In retrospect, what wasn't worth the stress?

[RegretMeNot]

Looking back on your younger years, what did you worry about/put too much emphasis on that, in hindsight, wasn't that important?

Men.

Between the ages of 15 and 22 I think I was probably single for about 6 months. I made some horrible decisions and lost a few friends over boys. Looking back I wish I’d just stayed single, especially at uni!

What I look like and what other people think of me. I care significantly less about both of these things now and I am SO much happier.

Yes to boys/men.

Also potty training, dd finally cracked it age 3.5. Wish I'd of just waited instead of spending over a year crying and cleaning up piss constantly.

Body image
Body hair
Etc

Being a people pleaser.

@Chatanooga1

Trying to make bad or lacklustre relationships work and days become weeks, months and then years of wasting your life being with the wrong person.

This.

Marriage

The colour of the ink on my wedding invitations and whether it matched the colour on the envelopes, exactly. WTF.

I did drive myself insane breastfeeding with my first child, i.e. in retrospect I think I had a touch of PND, but whether that was brought on by the stress or a symptom of it, I don't know. I do know that I couldn't have acted differently at the time if you'd given me a million quid.

I think it's worth noting that a fair few things that we might think weren't worth the stress actually just turned out really well/we got lucky. I think the knock-on effect throughout life is much more notable than you might think.

My first degree.

I came on to say trying to breastfeed and then pumping for months.
13 years on I see I should have just used formula after a couple of days.

Feeding perfect food to dc for the first year. Again I really should have stressed less.

Men. Should've paid more attention to studying or establishing a solid career.

Being married to a man who let me know in many small (and not so small) ways that I would never be good enough for him or his (really very average) family.

Staying for years in a job I hated working with people I hated because the money was good and it was seen as a top of the trees job.

Being a people pleaser (see 1 and 2 above).

Now I'm 60 I think why? Why did I put myself through that? Now I'm into doing what I want instead. It's very nice!

Jobs, putting up with bullying, sexist, sexual harassment, vile people. I spent many nights crying myself to sleep and many mornings vomiting before work. It was all acceptable back then. I wish I hadn't stressed so much, reported them to authorities and left. The scars are deep now.

Men, I wasted too many tears on arseholes. Always put up with damaged men who inflicted their issues on me. I wish there had been sites like here to advise me. It's only in later years that I now know I lived with cocklodgers, gaslighters etc

Men and rushing to have children !!!
Wish I'd used that time and energy to think more about my education and career! Honestly I would probably be living very comfortably, with children (as I've always wanted to have) be a CEO with numerous PHD's! and with or without a Man

Wedding
Natural childbirth
Breast feeding
Swimming lessons for babies
Academic outperformance - social capital and soft skills way more important but never taught.

I am also a people pleaser, and someone who hates confrontation. If I was braver I'd tell everyone exactly what I thought instead of working around them all the time. What a waste of space.

I had my baby at 32 weeks couldn't breastfeed despite trying to pump every 2-3 hours with f- all coming out and I would have told the breastfeeding nurse to f-off if she told me I either wasn't doing it properly or I wasn't putting in the effort but I just said ok and stared hard at her. Eventually the NICU sister took the decision to give my daughter formula despite the bf nurse's protests and I thank my lucky stars for that woman. I was almost broken.

Breastfeeding
My marriage and subsequent divorce, I actually thought I might die of the stress.

Men.

My crappy first serve . I wasn’t ever going to get beyond club level tennis.

@Lipz YY I wish I’d known about MN when I was younger ( dunno if it existed). I would have never stayed in so many bad relationships with men.

I know what you mean about the bullying at work. I put up with so much because I was a single mum and needed to keep a roof over our heads. And yes the mental scars are still there .

More light hearted but a 1st birthday party! It was soon after we got back from holiday and we had a wedding the day before, so was running around like crazy to sort food, decorations, tidy the house, decorate a cake etc. Madness!

DC2 got a supermarket cake and a day out at the zoo!

banana yes!

And another baby one - hours of research over which pram/travel system to buy, visits to multiple shops, ££££ spent. A year on they are all in second-hand Maclarens from FB Marketplace.

Worrying what people thought of me and whether they liked me, never whether I liked them.

Crossing the street when I saw someone I knew because I thought I was ugly. I was averagely to above average attractive. When I look back at my young self I think what the heck.

Spending too much time cleaning in case somebody called when I should have been playing with and enjoying my children. What a waste.

I am 75 now and think of all the wasted years of worry.

That stupid bugaboo, recommended by a friend and a total pita to open and close. I wonder about all the effort re food and breastfeeding babies- was it worth it? I'll never know