Most of my biggest regrets are to do inhibition based on morality. If I could go back I would do a lot more stuff that people made me feel bad for considering but ultimately didn't matter. so many missed opportunities over fuck all. I spent the years I should have been living to indulgence try not to be come corrupted and the years I should be settling down trying to claw back the opportunities I missed earlier.

I would try much less hard to live.

I'd learn to figure out how to know when girls were trying to shag me much earlier, and I'd start investing in my pension at 18 - I'd probably be retired now, even if we weren't playing "now I know to buy amazon at $1/share" time travel rules.

I'd like to say I wouldn't become a cheflad, as those years were stressful, painful, and a misery, but at the same time I don't think I'd be the same person if I'd avoided all of that.

Buy bitcoin.

I would tell myself to get a fucking clue and figure out a little earlier what I wanted to do with my life. I did well in school and even went to uni, but without any proper sense of direction for a long time. I did a Mickey Mouse degree first, which afforded me loads of free time to party, but it only hit me when I graduated how limited my employability was. I then went back to uni in my mid-20s to do a proper degree, so I really only started working a full-time job in earnest at age 28.

The thing about Mickey Mouse degrees is, nobody will give it to you straight what a bad decision it is (besides almost all friends and family questioning your good judgement). Least of all faculty who teach it, because to admit that it doesn't qualify you for a lot of hands-on stuff would be an admission of their own irrelevance. So you are fed success stories of people who somehow started their own company with that degree or who ended up in middle management, but the reality of it is, many people with a liberal arts degree work shit jobs with very little room for advancement, and barely make £25-30K a year.

I've thought about this a lot (which probably says a lot about my life). My biggest questions are how far would I have to go back to be able to change anything that mattered and if I went back that far, if I would be old enough to have the agency to actually effect any change.

Taking a more myopic view I think >>442971's got the right idea. I might not end up having a fantastic life either way but I think I would have been a damn sight happier if I'd spent my life doing what I wanted rather than what I thought was expected of me.

I would definitely spend a lot less time trying to do the right thing or please others, and a lot more time being essentially a selfish cunt.

Sage for a bitterness that surprises even me.

>>442977
I think if you go back about 10 or 15 years or so, possibly more, a lot of people had it drummed into them that they had to go to university in order to get ahead but not the importance of what they studied or where. If you were from a middle class family or not the first generation to go to university then you'd have been given a bit of guidance and direction but if you were from a working class family then your parents wouldn't be able to give you much input and most of your friends would be in exactly the same position too. I expect those from our generation jaded by their choice of degree will make sure their own children don't repeat the same mistakes they did.

On topic, the main things I'd do differently would be to not pass up so many opportunities with lasses during my teen years and I should have gone into drugs rather than finance.

Do we seriously have a wordfilter for drugs?

>>442985

Yeah I think the medical line of work is wordfiltered to druggy-wugs due to some inane drama eight or nine years ago. Here, let me try - drugs.

>>442984
>>442985
>>442986

Although to be entirely fair I would have been a lot happier in my mid-twenties if I'd got seriously into drugs instead of getting married, so saying you wish you'd rather got into drugs than into the whole medical thing entirely resonates with me even if it's not what you meant. Innit.

Depending on what mood I am in when I wake up in the morning, I am either quite content with how things are or I wish I had done everything differently, so the truth is probably in between.

I sort of wish I had done things differently education wise. I got a so called mickey mouse degree and I know I could have easily got something more respectable. But, things have sort of worked out alright. To be honest, I regret taking work so seriously when I graduated. I tried hard to get something 'proper' after panicking about income and needing to do something right away when in fact I should have bummed around in a few non-starter jobs here and there to get a feel for things and then get stuck in, working on passions/hobbies as I went. Ultimately, I got made redundant about a year in to a grad job at 24, ended up becoming a cinema usher and an indie on a zero-hours contract (still the best job I've ever had to be honest) and I worked my way up in the arts to where I am now, doing a job I really enjoy and what is even somewhat degree related (certainly things that I have picked up outside of work are).

Like others have said, in retrospect, there were chances with lasses that I've missed and I do think about them from time to time.

I wish I had been better to my friends.

I wish I had been less self conscious to just try stuff. When you're younger it feels like there is such a rush to get stuck into the grind, but looking back, I could have tried out so many different things, if they hadn't worked out I wouldn't really be any worse off today.

