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Honored Contributor
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Registered: ‎01-08-2011

What Is Your "I Should Have" or "If I Had Done Differently"?

IF you care to share.  No judgements.  Few people walk without some regret of some kind.  Are we the same or different?

 

I should have made different choices to education and travel when I was young. 

Honored Contributor
Posts: 12,702
Registered: ‎08-22-2013

Re: What Is Your "I Should Have" or "If I Had Done Differently"?

[ Edited ]

When I think of it, the only thing I would have changed is the circumstances I was born into. Of course, that is something one has no control over.

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Registered: ‎03-10-2010

Re: What Is Your "I Should Have" or "If I Had Done Differently"?

I would have considered being a teacher.

Do the math.
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Registered: ‎03-11-2010

Re: What Is Your "I Should Have" or "If I Had Done Differently"?

As my life has played out, I see no reason why I would change anything. 

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Re: What Is Your "I Should Have" or "If I Had Done Differently"?

I  regret never having children. Then I ended up with female problems later in life and had to have a hysterectomy. 

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Registered: ‎10-27-2010

Re: What Is Your "I Should Have" or "If I Had Done Differently"?

[ Edited ]

It’s a great question. One wants to look back, take stock, and learn from experience, yes. But I can’t say that I have any regrets, because everything has gotten me to this point. Change one thing, and who knows what else might be different now?

 

It isn’t a regret, but If I could go back to another time, I would visit my 15-year-old self to tell her it would all be OK. I was in an emotional freefall from my parents’ difficult separation and divorce, and although I didn’t show It to the outside world, I was desperately scared and distraught. It took decades and a lot of tears and talking to get the tangle of emotions sorted out. A distinct part of me was stuck back there at age 15. I almost felt that I was that 15-year-old’s big sister, and, bit by bit, I needed to help her work it out and be heard. Little by little, I became whole again. 

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Registered: ‎05-23-2015

Re: What Is Your "I Should Have" or "If I Had Done Differently"?

I really have no regrets, it’s not that I never made mistakes, I made plenty of them. However, I did what I did each time for a reason that made sense then. I might have taken the easy way or the road less traveled, whatever it was it made my life what it is today and I can’t regret that.

" You are entitled to your opinion. But you are not entitled to your own facts."
Daniel Patrick Moynihan
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Registered: ‎04-14-2013

Re: What Is Your "I Should Have" or "If I Had Done Differently"?

I think I might have chosen a different career path.  Or maybe it's more like, I would have been more deliberate in my pursuit of livelihood.  I've had a great time and use the fruits of my experience with joy, daily, but some of the intellectual desires have gone unfulfilled.

Cogito ergo sum
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Registered: ‎03-10-2010

Re: What Is Your "I Should Have" or "If I Had Done Differently"?

I would definitely have chosen a different career.  

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Registered: ‎11-02-2015

Re: What Is Your "I Should Have" or "If I Had Done Differently"?


@ECBG wrote:

IF you care to share.  No judgements.  Few people walk without some regret of some kind.  Are we the same or different?

 

I should have made different choices to education and travel when I was young. 


 

Not too many regrets for me.  Circumstances seem to affect most people.   The only thing I wish I had the opportunity to do was continue on with my education after college.  I acquired a degree in commercial art and wanted to continue on by attending a design school in New York.  But with two other siblings in college at the same time, that wasn’t a possibility. I needed to get a job and an income...It all worked out and I enjoyed that first career for 13 years.....Later went into education for career number two..23 years....I enjoyed that as well.    But to this day, I still think about the “what if”....