Support NeoGAF

[DragoonKain]

I think about two key points in my life. One, when I was in grade school. Kindergarten wanted to hold me back a year because I was a year younger than the rest of the class, but my parents wouldn’t let them, so I went to grade school and grew up with the kids in my grade school. I had a very good class. Healthy kids, we all played sports, none of us smoked or did drugs. Most of us polite, well behaved good kids.

But the grade below us were a bunch of skateboarders who smoked and did drugs, and almost that entire class grew up to be degenerates. I sometimes wonder if I grew up around those kids, if they’d have rubbed off on me and if I would have grown up and gotten into smoking and drugs. I’m pretty strong willed, and I’ve never been much of a follower, but when you’re that age, you’re vulnerable, and if I got into that crowd at a young age and stuck with them, who knows.

And something similar when I was to pick my high school. I had it down to two schools. One was one of the top schools in my area, but I’d have to go alone because none of my friends were going there. And another school where all my friends were going, but it was a worse school with a bunch of bro types that bad major bullying issues. I opted for the better school even though going to a new place without any of my friends was scary, but it was definitely the good choice, because in terms of a social life, high school was a good experience for me.

I wonder if I went to high school and was subject to bullying or being around a bunch of douchebags would have changed how I became as a person. If I’d have been less confident or maybe their douchebagerry would have rubbed off on me and id have gone down a bad path.

Anyway, sometimes I think about those critical moments in my life and wonder if I’d be a totally different person had they just went the other way. Curious if anyone here has moments like that in their life and if you think you’d have turned out differently.

 

[Star-Lord]

I often wonder how my life would’ve turned out if I hadn’t got addicted to booze and cocaine, but I’m in a great job and have great friends as it is, so I’m not sure I’d want to go down the other route. Would be interesting to just see it, though.

 

[FunkMiller]

I had a choice whether to live in the UK or Australia when I came out of school. I elected to stay in the U.K because education choices were better. I often wonder what would have happened if I’d moved out to Queensland with my old man.

I‘d be better at surfing, probably. And would like Tim Tams.

Still be a right cunt, though.

 

[Star-Lord]

Still be a right cunt, though.

No different to any Australian I’ve met.

 

[poodaddy]

There was a job years ago that I gave up so my wife could work. I wish so badly now that I didn't do that. My marriage is dissolving now, and I truly believe it started with that. I should have just stayed the bread winner, stayed the course. She wanted to work, and I needed a break from work, mentally speaking. Or at least I thought I did. If I'd have kept that job, I think life would have been different, and I truly believe my marriage would be fine now.

 

[PleaseDontBanMe]

I sometimes feel like if I was 6 feet tall

then I'd be 6 feet tall

 

[jufonuk]

I had a choice whether to live in the UK or Australia when I came out of school. I elected to stay in the U.K because education choices were better. I often wonder what would have happened if I’d moved out to Queensland with my old man.

I‘d be better at surfing, probably. And would like Tim Tams.

Still be a right cunt, though.

Probably killed by drop bears or Alf Stuart

 

[Pagusas]

All the time, and I love my life.

My dad died when I was 7, I wonder how I would be different if he hadn’t. I cite that as a reason I became super responsible and self motivated/reliant. Would I be better or worse now if that hadn’t happen?

 

[p_xavier]

I moved to a different city and restarted my life over 5 times so far. Life is so short that I always had this FOMO and want to try something new. Alcoholism and drug abuse I don't miss though but had a decade of partying that I enjoyed.

 

[nush]

My life would not be the same if I'd been able to stay the comfortable one I was currently living in. It's all ups and downs, learn, adapt, win.

 

[The Cockatrice]

I'm more than positive my life would be different had I not taken the lazy paths. I don't think I regret it, too late for that I guess.

 

[NahaNago]

All the time unfortunately.

 

[Bullet Club]

A sliding doors moment.

I've had a few. One in particular where if I had have gone out the door in the morning instead of deciding to stay at home my life would have been way different. Hard to say if it would have been better or worse though, just different.

 

[Deleted member 1159]

I feel like I know for a fact had my buddy not scoped out his now wife doing cleans when we were at the gym in college then my entire life would be different now. Because he saw her and wanted to talk to her, then ended up marrying her, I knew her when I was beginning to look for jobs after I graduated. I asked if she had any leads, she said talk to her sister who I didn’t know, so I did, sister helped me get a job in an industry I had no real knowledge of or desire to get into, that’s how I met my wife, and over a decade later we’ve got two kids and I’ve moved up in the same industry.

But if we hadn’t met my buddy’s wife that day, I have no idea what would’ve happened post grad. The job situation was grim; I was talking to army and marine recruiters right before I got that job

 

[NeoIkaruGAF]

I can’t really think of any. I have a few regrets, but I‘ve had many more moments in my life that I can safely look back to and be pretty sure I dodged a bullet. It’s not often that I find myself musing about girls I didn’t hit on, people I didn’t get to know better, chances I didn’t take. It’s all behind me now, and to be frank, I can hardly remember my daily life just a few years ago, let alone regret it.