I wish I had at least had a go at emigrating when I was young enough, once you hit 30 it's over pretty much.

The horrid one to admit, is that when me and my now fiance were about a seven or eight months into our relationship, we nearly broke up. Sometimes I think that would have been best, but I'm too involved now.

On a lighter note, I regret not sticking with guitar as I'd probably been really good now, and I wish I had a PlayStation instead of an N64 when I was younger.

Honestly, I'd try and stay the same path, with a few changes. I'd buy bitcoin when I first heard about it on the other place. I'd also try and be more confident and take myself less seriously during my late teens.
My major regret is ghosting some of my friends and potential romantic partners, during my early 20s. Being a dick then is probably my biggest thing I'd like to do-over.

I'm in two minds about the degree thing - I did music at a respectable uni, and did really well; while it has no direct use in getting a career, I would say that a first is a first when it comes to a lot of graduate jobs, though I didn't go down that route anyway so perhaps that's irrelevant.

But I had the time of my life at uni, and learned a lot about myself and really how to live life independently in the process - I don't think my other plan, doing an IT degree at Staffordshire, would have yielded quite the same results as being immersed in the arts and culture crowd.

I think had I pursued any of my more 'sensible' options for uni or training, IT, drugs, pilot apprenticeship (they used to just give those away) I'd have stayed in my shell a lot more, which wouldn't have been good. Maybe I'd have conquered that naturally with age, or maybe I'd have achieved the same thing by spending a year picking fruit in Australia before I dove into my lucrative career, but I'm not so sure.

I certainly don't regret my pointless degree, but then I suppose it's a lot easier to say that when you found decent money in a career anyway.

and I really should have realised that Emma wasn't just joking around when she grabbed my knob in the Metrocentre to stop my hiccups. It worked too

I have to disagree with all the "mickey mouse degree" lads. For the right person, that time can be essential. I studied the humanities, but I came from the kind of background where acclimatising to the education system was just as important as the content of the degree. What I got from those few years with few to no money pressures to just read books and think about things was (is) so immensely valuable to me. It gave me the chance to develop a system of values and a reason to bother living at all. I would not be studying what I do now, which is more in the medical field, were it not for that opportunity and a few sympathetic tutors.

Of course I could have done more with the benefit of already knowing everything I've learned, but in terms of how I've done with the one shot I've had? In my opinion, I've learned and grown at a pretty extraordinary pace. I've worked extremely hard, been fairly smart and strategic with my choices, and been resilient when things have called for it.

If I have any regret at all, it's that I wish I could have taken better care of myself throughout the process. I've cracked the problem of how to make something of myself and achieve things, but it was often at the expense of my mental health and ability to enjoy what I've built. Sometimes I still don't sleep enough and allow myself to get far too anxious. I feel guilt when I'm not working or doing something I know I enjoy, or even when I'm simply doing nothing because I need to 'recharge'. Rationally, I know I'm being counterproductive, but when you've been in enough sink-or-swim situations it's very hard not to feel that sense of urgency all the time.

I don't mean for this to sound too much self-care wank, because most problems in life can't be solved with scented candles and bubble baths, but I think the next challenge for me will be figuring out how to be equally as disciplined with fulfilling my own needs and treating myself as a human being as I am with doing things in the 'external' world.

Shag Samantha, she was well up for it but I bottled it when I'd only fingered her a couple of times. Missed opportunity of my life that, fuck sake.

The folly of youth eh.

>>442991

Well I studied geography as my first degree, and while the leaflet and the information online suggested a fascinating generalist approach to the entire world and its interconnectedness in terms of geology, ecology, social science and economic science, the trouble with it is, you learn none of those things outright. Exams and courses are a piece of piss in geography compared to somebody studying actual economics or even proper ecology. This lack of profound, in-depth hard-skill knowledge in one particular area is the main problem.

That means that you will compete with geologists or biologists/ecologists for the jobs in that field, all of whom know more than you do. The same with economic geography, in that you are going to have to convince a prospective employer that you can do the same kind of work as a studied economist. Which you really can't.

It's a risky proposition, and for most people, it doesn't pay off. The wide variety of different fields that people end up going into isn't generally by choice (although they tried to sell that as a key advantage of a geography degree), but out of necessity, because job vacancies where they are specifically looking for a geographer are very thin on the ground.

