To wonder if you feel you made bad choices

[Jamtodaie]

And it's so hard, isn't it, to go back and make the right ones. I am thinking of something specific but generally I think it can be true.

Apologies, pressed send and didn't mean to.

It's so hard going back. For me, it would involve going back in time to when I was so much younger, to prioritising fun and boyfriends over study and unhappiness and worry.

I've tried to turn it round but it's like I'm on 'my' path now.

I think I'm the exact opposite to you. I was a lazy teen/early twenties. Went out drinking all the time, made some bad decisions, etc. Now I'm 30 with a two year old, at the bottom of the pay scale trying to start a new career path. I wish that I had known what I wanted to do 12 or so years ago and got on with it so that by now I would be earning the money I deserve. I wouldn't change having my DD for the world but sometimes I do wish I had waited as I feel like I can't afford to give her the life she should be having.

Grass is always greener I suppose :)

Oh I know I made a fatal mistake in my 20s and life could have been so much better if I hadn't. But I'm on the right track now I believe. No need to think what ifs, its too depressing.

Had a child with a man who is now in prison. So yes.

I occasionally wonder what if; I left home at 16, and did make some appalling life choices.

The difference is everything turned out alright for me. I have the luxury of describing my poor choices as being things that made me 'who I an today'....' character building'....etc.

when really, it was just good luck and it could have so easily have ended up differently.. And sadly did, for a lot of my friends from that period.

Loads of 'em.

But mostly tied in with my character and upbringing.

I look around me and see alot of people who made "good" decisions and it doesn't always reflect a good nature. Often they had support and guidance in early life, and have never been vulnerable. Or are simply very boring and security-concious - you see them on Escape to The Country Zzzzzz.... Or are just lucky (e.g. good health).

MyOpe, couldn't agree with you more.

I made decisions which could be classed as bad at the time... but they led me here, in the long run, and I met wonderful people and had good experiences that I wouldn't otherwise have had. And yes, it was luck.

I've made some fantastically shitty choices, so much so that I'm convinced my life would've been better had I rolled a dice rather than making the 'informed' decisions I allegedly did. Don't get me wrong, my life isn't too bad, but it could've been the life I dreamed of. I think. Then again, I'd probably have fucked that up too.

Yup, wrong career, wrong man to marry and have children with. Don't have either now. What a waste of a life!

Lots of regrets, but nothing to be done about it. I try not to think about it too much.

I can't allow myself to think like this because if I'd followed my heart then and hadn't let shitty teaching put me off the sciences / stayed local so I didn't upset my DM / hung around forever waiting for my now DH to commit, I wouldn't have my beautiful, beautiful children. Yes I'd love not to have to battle to find a way out of a career I hate and to live in more financial comfort. I wish we could travel more often and that I'd had more fun in my twenties. But actually I wouldn't change a thing because my children would never have been born and I wouldn't have been able to spend as much time with my DM before she died.

What I do want though is for my DCs to have lots of information about their options and how to achieve their ambitions which is something I never had being the child of working class parents with low aspirations.

In a way yes I think I made bad choices but if I hadn't made those choices my life would be totally different and who knows if it would be better or worse.

Sometimes I do think oh if I'd done xxx instead of xxx I could be lying in the Bahamas right now etc but there's no way of knowing whether that would have happened. I try not to dwell too much because like you say you can't change it anyway!

I do often think about how different my life would be if I had taken other paths, so while some of my choices were bad they have lead to good things.

There is an excellent book about choices and how it can change lives so much its called Replay by Ken Grimwood one of my favourite books ever very thought provoking

There are some things I would do differently if I had my time again, but do not think I made bad choices in most things. Hindsight is of course the only perfect science.