If you could go back to your younger self....

[lumberjim]

We all do this....assume you have all of your experience, and will effectively know the future.....

Where would you go? What key change would you make?

Would you be 12 years old? 16? 18? 21? or would you not?

I think I would go to 1985. I'd do some things differently,.... I think I would stick with football and see if I could have gone farther.....probably get into computers instead of cars..... but I'd make damn sure I was at Gina Lopresti's house the night I first saw jinx. And hope that the rest would work itself out....

[glatt]

I've read enough science fiction to know you don't tamper with the past. But then again, buying Genentech, Microsoft, Netscape, etc. etc. at the right time would be nice.

[skysidhe]

19 -21
Used my head more than my heart but then I'd be a differently person entirely?

Thus would have not gotten into human services where the pay is just ok, the jobs are disappearing and often times seasonal and here I sit upgrading skills I should already have had.

I would not have walked away from that guy. ( what was his name!?)
I've walked away from a few but he was a nice guy. Now I don't meet any nice ones or run fast so I wouldn't know anyway and so karma I guess.

Then again I might not have had this great kid. I might have made better life choices and then had a really rotten kid instead!

lj. I was thinking the other day that you missed your calling in some kind of photography/advertising area. Those macro photo shots look so phenomenal.

[Pico and ME]

I would go back to my 9th grade algebra class and ask for a tutor on the very first day.

[glatt]

There's a really outstanding SF/Fantasy book called Replay by Ken Grimwood that discusses this idea at length. A guy has to go back and basically relive his life multiple times, and he makes different choices each time and we see the paths those different choices lead him on. In one of his replayed lives, he figures out how to have a perfect life, and has wonderful children and everything is great, and then when he has to relive his life again, those children are gone. He can never recreate them because even if he marries the same woman, they can't make sure the same sperm fertilizes the same egg to make the same kid he had loved so much. So he never has kids again in any of his later replayed lives, because it's too painful to lose them.

Great book.

[Sheldonrs]

I would convince my mother to leave my idiot father a lot sooner than she did, before he gambled everything away.

And I would get as many paper routes and after school jobs as i could and save the money to invest in MicroSoft AND Apple when they were first starting out.

[classicman]

I would not. The fantasy of reliving or being able to change decisions to avoid things we regret is temporarily attractive, but not enough.
I am learning to see the the good that comes from the most terrible situations. That is something I was unable to fathom till recently.

I know this is in nothingland and you probably didn't want a serious reply - sorry.


On the other hand - going back and being filthy rich due to some really good investments and/or sports wagers, living a life without financial worry... would be very cool too.

[Cloud]

I would go back to when I was entering college. Ditch the bf (thus avoiding getting pregnant at 20); concentrate on academics, get help for chronic depression (thus avoiding . . . a whole rash of shit) and developing freelance and financial skills.

Fantasized about this a lot. If I went back this way, I wouldn't have my two beautiful daughters though.

[limey]

Originally Posted by lumberjim

...I think I would go to 1985. I'd do some things differently,.... I'd make damn sure I was at Gina Lopresti's house the night I first saw jinx. ....

Is it just me (and Jinx, I hope!) that thinks this is fabulous?

[kerosene]

I think it is wonderful, too.

I would go back to my teenage years and go find my husband, so we could meet sooner and skip all the ex-wife crap.

[Yznhymr]

I would go back to 1973, take my next door neighbor's gun, and unload it into my mother. Then do the juvvy time, get out at 18 and live a guilt free life. However, that didn't happen and I am still dealing with how much she f*ed my brother & I up. Now that I think of it, I'd stab her to death...like jillion times or so. More personal that way to get even, the b*ch. What a shame she died 22 years ago of her own stupidity (while I was 500 miles away).

[Oh crap...this was supposed to be in the "Be the last person to kill this thread" thread!]

[lumberjim]

pretty heavy, hey dude?

[Clodfobble]

I'd go back to 2001, and tell myself that it was time to listen to what every damn person in the world was trying to tell me at that time. But even then, I still probably wouldn't have listened.

[Cicero]

If I did things differently I would have introduced a whole new set of different problems by now. Maybe even more complex. No way.

The "key" change would then open another can of worms. Forget it.

[DanaC]

I'd go back to 1990, very briefly, to the eve of my brother's wedding.

J (my then boyfriend) had been having problems at home culminating in a massive row with his Dad and the decision to move out. He'd got himself a bedsit flat and I was helping him move in. It was dismal and depressing and lonely. I just couldn't bear to leave him there that first night, alone in this back of beyond little room, with its 60s wallpaper and furniture and a TV that only showed one channel, when it would deign to work at all.

I was supposed to be at home (mum's) that night ... Martin and Mum and I were having one last night as the three musketeers, before he and Jen wed and they moved into their new house in Nottingham.

I ended up staying with J in that bedsit. I think I really hurt Mart with that. Temporarily. All was forgiven and understood as the kind of thing a teenager does...but I do wish we'd had that last night.

That said...J was hurtling into a deep, deep depression and who knows how far he'd have fallen that night. *shrugs*