Things you wished you would have done when you were younger.....

[Cosmo]

Agreed. Would have never found this gig had I not been in newspapers and journalism.

 

[Buck]

• Been a harder working student in HS and college and really applied myself rather than relying on native ability.
• Taken piano and other formal musical lessons rather than learning on my own. I wish I could read and write music easily. I wish I'd learned music theory young and really internalized it.
• Been less of a drinker/party person in 20s and 30s. I realize now what a toll the exhaustion and hangovers took on my work.

 

[Songbird]

• Been a harder working student in HS and college and really applied myself rather than relying on native ability.

Same. Also, I watched Great Space Coaster as a kid and Speed Reader was a recurring guest of Gary Gnu lol ... and young impressionable me thought that that's how you read books, by zipping through them ... and it became my treacherous habit which is why I've always been a terrible reader. I still tend to read too fast and have to re-read sentences several times. It always held me up in school and hampered my learning. ****ing Speed Reader.

 

[typefitter]

We had season tickets during the Showtime era. I went to a lot of games, always got there a few hours early and walked around the Forum and ate a lot of food. Back then, Chick's sidekick was Stu Lantz ... and I had a brainstorm that the Forum concession stands should start selling Chick 'n' Stu's Chicken Stew. Would've made a fortune. If I could only go back to 1987.

 

[Songbird]

Chick 'n' Stew's Chicken Stew would have fit right in with the concession stand menus.

Then it would have been canned and sold at stores, gone national, and boom, rich!

Of course, I also thought David Rivers was going to be a good player in the NBA.

 

[playthrough]

Taken 2 weeks per year, get in the car and drive. Suitcase, golf clubs, and just go.
If I had it to do over again, the first year, I would have started west.....did Vegas and up the California coast.

My wife and I did this in our mid-20s, before kids. Flew to Vegas and spent the night, then rented a Mustang convertible and headed west to the PCH just north of LA and went from there to SF, east to Yosemite and then back through Nevada to Vegas. Plenty of stops along the way like Hearst Castle and Pebble Beach, alternating nights in hotels and campgrounds. Put well over 1,000 miles on that car over 10 days or so. It's been almost 20 years and we haven't taken a better vacation ... yet.

 

[playthrough]

Like others, I've got some of the academic guilt. Mediocre college GPA and skipped an alarming number of classes. (As I've already told my teenager many times, more than half the battle of college is just getting your tail to class.) Blew off a minor in French when all I needed were two more literature classes -- and I was the only dude in the one I did take, surrounded by a dozen girls including one that I should have made more of an effort with. Didn't dive into the college paper until my junior year, if I had started earlier I would have been able to cover the football and/or basketball teams and probably have been able to get an internship at a paper.

If I could talk to my 5-year-old self, I'd tell him to not play with ANY of his toys. They'll bring serious bucks on this thing called the internet in 40 years!

 

[Small Town Guy]

Chick 'n' Stew's Chicken Stew would have fit right in with the concession stand menus.

Then it would have been canned and sold at stores, gone national, and boom, rich!

Of course, I also thought David Rivers was going to be a good player in the NBA.

I did too! If I had any doubt that I was wrong, the 1989 Finals cemented it.

 

[typefitter]

Chick 'n' Stew's Chicken Stew would have fit right in with the concession stand menus.

Then it would have been canned and sold at stores, gone national, and boom, rich!

Of course, I also thought David Rivers was going to be a good player in the NBA.

I lost $25,000 investing in pornographic giftwrap, so... I'm not speaking from a position of strength. Like, I won't be ever again.

 

[qtlaw]

While we're okay, given that we're doing wishes:

1. saved more $$ whatever age; and
2. bought a few rental properties.

 

[Chef2]

While we're okay, given that we're doing wishes:

1. saved more $$ whatever age; and
2. bought a few rental properties.

Along that same line....bought a car wash.

 

[I Should Coco]

Wish I would have started to play guitar in high school. I took piano for exactly one year when I was young (elementary school), never practiced ... but did learn to read sheet music. Would occasionally goof around on the piano, while my sister took it seriously and became a pretty good musician, playing cello in h.s. orchestra. I concentrated on sports.

Then in my mid-20s, my wife bought me an acoustic guitar for Christmas, and I found that I liked it. Once I learned the basic chords, I could hear songs on the radio and recognize them. I also could look at sheet music and eventually figure it out on guitar.

But all of my guitar playing had to be balanced with (at first) a heavy workload, then with work and parenthood. Now that my kids are young adults, I'm finally getting into it again ... but I could have learned more and had more fun with it as a teenager.

 

[Baron Scicluna]

I wish I'd played golf in high school. There were no cuts.

Had my favorite coach in what is now my favorite sport.

Instead, I was on the track team. Because, girls.

I sometimes wish I’d gone out for wrestling (the real amateur kind). In eighth grade, we did wrestling in gym. I was a short skinny kid with glasses, so I had to take them off when we were practicing wrestling and really couldn’t see anything the gym teacher was demonstrating.

Then I had a couple of matches, one against a kid on the junior high team, and I lost, but I wasn’t pinned. Then I remembered the cradle was an effective move, and in the third match, also against a kid on the team, I kept trying to cradle the kid and nearly had him pinned at one point before I ran out of gas, he reversed and I ended up losing on points again.

Later in the locker room, our teacher came over to me and a couple other kids and said we all should go out for the wrestling team. I wasn’t too sure, so my teacher encouraged me to watch a practice. I went, saw the coach yelling at the kids, making them do push-ups when they messed up, and I left.

Looking back now, the coach was probably just trying to get the best out of the kids, but eighth grade me wasn’t interested in getting yelled at and punished with pushups.

 

[forever_town]

Come out earlier than 24.

 

[swingline]

I lost $25,000 investing in pornographic giftwrap, so... I'm not speaking from a position of strength. Like, I won't be ever again.

Are we talking, like, pornographic pens where the ladies are clothed but when you turn them upside down they are naked, or are we talking full-on penetration stills? And how the hell did I not know about this before now?

 

[Starman]

Are we talking, like, pornographic pens where the ladies are clothed but when you turn them upside down they are naked, or are we talking full-on penetration stills? And how the hell did I not know about this before now?

Obviously the marketing plan left something to be desired.

 

[typefitter]

Are we talking, like, pornographic pens where the ladies are clothed but when you turn them upside down they are naked, or are we talking full-on penetration stills? And how the hell did I not know about this before now?

I don't really like to boast about it. It was wrapping paper that from a distance looked like normal wrapping paper. So, say, one looked like Valentine's Day paper, with lots of hearts and stuff. But when you got close to it, it was filthy. They were supposed to be funny ways to wrap wedding presents or sexy birthday presents or whatever. My favourite looked like Sphinx cats—rows and rows of hairless cats. But when you looked closer... well, you can imagine.

We took it to four local adult stores, and they all raved about the designs. Said it would sell like crazy. I got something like 12,000 sheets printed (had to go to Montreal to find someone who would print it) of a dozen designs and sold maybe 50 sheets. Ended up recycling the rest. I should have played in the World Series of Poker instead. Like, I basically lit a car on fire. Dumbest single financial move I've ever made, not counting getting married.

 

[3_Octave_Fart]

I wish I'd studied sports medicine or occupational therapy - I think I had the right kind of mind for it if not the maturity ages 19-23.
And I wish I learned how to bake.

 

[Moderator1]

Hell, I wish I had NOT learned how to bake! Wouldn't be working like a sumbitch to lose my gut right about now. Or probably would, just for different reasons.

 

[3_Octave_Fart]

You're crushing it, Mod. You make me want to get my ass on a bike.