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Should have utilized my post-college years before marriage, more productively. I applied to graduate school, got accepted, but never attended. I spent the time going to parties, drinking and socializing with friends. “Education is a great equalizer.”
Should have started investing for retirement earlier to take advantage of my employer’s 401k plan. I started investing in the late ‘80’s at the urging of my late Father, but “could have” and “should have” started probably 3-4 years earlier. You live and you learn, in life.
“Time is your friend in the stock market, allows for compounding and for an investor to ride out market volatility.”
The best strategy that I found was arranging my class schedule so I could leave campus an hour early each day to go to work.
When I graduated I weighed 95 pounds, I was a short skinny kid.
Maya Angelou said that no one has a happy childhood.
What I regret is my lack of direction in high school. I was a six foot, 180 pound footballer which was great for my self-image. I learned to tolerate pain and to continue to perform while hurt, important life lessons. Out of the ten or so fellow graduates of my high school with whom I remain in contact, 8 were on the football team with me.
But you should understand that I did not appreciate some folks calling me ‘Lurch’ or a big lummox. My school had classrooms on the first three floors so in homeroom it was fun to throw kids out the lawn level windows. They then had to walk a half block to the door to get back in, which made them late. One kid thrown out often was nicknamed “Weasel”.
What folks don’t realize is that size really didn’t matter that much, but some folks did avoid messing with me. In one dustup outside of a community center after a dance, some thugs looked for the larger kids to beat on and I was medium to large size. My high school was so far away I took three buses, transversing three different ethnic areas where is was best to tread lightly. It was a parochial school right next to a housing project so it was not uncommon for a rock to come sailing over a fence when I getting down in a three-point stance. There was a historic street fight at the bus stop across from the school against the project kids with about 15 people throwing fists at the same time.
I avoided fights because I did not want to be like a classmate who had a knife scar from his temple to his upper lip. This was the sixties and youths then carried box cutters or K-55s and I threw my knife away because I felt it made me more likely to be involved in a knife fight. I never bullied anyone but came to believe that everyone gets bullied along the line.
What I regret is not focusing more on academics than I did. I could have made it to the Ivy league as an undergraduate and my work career would have had a different trajectory. College was a reverse of high school where I became an academic achiever and an athletic wannabee. Weasel ended up a doctor married to a doctor with a kid at Columbia, so who got the last laugh?
I would have certainly started traveling sooner, even if it was one week a year. I retired in 2020 at 66.7 years and my husband retired December 1st at 66. 4. We saved so that we could retire and enjoy travel. Could never convince my husband to take more than a weekend's "vacation". We had planned on moving to Florida in April 2023, but my husband had 2 syncope episodes the first week of March. He was hospitalized for 3 days and we are now going through the chaos of scheduling cardiology appts. 2 months out and tests at the same time frame.
Take one (or more) vacations once a year. Don't wait to start your bucket list until unexpected health issues start.
1) I regret the investments I didn’t make. I was too risk averse. Even though my investment portfolio is strong now, it could’ve and should’ve been so much better.
2) I regret some of the relationship decisions I made in the past. I was dumb, only cared about how beautiful and hot they were instead of looking at what was really important, which is character, intelligence, reliability, etc. I think about all the chances I had to be with good women, only to choose someone else who ended up not being good for me.
But wow, it’s been a wonderful and great ride so far. That’s life, win some, lose some.
Right now it would be this old house. Loved this house ever since I was a child. I rented it first. Nothing ever broke down. Now that I’ve owned it for over 20 years, it is one thing after another. Right now electrical issues.
I did only get a 15 year mortgage so it’s been paid off for years.
I think college was wasted on me. If I could do it over, I would have learned some office skills and traded off between working and traveling. I wish I had traveled when I was younger.
More recently, I wish my husband would have stayed at our local NCI cancer center for his treatment, instead of insisting on snowbirding as usual. The medical care he got in Alabama was sub-par.
I wish I would have got a government job. Talk about the gravy train.
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