 

[nush]

It’s not often that I find myself musing about girls I didn’t hit on, people I didn’t get to know better, chances I didn’t take.

Girls in the past woulda/coulda/shoulda is not worth a moment of your time thinking about. If you've kept moving forward there should have been other girls that did like what you had going on.

 

[Zenaku]

Back when I was a child I excelled at school, so much so that I was moved forward a year. Left all of my friends, worked hard to make new ones, and did really well, but they wouldn't let me take the exams to move onto the next year, despite being capable.

The new friends I made moved on to new schools, and my old friends moved up as I repeated a year, but I struggled to rebuild my friendships. When time came for me to move schools I couldn't decide to go where my new friends were, or go where my old friends were going, and ended up at neither due to late applications.

Tried hard at my new school though, made new friends, only to be given a similar choice; the option to move into another class with harder work. Being an idiot who relished impressing his parents, family and teachers, I took the plunge and threw away my friends a second time. That was the end of my social life.

Ended up leaving school in the final year before the exams, and spent the majority of the following decade sponging off parents. It wasn't until I turned 25, when I ended up pushing buttons in a factory, that I finally started to turn my life around. Now, 6 years later, I work in a technician job where I fix robots and other machines in the factory, and I'll be getting a promotion soon that will have me handle all of the programming and installation.

I've often wondered what my life would be like if I hadn't skipped a year. I'd have certainly went to a different school, likely kept my childhood friends, probably would have finished school and went to college, and had a much happier teenage life. But I might also have ended up working in an office typing up reports, instead of the job I have now; a job I love.

I do feel like I cheated myself out of 10 years of my life, but on the other hand all the useless skills I developed in those 10 years sitting on my ass - programming, graphics design, computers in general - are what make me awesome at my current job. It gives me a kind of validation, that all those wasted years weren't actually a waste, and I'll carry on working hard to make sure that doesn't change.

 

[thefool]

Yes, I can easily look back at 3-5 moments in my life that considerably changed the course of my life.

 

[Quasicat]

When I was in high school, an old friend and her boyfriend wanted to set me up on a blind date. I honestly didn’t like her boyfriend and came up with every excuse I could on why I couldn’t go, ultimately telling her that I had a terrible headache and just needed to sleep it off. I hung out at home that night, playing video games and going to bed fairly early.
They picked the girl up and the three of them were huffing VCR fluid while he was driving on the interstate. They hit the retaining wall going 100mph and were all killed.
I think that counts on changing the course of my life. It definitely has affected me and I still think about that night.

 

[BigBooper]

I've often wondered what kind of diseases that skank that used to rub against my junk would've given me.



There's many things I'd change if given the chance. That whole I wouldn't change anything because it made me who I am is balogna. I'm sure everyone has said something stupid they'd like to take back.

 

[haxan7]

My parents moving from a suburb of a city to a redneck shithole when I was 11.

 

[Tschumi]

I believe in nurture over nature, I wish I'd been taught how to think for myself and study, instead of being expected to intuit it eventually... I think if i had been more capable of understanding what i was doing at school I wouldn't have blown 3 years of highschool playing nothing but WoW all night. (I've taught in schools and you can tell the kids whose parents are constantly trying to sidestep their parental responsibilities... in my case i think my parents just had too many kids when i came along...) And i would have finished University with a Masters about 4 years earlier than i did (still got a MA but had to jump through academic hoops)

As for my life, i think it would have turned out different if i had studied Japanese really hard from the moment i got here, but it's not too late to remedy that, and i hope this reminds anyone who needs reminding that it's never too late, and that the past doesn't, mustn't, dictate your future.

 

[nush]

in my case i think my parents just had too many kids when i came along...

It works the other way too, my parents had enough kids (Myself included) then kept shitting kids out beyond their financial means so everyone suffered. Yeah, but cute new baby right?

 

[Kenpachii]

my motto is, there is no point living in the past. U did what u did and that's it. Move on and change if you feel like it.

 

[SuperBabyMethod]

Sometimes I think about missed opportunities, such as getting with women or making friends. How different (or not) my life would be if I took a different path such as a different school to work in.

I can think of one instance that I think sort of “changed” me and my trajectory, which was the separation of my parents at age 10. Never knew there were underlying issues between the two, and then all of a sudden I get told by my mother that we were going to move out. Before that I lived a pretty happy life with an amazing childhood that if I could relive it I’d do it all again, and I had many friends outside and inside school. After the separation and move, I became much more reserved, struggled (and still do) to make close friends, and have an awkward relationship with my older brother. Even though I love my father and we get along well, I was essentially raised by my mother and I never talk to him about topics like my dating life or women.

 

[EverydayBeast]

Certainly. I’m sure much different than many envision, you should expect to move.