I was thinking of a good friend the other day, he's one of the few people I know who's life has just got better as he's got older.

Good job he loved, great wife, successful kids... now as he's about to retire every thing's falling into place money wise, lot's of great grandkids (most of them redheads but you can't have everything )

Few people have managed that as totally as he has. Bad decisions haunt a lot of us.

If you could rewind your life to one point, and change a decision you made and start over, what would it be?

Just one point? Hmmmm......I'll have to whittle my list down: To have never started smoking, to have never took up with a Maori whore that ended up in such a tempestuous relationship that I dropped out of uni through lack of sleep, ....actually, now that I think about it, those are the only two things that still affect me to this day; dropping out and smoking......so, not knowing what would have happened if I'd graduated, I'll have to say that starting smoking is the one thing I would wind back the clock and change.....thinking about it further, I'd probably be richer as a non-smoker than as a smoking graduate , so definitely the smoke habit.

But hang on Scead....you did not give us your point in time to change a decision!

I don't allow bad decisions 'to haunt' me, that's what turn older people into Grumpy Old Gits.

Sure, I have f@cked up a few times but I like to look forward and not backwards.

Dropping 'Technical Drawing' (top of year) for German language( bottom of year!) has proved to be pointless (apologies to our German reader)

Not going to see The Beatles in Tooting Odeon is a regret!

no regrets really. everything in life falls into place somewhere along the line, but if i were to turn the clocks back to a point and do things differently. i guess it would have to be, finishing my A levels at school and gaining a scholarship in the U.S. to become a professional golfer. had my handicap down to 5, everything in place. then as most teenagers do they find other more interesting and exciting things to do in life. ie travel, alcohol, women, sex drugs and rock n roll.

love my life, what i have and am grateful to have met my lovely wife who gave me the best thing i could ever wish for, a beautiful baby daughter.

it aint what you got, but what you make of it and the most important thing to me, is to be happy. after all you only get one bash at it!

still love the game of golf and enjoy my time spent wondering around the course taking in the fresh air, having a quiet moment to myself and reflecting on my life as a whole.

Yeah Smoking.

That one still has me screwed up.

Wish I had never seen a cigarette let alone smoked them for 15 years.

The only other thing is that pickup football game back in 1969 when i had my knee smashed.

It still bothers me sometimes and has kept me from training harder in my running.

As far as women, jobs, places I've lived, trips I've enjoyed (or not), etc, they are all good and I'd do it all again just like the first time. (ok, maybe i would've gone on that trip to Africa)

I'll go with the smoking one as well.

Of course there are probably things I could have done better....But as a father I would have to say I would rewind & change nothing ....because if I did it would change what I have now.

I would have chosen another way to walk back from the village on the 29/11/1965 JB would not have got shot and I would never have had to leave thailand, then I would never have gone to northern Ireland in 1968 and ended up spending 18 months learning how to function again, would have avoided wife no2 saved myself millions

Maybe keeping my mouth shut a little bit more would have been a good idea. The truth seems to upset some people.

However, I can't say I would change a thing. I regret some things I did as a teenager, but they eventually were the spark that turned my life around. I've had a very good life and stayed reasonably healthy. I've done pretty much everything I wanted to do in life, and the few things I didn't do don't really matter any more... even though I could do them today. I always wanted children and grandkids and I have both... and all very well adjusted without the hangups that are common with my folks and siblings. It would be nice to watch my grandkids mature, but that's not likely to happen. I'll be dead before then. I had two wives and I don't regret either marriage. Nor do I regret that they ended. Although it didn't seem so at the time, in both cases the women actually did me a favour by leaving.

I suppose mine would be saying No to that first drink and all the rest. It certainly led me to some bad decisions.

I suppose mine would be saying No to that first drink and all the rest. It certainly led me to some bad decisions.

Same here, the demon drink.

Also thinking I was indestructible and so throwing myself off and out of things, running up and down silly hills and a whole lot of daft testosterone injected PT, that has left me an orthopaedic wreck.

My biggest mistake was choosing to go to the wrong college. I went to a place which gave students total freedom and I couldn't handle it.

Another, letting a toxic relationship with an insane sibling bother me emotionally for decades.

Also, a missed connection from a guy I was very close to growing up who I met briefly later on after a gap of several years, and there was definitely something going on but nothing happened, so I will always wonder what would have happened if I had been more aggressive.

So I guess I can't say no regrets exactly.

I hate to think of the potential relationships I missed through lack of aggressiveness, or just plain being dumb.

