Any regrets?

It's not strictly gymnastics related, but I thought I'd pick older members brains anyway.

Is there anything that you regret doing/not doing, that you'd like to share in the hope that younger, less experienced members can learn from your mistakes? I hear this sort of thing all the time from unhappy people, so I thought I'd ask a more fulfilled goup of people

For example If I could start again, I would have:

read more, played rugby at school, made more freinds, and not been a total puss for my first 13 or so years.

Working out and eating properly sooner are pretty obvious...Ideally it would have been gymnast from the age of 3, but clearly that was never going to happen. I'm after applicable decisions to look out for, and I suppose advice...?

Thanks in advance, very interested to see what people come up with

36-year old brain here... This is an interesting question but ultimately one that I can't answer - I don't see any of the choices I did or didn't make as mistakes. Whatever I did in my life took me where I am now and I wouldn't want to be in any other place. Sure, like anybody I sometimes think 'what if...' I mean, I'm really passionate about a number of things and I only started taking them seriously very recently so sure, sometimes I think 'where would I be if I had started gymnastics at a young age' or 'what if I had known about paelo eating 15 years ago'... I'm sure I would have been stronger, more flexible, more skilled, and overall healthier than I am now but on the other hand - people change, priorities change. I'm pretty sure that 15 years ago I made choices that felt right for me at that time (or I just followed my instincts anyway).

I believe that as long as you are true to yourself you will end up in exactly the right place at the right time, doing what you want to do.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that if you feel you should regret something, it's not following your heart when you had the choice to do so.

[/semi-philosophical rant]

I have a few regrets, as I'm sure many people do. I certainly regret not discovering bodyweight training sooner. That would have made an incredible difference in my life. Paying more attention to mathematics when I was younger would have been a nice benefit, too. Those are two things that were within my grasp to change. Of course, I have some non-personal changes I wish I could have made. For instance, see certain events with certain people, but everyone has that; you can't see everything coming.

I'm sure the more I think, the more regrets I will have. I think the best thing people can do is find their passions in life and enjoy it to the fullest. And, don't forget, as Gregor puts it, "Work is more than talent."

18 years old here and I live my life by the 'no regrets'

Some Rudyjard Kipling for this thoughts:

IF you can keep your head when all about you

Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,

If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,

But make allowance for their doubting too;

If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,

Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,

Or being hated, don't give way to hating,

And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;

If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;

If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster

And treat those two impostors just the same;

If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken

Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,

Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,

And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings

And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,

And lose, and start again at your beginnings

And never breathe a word about your loss;

If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew

To serve your turn long after they are gone,

And so hold on when there is nothing in you

Except the Will which says to them: 'Hold on!'

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,

' Or walk with Kings - nor lose the common touch,

if neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,

If all men count with you, but none too much;

If you can fill the unforgiving minute

With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,

Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,

And - which is more - you'll be a Man, my son!

Just one (which I guess is okay seeing as I'm 20). I kinda wish I would have recognized what great opportunities had come my way and I passed up (coulda played university volleyball). Well, that and I wish I had stayed in gymnastics when I was a kid. I can't get those years back, but I hope I can stay in it, cuz even with what I've been doing so far, I've been having a blast.

I'm 47, sure there could be regrets than i care to think of.

Very often in life events happen that only years later you realize were turning points in your life. Choices often made without thought that wind up influencing the rest of your life.

In my low moments sometimes these key moments get relived, but with only a little perspective comes the realization that dwelling on these kind of things is truly one of the most self-destructive things a person can do. Skid row is full of regrets.

The fact is that no life has ever been lived perfectly, things happen, forks in the road come, and really who knows how it would have been had one taken the other road, things might have turned out worse.

Moments like this are why we believe in a higher power, be it God or cosmic intelligence, or simply one's higher self. Trust that, that even your mistakes have reason, that they lead you to your higher good, and move on.

Learn from the past and forget it.

Life is something that has to be accepted as much as lived.

18 years here...I've had some lost opportunity, but as a teenager, I'm so much more of a person than 5 years ago, so I can't blame myself

For my senior year English project, I actually interviewed a woman at a nursing home. Before I left, I asked her if there was anything she regretted in her life. This woman was in her early 60s, but had been in a nursing home for almost 20 years because shes paralyzed from MS. She ended up regretting not finishing her education, because she had to drop out when she was pregnant. Either way, it was sad to go into a nursing/rehabilitation home and see people whose normal adult lives had ended

I regret the pain that some of my words and actions have caused both myself and others in the past, but I do not regret the understanding I gained from looking back on those moments.

I regret the shame I feel from knowing the consequences of some of my actions earlier in life, but I am not shamed by the fact that I have made mistakes and learned from them.

Everything that I regret has been balanced by something I have gained from the experience. What I have gained does not erase what has happened, or make anything better, or make those moments somehow ok. What it does is allow me to understand other people's emotions more than I would have, and to have compassion for them. I'm not perfect, and I never will be, but I will always try. The trying is not what makes this ok, what makes it ok is that I understand and am not depressed by this.

In the end, I do not regret my regrets. I would be, more or less, incapable of accomplish the things that I am setting out to accomplish with my life without them.

Thanks for the replies everyone . Definitely some food for thought there.

And just to clarify: I'm not a friendless illiterate, but those are just some things that I could have improved upon a bit earlier, aside from our mutual interests (with the possible exception of Razz ). I enjoy having an "out there" thread every now and then to keep us on our intellectual toes(no, I don't think that the community section is full of them). This has been my break from reading Ido and Coach. S debating distance running actually.

I am 69 years old, but I don’t think I can give you an answer that will really make a difference. Sure, I can tell you that life is about letting go and getting on, but for me that is easy to say being healthy, relatively wealthy, having a beautiful family and living in a liberal democracy. The good news I can give you is that you, when you get older, will regret less while becoming more and more aware of how magical life is (of course, if you wish, you can also become bitter and sour, weighted down by this big bag full with regrets). Now, please note that I did not say when that starts. For me, it took quite a while and a wake-up call to find out about this. But, for you it may be possible to get there sooner. Sounds a bit hoky, but that is all the wisdom I have for you.