I guess I will tell my own kids one day that they need to think beyond the actual experience of being at uni. There's going to be a lot of fun and games for them, but they will need to study something that gives them widely-accepted hard-skill qualifications, with immediate employability.

>>442993
I always assumed a geography exam would be like, "What's the capital of Albania? What country is Samarkand in? Colour in Mali on this map." You know, proper geography. Not dicking about with types of gravel.

>>442993

>but they will need to study something that gives them widely-accepted hard-skill qualifications, with immediate employability.

I just don't think most young people are capable of comprehending this. I certainly wasn't. When you're a teen, the future seems miles away and you have the sense that something will work itself out. Even growing up poor I thought like this, just sort of assumed I'd get "a job" and make enough to at least buy a little house and a car.

>>442995
>you have the sense that something will work itself out.

I don't know if I'm an exception, but I grew up in a modest working class household and I just never had this sense at all. Actually my teenage years were pretty bleak because I was deeply concerned with what kind of adult I would become and I had no idea whatsoever of what the future might hold -- thinking about the future felt like looking into a black void.

A lot of heartache and drinking problems from age 16 to 22 could have been averted if I'd have been given any indication my life would turn out alright. Maybe that's the reason I put in such maniacal effort when I cleaned up at around 24 years old.

>>442994

>I always assumed a geography exam would be like, "What's the capital of Albania? What country is Samarkand in?

That's most people's conception, but the surprising thing is, you don't learn anything like that in a matter-of-fact kind of way. And if you do, it's the byproduct of a paper on the socioeconomic regional effects of globalisation on Bangladesh's textile industry that you will have thrown together for a seminar.

What you do learn is to gather loads of information in a short time and compile it into a research paper that will then benefit somebody else's decision making process, but you will in the end only parrot all the economics lingo in it from your sources, without gaining much of an understanding of what it actually means and how it fits into the bigger picture of economic theory and research. And you will then more than likely draw a blank when somebody quizzes you on the finer points of it.

In short, it's a job that a trained economist can probably do better and with more of their own in-depth perspective, founded in their hands-on knowledge of economics, which (unlike a geographer) they sat through gruelling four-hour exams at uni to acquire.


>>442995

>I just don't think most young people are capable of comprehending this

I don't know if that's true. Some of my friends at uni who were studying to become doctors or lawyers or even business executives seemed to have a very good comprehension of it, and a good few of them knew from start to finish that they wanted to go on to build bridges with their engineering degree, or be a barrister like their dad.

What is true enough is that many students who were studying geography with me had as little of a clue what they really wanted to do with their lives at that point in time as I did. The realisation that they had been going down somewhat of a less than ideal path, and that professors had for want of a better word been lying to them about the abundance of career options after their degree, only dawned on most of them during the final stages when they really had to get serious about figuring out what was going to be next for them.

I know the exact girl I would get pregnant as a teenager and know that she'd keep the baby dooming both of us. I can wear all the condoms I like but eventually I'd go raw and she was sloppy with her birth control.

>hurr durr why don't you just not have sex

Because I have no self-control and I'm certainly not going to think clearly when I'm surging with teenage hormones. Do you really think I'm going to sit there between the ages of 16-19 knowing that there's this girl gagging for it and not put my dick in it? The only thing that stopped me was stupidity, teenage awkwardness and oneitis.

As for the rest:
I did a proper degree™, still had fun and found it mostly easy but it ended up as useless in my actual career. I think the Americans have it right on this where they give their kids a more rounded education given that in actuality it's impossible to know the right choice for both yourself and the future marketplace. I'd study philosophy next time, maybe do my master in economics because it's quite interesting rather than waste it on proper hard stuff before getting into my current job. Then I'd whinge on the internet that if only I had studied carpentry I'd be a millionaire to ruin the lives of impressionable young people.

But in reality >>442975. Get me out of this goddamn nightmare timeline where I didn't throw every second into the acquisition of more bitcoin. All else is irrelevant.

>>442988
>I wish I had at least had a go at emigrating when I was young enough, once you hit 30 it's over pretty much.

I think about this sometimes myself but then realise that at every point in my 20s I thought it was a stupid and wasteful idea. That I mostly spent my 20s masturbating and laughing at crudely drawn cartoons on the internet is irrelevant. In all likelihood I would've fallen in love with a place/person and ended up doing dumb immigrant work whole being trapped somewhere ghastly like Italy where I have loud neighbours and family constantly trying to socialise with me. Every night when I close my eyes I would beg for the sweet silence of death as my Italian supermodel wife snores next to me.