A few years back my Mother said something like "I wish you'd married Miss X instead of that awful woman you did".

I replied that it had never occurred to me that Miss X had any interest me in at all, and she said, "it was obvious to everybody she was in love with you".

Sorry mate, if she wouldn't tell you her real name, your first impressions were probably right.

Sorry mate, if she wouldn't tell you her real name, your first impressions were probably right.

Naybe she was Malcolm's daughter and it WAS her real name?

I thought the " X" part was ok, It was the first name " Miss" bit that was dodgy

It was merely an attempt to keep her name safe from the uncouth.

Edit: Alright, her name was Veronica McCarthy.

Well in that case you could have PM'd me with the name, and just left Harcourt in the dark

I wish I could've done college earlier. Other than that I think it's not useful to look back. Hindsights is 20/20 and if you are looking back you won't see the forest in front.

I wish I could've done college earlier. Other than that I think it's not useful to look back. Hindsights is 20/20 and if you are looking back you won't see the forest in front.

This is along the lines of " Life is not a rehearsal ". Sad but true

I wish I could've done college earlier. Other than that I think it's not useful to look back. Hindsights is 20/20 and if you are looking back you won't see the forest in front.

This is along the lines of " Life is not a rehearsal ". Sad but true

It makes me better to think of it as "Life is what happens when you are making other plans." Lennon.

Maybe keeping my mouth shut a little bit more would have been a good idea. The truth seems to upset some people.

Now ain't that the truth. Couldn't agree more.

"If you could rewind your life to one point, and change a decision you made and start over, what would it be?

"

(Can't quote first post)

Apart from the first cigarette as others have mentioned. I really don't think that I would want to change anything, it could turn out worse.

I hate to think of the potential relationships I missed through lack of aggressiveness, or just plain being dumb.

A few years back my Mother said something like "I wish you'd married Miss X instead of that awful woman you did".

I replied that it had never occurred to me that Miss X had any interest me in at all, and she said, "it was obvious to everybody she was in love with you".

That used to bother me when I was stuck in some logging camp for a month or more with no female company.

There were several ladies that I thought might have been Mrs Right had we met at a different time in our lives. It's funny about the twists and turns in one's life. I somethings think that life is a series of doors that we choose to go through every day. Depending on which door you choose it will lead you on an entirely different path.

I suppose one regret is not having the knowledge about certain things that i have now. Not that im proclaiming to be wise. Just with some things i would have had a better judgment about. In saying that, looking back, some of those things i did in rash judgment proved to be very entertaining. If i leave out a few negative things, i can honestly say even at my age, my life has been one heck of an adventure.

Hmm..actually I regret not appreciating myself enough. Something i still tend to do, but not so much. I look back at photos and I can see an attractive young woman. At the time however, i was full of hang ups. Didnt appreciate my looks or body and compliments were never taken seriously. Didnt appreciate my skills or abilities, thought i was never good enough. Sad to not appreciate what you have, when you have it. Have made more concerted efforts in present times to be more appreciative of what i have, rather than what i believe im lacking in.

I'd have laid off the recreationals and gone to University (if they'd have me).

nah...I'm a bit of a fatalist and believe that things would always reach the same present point, if maybe by a different route...

maybe...if Asperger's syndrome would've been recognized as a disorder back in the 50's I wouldn't have been kicked around so much; it's quite remarkable that I emerged from it all relatively unscathed...meaning that I make more money than anyone that I know who were considered to be 'well adjusted' back in the old days...

I could always write better than anyone that I knew...maybe an Asperger's idiot savant...there were also those that refused to believe that I graduated in mechanical engineering ('quite simply, there's no one that could finish that program when they were drunk all the time like you were...'...'you fool, even if you were to study yer ass off the specter of failure would still hang over you; one must anesthesize, one must drink!')

lookin' forward to what the end has in store

Smoking and nothing else

Life is a long (hopefully) tortuous path with many forks on the way, turn left or right but no turning back. All those tiny little left and right turns bring us to where we are, change one of them and what is will not be any more.

I guess not smoking is probably the one change that doesn't affect your current position except that maybe if you hadn't smoked when you were young that hottie in form 5G with the big lungs would have took you behind the bike sheds. And the rest would be history as they say.

Personally I wouldn't change anything for to do so before 1985 would mean my two sons would be here on Earth and a change after might mean I'd still be stuck in the same old dead end job.

Or I might be the dead end.

I'm where I want to be and with a cool one billion in the bank I'm doing just fine, shame it ain't dollars though.