Thanksgiving is almost here, a chance to give unsolicited advice to nieces and nephews about how to live their lives. Probably the best advice is not to do this
But I was curious about what people think about taking more chances. I’ve read articles based on interviews with the elderly. For example
I can certainly think of turning points in my life where in retrospect I wish I had more courage and had taken a chance. One example was staying at a job I wasn’t too challenged or happy with out of college. Had I left I probably could have advanced in my career quicker and earned more those first few years (its common in my industry to give a decent raise to lure people away.
But the flip side is the “grass is always greener on the other side argument”, or, more philosophically, how the desire to have taken more chances is given by those who didn’t take the chances. What about those who took the chance, maybe they also have regrets.
Anyway, I’m wondering what people think. Do you have regrets about chances not taken? Do you advise others to do differently?
I like this question and will bring it up at our tiny TG dinner (just me, DH, DD, DS)… I think it will be the last one like that, but I am grateful for it. Our DD is in a transition period both work (recent graduated PhD), friend (most have moved away or are getting married left and right), and romantic (uncertain outcome for long term guy/friend/?).
DH will say he regrets not taking a few jobs (he could have been #16 or so at Apple, back in the day, but he stayed with the less risky job).
I really have no BIG regrets and I think about things like that pretty often while hiking. I get in my head a lot, LOL. Of course, I have the regrets of hurting people when I shouldn’t have. But for the life choices, I am good.
More than being sad over chances not taken, the advice I would honestly press is that “Things usually work out OK and you don’t HAVE to take the ““winning”” path every time.”
We don’t know that we would have been as happy as we are today if DH had gone to Apple. Maybe he would have worked too much and I would have gotten mad and found a lover (…very very unlikely, but you never know! I did stick when he worked six weeks of 36 hrs working , 9 hours sleeping over and over). He did stick when I traveled two weeks gone, two weeks home. But you can only look back and see the fork you took. You can’t see what was down that other road where you took the fork. Maybe it lead to a big swamp monster!
If you are young and responsible only to yourself and contemplating a risk, there’s no time like the present! It’s easy to rationalize not doing it – “I’ll fall behind my peers”, ,“I have so much invested in being where I am now”. But the reality is those reasons will only grow over time. All of those accommodations of a degree or two ultimately may take you further away from where you want to be if you aren’t paying attention!
It’s important to stay true to yourself. And it’s easy to think there’s plenty of time in front of you, but that may not be true.
I don’t really have regrets. My mother saw trying new things and forming new memories as some protection- having good times to look back on when times got tough.
Ok, maybe one regret is I’m not fond of where Ilive now. It’s complicated.
The roads not taken always seem so smooth and filled with sunny skies. Imho.
I try to only regret things I have actually done and left someone or something less than before. I can make amends for those and they become lessons.
Also every road lead me here and here is good. I’m alive and healthy. I have a wonderful but not perfect family too. I wouldn’t want any decision to have changed where I am and with the people I love.
Anything I would have changed in my career prep would probably have changed the basic makeup of my family (either not met my husband, or else met him but put off having kids longer, etc) and I wouldn’t want to change anything there. So there’s really no way to say I have regrets about my choice in career prep. But if I were advising someone else I might suggest at least thinking about working for a year in a professional field in between undergrad and grad school rather than going straight to grad school so that if you get partially in to your grad program and realize that you hate research you don’t feel stuck.
My oldest graduated from undergrad this past spring and I keep encouraging her to get out more and do more exploring and have fun and meet people and join the outing club and go hiking or take yoga or take a cooking class or one of many other options in her area and she’s a total homebody and honestly I pretty much was, too, at her age and I remember the burden that having nearly every option of a life path open was … almost like a paralysis of choices. It’s almost easier to have very little free time and you have to pick between spending your one free night a week that isn’t already allocated staying home and watching Netflix or taking Tae Kwon Do or joining the community choir but those are really the only serious options.
I regret not pivoting my career sooner - I was afraid of what could happen to me professionally if the transition would not work out. Rats. I am really enjoying what I am doing!
So many, many forks in the road. I can go back to a major decision (eg coin toss for which residency) but then I could go back one, two steps further or forward. Whenever I think about it I figure out that there are so many paths to follow and in this life I have tkaen the ones that have led to who I am, who I am with and where i am. Would my life have been better with other forks- who knows.
Regarding chances. Some conscious decisions were made along the way, weighing pros and cons. No regrets for the probability of losing what I had even though some things given up (obscure intentionally).
I can think of some regrets/wonder what would have happened if I took another fork in the road but then I wouldn’t have my family and my three fabulous daughters so can’t really regret the choices I did make.
I did choose to stay at home with them when the place I worked (loved) merged and became a very unpleasant place. I never went back, other than some consulting on and off – much more off than on – and I have some regrets about not jumping back full time somewhere else.
But many can. We have always advised our S that one of the best times to consider taking a risk is just out of college when most are single and portable. He’s taken our advise to heart and I have to say he seems more at ease with risk taking than we ever were/are.
Like you suggest, the best advice is probably no advice. ?
But I would find it difficult to advise anyone based on personal regret of not doing something. How can you know how things would have worked out if you had made that choice years ago?
In the rare instances I would advise, it is based on something that has gone well for me. For example, having a life partner that began in college has been the best thing that has ever happened to me. I was advised I was too young. No. It’s been great.
So, when a young couple may be on the fence about committing, and I clearly see a good connection, I softly encourage it without coming across as “advice.”
I’m happy—I really have no regrets and am glad that the forks and choices made have given me a wonderful spouse and great kids.
Sure, things could have been great if other choices were made as well, but I only get to live my one life and it’s enough for me.
Agree that life is much less complicated if folks tell the truth so they don’t have to remember what they’ve told different folks along the way. It would be exhausting to me to live that way.
I used to have vague regrets about having gotten ill and not graduating college in 3 years, but over time, I have come to realize that I wouldn’t have met my H if I graduated early because the law school I went to, where I met him, wasn’t open until the year I did graduate. I would have gone to a different school.
I regret not traveling with my children when they were young but my H is sort of agoraphobic so it was impossible. That’s about my only real regret beyond taking out 401 (k) loans for things I didn’t really need.
If you want to create your own stockpile of regrets, spend your holidays offering unsolicited advice to the younger generation. Lol. I don’t think my advice would be better than the advice they’re getting from their parents, and if I go about giving unsolicited advice to my siblings’ kids, they’re likely to return the favor. That, I’d probably regret.
