What people regret when they look back at their lives in their 30s, 40s and 50s

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

What things do people regret in adulthood? Find out how Quora users answered this question. Perhaps their experience will allow you to avoid your own mistakes.

One young man, a user, asked a question that worries many: what do people regret when they look back at their lives when they are 30, 40, 50 … years old? The question caused a lively discussion, the most interesting answers of which we will share with you today.

Lessons with the "not" particle

I think it's interesting to know what people regret before they die.

It is believed that Beethoven on his deathbed said: "Clap, friends, the comedy is over!"

Lou Costello remarked before his death: "This was the best ice cream I have ever tasted."

I want to share with you the lessons I learned from my mistakes when I was young. All of them can be designated with only one particle "not".

1. Don't buy things

Instead, invest in your life experience. Travel. Go to the girl who told you “maybe” even if she lives on the other side of the world.

Remember: life experiences and impressions, not things - this is real life.

2. Don't do what you don't want to do

You think you have time to do everything. But this is not the case. And in one not at all beautiful moment you will realize that your time is up. It's just too late. You have lived your life, but not at all the way you wanted. You were running after something alienated.

Do you have a goal? Fine. Don't miss it.

3. Don't try to please everyone

No one is more worthy of love than you. It is a pity that I remembered this too late. I wasted my time trying to win over completely strangers to me.

The money you lost can be made. But even 5 minutes of wasted time is something that you have lost forever.

4. Do not seek to establish a relationship with someone who loves another person

A relationship with a person who loves another, and this other is not you, is doomed in advance. This is a kind of black hole in which all your bright emotions and feelings will disappear, and you will only be left with emptiness. You will be lost in this and will not know how to get out.

When I fell in love with a person who did not love me, I felt like a soulless robot. And it took me too long to get back to normal.

5. Don't make promises you can't keep

… if you don't want to feel like the last bastard and constantly apologize to another person for not fulfilling your promise.

6. Don't wait for others to say yes to you

First of all, say “yes” to yourself, and the rest will answer in the affirmative a little later.

7. Don't steal paper clips from the office

It seems like a trifle. But it undermines your credibility. Be honest. Your word must truly become the Word.

8. Don't leave room in your life for things that drag you down

Don't eat junk food. Don't read third-rate news. Try to stay away from colleagues who only gossip in the hallway, trying to throw mud at everyone and everything. Don't spend time with people you don't intend to go through life with.

9. Don't be sorry

It may seem that all of the above are my regrets. But this is not the case. These are kind of tattoos for memory, which are with me to this day.

You can't go back to the past, you can't fix it, and remembering your failures and mistakes is useless and stupid.

Don't bookmark pages you've already read.

Everything will start all over again today. But remember that your tomorrow will largely depend on your today.

List of lessons

1. Invest money in a good business while you are young.
2. Be generous, but don't let people sit around your neck.
3. Travel every time you get the chance. Don't miss any opportunity.
4. Live at least a year abroad. So you will understand that the world is not limited only to your little corner.
5. Love, friendship and health care are things that cannot be postponed until later.

I think the most important thing is to just live and not give up. Always and under any circumstances.

Save your regrets for later

You ask what regrets in their thirties and forties when they look back on their lives. It is commendable that you think about this when you were young. My advice to you: find your own way, do the business to which you have a soul, and be happy. And leave your regrets for later, at 50 and 60 years old you will have enough time to think about them.

It may sound melodramatic, but no matter how happy you are, in old age you will still regret something.

Let's divide the most common regrets into three groups.

1. Mistakes you would like to avoid

When we are young, we tend to overestimate the significance of our mistakes. We think we did something irreparable, but we forget that we have a lifetime to fix everything.

When you are 50 years old, you will laugh at the many mistakes you made when you were young. You will even notice young people making the same mistakes that you have made in the past. Eventually, you will come to the realization that all mistakes and omissions, even if they left behind scars, are part of the story that makes up your life. Believe me, in 20-30 years, in the company of friends, you will make well-aimed jokes about your mistakes of youth. Your mistakes were necessary. Forgive yourself.

2. What You Could Have Done But Didn't

At 20, you regret not asking the girl you like on a date, but you are full of optimism, because you know that the right moment will still be presented to you.

As you get older, you will have a different kind of regret: you will regret the risks you didn’t dare to take and the opportunities you missed. You may be overwhelmed by doubts from the category “what if I acted differently then?”. It seems to you that your life could have turned out completely differently: you could have a big house, a cool car and a beautiful wife.

For better or worse, no one will ever know what it would be like. You, of course, can torment yourself with constant doubts and build in your head a parallel universe in which your life is ideal. But you must learn to let go of the unfulfilled.

3. The Heavy Burden of Time You Wasted

Most of all I regret the wasted time. It seems to me that I will die without seeing Machu Picchu, never having learned to speak French fluently, and never having built my own house. The older I get, the more wasted hours are added to my life. Time passes very quickly, remember this.

If you want to do something - do it now

I regret not quitting my job many years ago and going to Austria to snowboard all winter. But I am doing it now. And now I regret that I took the time to write this answer, while outside the window I am beckoned by the wonderful weather.

If you want to do something, do it now. Tomorrow may not come.

What people regret at 70

I read and am amazed that so many people have so few regrets. I am almost 70 years old, and although I am quite happy with my life, if I decided to write down all my regrets, then I would have material for a whole book. I regret my every stupid decision and rash act. I regret every opportunity I missed. The list goes on and on. I try not to regret, but I'm sure there is something to regret.

I have always been quite well off, I have a wonderful big family, and I love my wife. But I still regret that 50 years ago I did not muster up the courage and did not meet a charming girl who was sitting at the next table in the university cafeteria and smiling at me.

Life is a game

Life is a game in which there are rules and players. You know if you are losing or winning. But the game has luck, cheating and bad moves from opponents. The game is unpredictable, and what is regrettable now may play into your hands in the future. This is what makes life interesting.

Follow your dream

I regret not following my dreams when I was young. I decided that I absolutely needed to go to university. If I could believe in myself, fulfill my dreams and desires, and not only worry about how to find a good job in the future, then today my life would be completely different.

I would like to go back and talk to myself in my twenties. I would advise myself to think twice, to consider alternatives before taking on an expensive education loan, to which my soul does not lie at all. I would decide to invest the money I spent on my studies in a small business, and this would be a real school of life. Or, alternatively, I would advise myself to get another specialty, which I have always dreamed of, and would become a screenwriter. Who knows, maybe I would have given this world some kind of masterpiece if at the age of 20 I had listened to my heart and not to other people.

Spend time with children

My main regret is that I did not spend time with my children (from the moment they were born until the moment they reached their teens). I was obsessed with work and believed that it was my only important duty and responsibility to provide for my family. I was wrong.

This time cannot be returned, so now I often repeat to my adult children that I regret that I lived only by work, and I urge them not to repeat my mistake.

I was very lucky because I have a kind and loving wife who forgave me my eternal busyness and took great care of our children. But when we look at family photographs of that time, they clearly lack someone … Me.

If you have children, they should be your top priority. Attend school events, sporting events, family outings, and just about any event that matters to your children.