>>442998

> I think the Americans have it right on this where they give their kids a more rounded education given that in actuality it's impossible to know the right choice for both yourself and the future marketplace.


True to some extent; but there are certain academic fields and degrees which over time have a proven track record of enabling their graduates to attain good proper incomes and respectable professional careers.

Sociology and other liberal arts or human sciences have never been a real winning ticket in that respect, and incomes and long-term career success vary widely. And while the demand for people like engineers will always fluctuate depending on where we are in the economic cycle, it is in the end a degree with which most people tend to do quite well in their lives.

If you see your degree as a long-term investment and compare your possible lifetime earnings between different types of degrees, then some of them will always come out on top, while you will almost always do much more poorly long-term with some other degrees.

And even if your dream of building bridges after your civil engineering degree doesn't materialise, you are still a civil engineer with solid training, and can probably apply yourself to other similar fields.

>>442997
>be a barrister like their dad.

It's generally because their dad is something like a barrister that they have already made these decisions. Well off parents tend to encourage their children to pick a potential career fairly early on and then push them to succeed along that path.

>>442999
>but there are certain academic fields and degrees which over time have a proven track record of enabling their graduates to attain good proper incomes and respectable professional careers

Yes but we're talking about individuals rather than people who choose to do an accounting degree. There's a number of ways you're being stupid here but I think the biggest is that you're trying to direct people where you think they should go rather than what they want to do.

It's also how poor people think given the Arts & Humanities are now dominated by the rich and therefore you're automatically wrong.

>>443006

I was arguing in terms of the likelihood of somebody being able to earn a good living with their degree and having a successful professional career.


> you're trying to direct people where you think they should go rather than what they want to do.

Even if somebody wants to follow their heart, which in itself is never really a bad thing, it can't hurt to keep an eye on employability. I'm sure some people are fascinated by the idea of studying archaeology or sinology, but you should ask yourself if doing something that interests you is still worth doing if it means your career opportunities will be a bit shit. Not every archaeologist will be a real-life Indiana Jones.

The best way to go is probably to ask yourself what three or four things you could imagine studying, and then look into which of those you're most likely to earn a decent living with. If you then have to decide between sinology, archaeology, and English literature, that may not solve the problem, but it's then probably worth looking beyond those choices. And even if you really don't care about how much money you will make in your working life, it should still be a consideration.

>>442988
Why do you think you can't emigrate once you're over 30?

>>443011

That's the cutoff for a working holiday visa for Australia and NZ. There are of course other paths but none as broad.

>>443012
Ah, I guess. I'd like to give Australia a try. Looks good for an outdoorsy person. Gold coast looks like California, without some of terrible bits.

>>443012
How does a working holiday visa translate to being able to permanently emigrate? I thought you were supposed to fuck off back home when your visa expires.

>>443016

Once you've got your foot in the door it's a lot easier to translate that into permanent residency. I have a number of friends who went this way - they spent their two-ish years of that visa getting into jobs that would count as specialist immigration jobs - teaching was the big one a decade ago, for whatever reason. Though my friend's wife managed to get NZ citizenship as a chef, so who knows.

>>443016
Australia has a points system where being over 30 will disadvantage you. Still perfectly possible though given that as a first worlder with an education you can go almost anywhere you want.

>>443014
You're not going to be able to afford a decent house in Oz either, it's the real global emergency. Pay is higher but you'd better hope you can jump into a career in the mining sector because the economy is geared around it.

I had the option of moving with an Australian lass just before corona hit but fucked it off as I'd just end up stuck in Perth after abandoning my career. With shit internet.

Everyone acts like Oz or NZ are these utopian promised lands, but I really don't see it. Australia is pretty backward in a lot of ways, the cost of living is through the roof in ways that would make moangy Londoners blush, and there just doesn't seem to be much to do out there once the novelty of nice weather wears off. England might be miserable most of the year round, but we've all of Europe on our doorstep, and even povvos can afford a Ryanair to Krakow or whatever to get trolleyed.

Couple of my mates are moving/have moved to Canada, and it seems nice in fairness but much the same issues apply really. And with Canada, it's basically a shite cop-out way of living in America without actually living in America, but for all intents and purposes you still live in America so there's all the bullshit of living in America to deal with. It is basically America.

