boss. We remember that one time we wish we'd told him off - even if it cost us our job. We usually take some small solace in hearing that that bully later on made some unfortunate career stumble.
7. Not having enough confidence in myself. Related to the previous point, a big regret for most of us is questioning why we had such little confidence in ourselves. Why did we allow the concerns of others to weigh so heavy on us instead of trusting our own beliefs? Maybe we didn't think we were worth having what we wanted. Maybe we just thought poorly of ourselves. Later on, we wish we could have been more self-confident.
8. Living the life that my parents wanted me to live instead of the one I wanted to. Related to that lack of confidence, a lot of us get sucked into living the life that we think a good son or daughter should live. Whether because we're explicitly told or just because we unconsciously adopt it, we make key life choices - about where to go to school, what to study, and where to work -- because we think it's what will make our parents happy. Our happiness is derived through their happiness - or so we think. It's only later - 1o or 20 years on - where we discover that friends around us are dying and we're not really doing what we want to do. A panic can start to set in. Whose life am I living any way?
15. Trusting that voice in the back of my head more. Whether it's as simple as taking a job we weren't really thrilled about or as complex of being the victim of some crime, most of us have had the experience of a little voice in the back of our heads warning us that something was wrong here. A lot of times, we override that voice. We think that we know best. We do a matrix before taking that job and figure out a way to prove to ourselves that, analytically, this makes sense. Most of the time, we learn later that voice was dead right.
17. Getting involved with the wrong group of friends when I was younger. We do stuff when we're young. We're impressionable. We make friends with the wrong crowd, except we don't think there's anything wrong with them. They're our friends and maybe the only people we think that truly understand us. However, we can really get sidetracked by hooking up with this group. Sometimes it leads to drugs or serious crimes. We never start out thinking our choice of friends could lead us to such a difficult outcome.
1. Not taking care of my health when I had the chance. Everyone doesn't think of their health - until there's a problem. And at that point, we promise ourselves if we get better we'll do a better job with our health. It shouldn't take a major calamity to get us to prioritize our health and diet. Small habits every day make a big difference here over time.
24. Learning another language. A lot of us travel a lot. Fewer still have studied a second language. And this is a big regret down the road for many of us, even though it might seem like a small thing next to family, career, and romance. A lot of us wish we'd made the time to learn a new language to open up a whole new culture to us.