YEAH! What Gigantaur said!
I only rushed into one of mine that the only problem I had with it was I wanted it bigger and neater so I got a cover up.
I take at least 2 years to decide upon each tattoo and some I take much longer than that. I decided at 19 to get a Cornish cross done on my arm but only got it done last year (partly because I couldn't afford it before (it is big and intricate).
"pink hair /green hair/ baggy jeans/ excessive goth eyeliner/ Free Nelson Mandela T-shirt/ CND badge/ embarrassing jumper (delete as applicable) which you first sported at around the same time?..."
Um... Not done, not done, big deal (still wear), not done, if I was old enough to have had one I'd still be proud, still have one, every jumper I have is embarrassing but none of my tattoos are to me.
I suppose it depends what sort of person you are. I think Gigantaur summarised my thinking on this perfectly.
I did not rush into anything, some people do, most don't. I know the next 5 tattoos I'm having done one has been planned for a decade but will be costly (had smaller ones done since thinking of this one), one is in memory of my late mum and I had planned for years before her death (rather morbidly) but it is still too raw to get done, one is still a relatively new idea for me and I want to wait a year or so to see how it really sits with me and the last I'm still thinking about where to have it done (on my body, the artist is a no-brainer) and whether or not the colours will age well (using one of my older ones as a test for that). Before some of them are done I will need touch-ups done on a couple of my older tattoos.
Yes they can look faded and nasty but at the same time you can maintain them, restore them, edit them and have them returned to past glory.
I've had one redone as I mentioned before. My next oldest is over 12 year old now and I will have it retouched in about 5 to 10 years and that'll keep for another 20 years at least. I don't plan to have anything done to it except to recolour and re-edge it and to correct one tiny (about 2mm across) bit that was missed (red ink on red skin whilst bleeding... there was always going to be at least a little bit missed and the artist did offer to redo that bit at the time unfortunately I had to move before he could) so it will be exactly the same tattoo because I love it, wanted it for years before I got it and still love it.