Wish I'd treated the ex a bit nicer.

>>443020

I think a lot of the appeal of any of these places is simply that they're not Britain, and you also everyone already speaks english.

Most of the friends I know who moved across the world simply wanted to be across the world from where they grew up, and I get that.

NZ is fucking stunning, though, I do envy my friends who live there. Australia would be good personally for me as I'm into Japanese cars and offroad stuff and there's a big scene there for both for what should be mostly obvious reasons, and the weather would be nice, I don't know if the novelty would wear off, honestly.

It doesn't feel, to me at least, like a move like that would really, truly improve my life, though. I think I'd get much of the same sense of freshness and new experience from just moving to the middle of the countryside in England - and I likely will do that eventually. Even if I kept the same job and the same life, being able to wake up to a field and some hills rather than 400 other houses would be enough, and it'd mean I can still visit my grandma every week.

I shouldn't have burned bridges with my best friend when I was 15. I've never had a best friend since.

>>443022

I lived in the U.S. for a year when I was a younglad. And while it was definitely an experience that has shaped and influenced my way of thinking for my entire life, I think people just have all these naïve ideas about what it really means to be in a foreign country for more than a two- or three-week holiday. I have a few friends who spent time on a work visa in Australia or NZ, in once case even Malaysia. And they all eventually returned home. They really enjoyed their time abroad, but they came to realise that living in Britain really isn't so bad.

I've been to countries on three continents, but these days, I couldn't imagine living anywhere else. For me, it's enough knowing that I could visit all kinds of countries again anytime I like (once covid is over anyway), but that I will always have a home to come back to.

Canada seems to be a really popular destination. Everyone I know who has emigrated has gone there, apart from one who went to NZ.

None of them have come back. One of them was a mopey fucker until he moved to Canada and now he has a massive house, a fiance and a six figure salary. Not jealous at all...

I think it's the idea of living somewhere barely populated that appeals to me. The main thing I realised over lockdown is that it's over people that are bringing me down. During the first one when people were taking it seriously, I went for a walk and didn't see another person for over two hours, going for a drive was bliss as there were barely any cars on the roads, no bikes. It's the happiest I had been in ages.

Yesterday I went out and within five minutes had seen about twenty people. I gave up on the walk and just punched myself in the head a bit. Need help lads.

>>443025
Having previously spent a good 1-2 years of my life in Canada, it is pretty nice and I would happily move if able in the future. The only thing that really puts me off is that their housing market is even worse than ours right now.

>>443026

What did you do and whereabouts did you live?

>>443026

Is it that bad outside the cities? I saw some places listed near Calgary for about $500,000 CAD which when converted is about £280,000 and they were fucking huge. The basements had more square footage than most people's houses here.

>>443065

The catch is if you're outside the cities, you might as well be living in the middle of the Sahara. It's a lifestyle some people are just fine with but I'd imagine for most Brits, a bit if a shock to the system to have to plan for a two hour long journey basically any time you go anywhere.

>>443072

I really like the sound of that though. Stockpile and get loads in and not have to venture anywhere for weeks if you don't want to. Just hang out in your big house and wait for the cold.

Maybe I have a romanticised view of the country though and driving doesn't bother me. My parents are 140 miles away and the closest friend to me is 40 miles so most things aren't around the corner.

>>443081
Just move to somewhere like Roos if you want to be in the middle of nowhere.

https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/88316449#/

>>443081

I think like this too - I'm mostly a hermit anyway and I will often drive for hours just to relax. A house in the middle of nowhere would suit me just fine. The only thing stopping me at the minute is that I still need to be physically present at work most of the time, so as much as I do like driving a long commute would probably get old. Having said that we have pilots that live three or four hours away from their base even though they're not supposed to.

On the other hand though, there's plenty to like about being ten minutes drive from a burger at all times. I think I'd definitely miss takeaway delivery and same-day amazon. Though maybe those are two vices better left out of my reach.

>>443082

Not cold enough.

I think I'd have encouraged my parents to get me into more after school clubs, ones that would be useful in later life. Martial arts, gymnastics, dancing, things like that.

>>442970
Act retarded, autistic deaf and anti-social.

>>443874

Lift weights, fight don't fright, stop marxism.