Your worst mistake so far

[Baby Carrot]

-What has been your worst mistake so far?

 

-What were the consequences? How did it affect you? What did you lose?

 

-What did you learn from it?

 

-If you could go back in time and give yourself advice, what would it be?

 

 

[Straightj06]

worst mistake this year hmmm, cheating on my rebound girlfriend with my ex . . . god im not a cheater but i was all over the place. And if i had found this site first it wouldnt of happened.

 

Consequences were that it messed my head up even more not knowing where i stood with my ex and what was going on.

 

If i could go back in time and give myself advice, it would be . . . find this site sooner !!!

[ZoeMatthews]

What has been your worst mistake so far?

 

Cotacting him

 

-What were the consequences? How did it affect you? What did you lose?

 

We reconciled, I was happy in the beginning, but then I found out that the reason he had broken up with me in the first place was because he wanted to date some other woman he had met at workWhat did I lose? Well, my self respect for going back, knowing full well that he had told me many times that he did not love me anymore (at that time I did not know that he was seeing someone else)....

 

 

-What did you learn from it?

 

That I was hasty in my decisions and I did not think things through.

 

-If you could go back in time and give yourself advice, what would it be?

 

That I could make it on my own and that things would be okay after I got laid off, how I did not need his help. That he needed me more than I needed him...That he would eventually realize that he was lucky to have had me in his life and that eventually, if I had not contacted him that he would crawl back begging me to go back with him...

 

But I would tell myself to dispose of him and that I would be okay.

[Scotcha]

My worst mistake was not valuing myself and letting the opinions of others determine my own self worth.

 

As a result I was insecure, depressed, lonely, and uncomfortable in my own skin.

 

I don't know that this is a mistake that I learned from.. Rather I learned to overcome it.

 

If I could go back in time I would tell myself that I am a worthwhile person, mean people say more about themselves than they do about you and that I am a person of great value.

[Baby Carrot]

-What has been your worst mistake so far?

Spend 4+ years of my life with the ex (jealous, control freak, insecure BLEEPhole)

-What were the consequences? How did it affect you? What did you lose?

Lost 4+ years in nothing, lost 1 K USD, fell into a deep depression, ended up alone with no friends and noone to recur to.

-What did you learn from it?

For crying out loud, love yourself. You deserve better. And have the balls to weasel out of the beds you make before is too late.

-If you could go back in time and give yourself advice, what would it be?

Get out, NOW. This is not worth it. Are you stupid?!?! (Punches herself in the face)

[Luke Skywalker]

Gambling money in the stock market using credit card money, and never having any job before, and losing all that money and not being able to pay one cent back, thus losing your status to get continued student loan funding, and thus not reaching your potential to get an otherwise good job from a higher education and having to settle for Real-Estate where I have to hussle and beg for business and where I'm not generally very successful on it.

 

Second mistake is wasting time taking people to court to collect commissions to pay back creditors, while it was great experience, time could have been better spent making other deals.

 

Been a financial wreck since 1999, stuck at home, and unable to move out on my own, and still up to this day have credit issues arising from that state of events. Since I didn't invest properly in myself, I'm still sort of stuck in some rut living with my parents at the age of 30 y/o.

 

Too add insult to injury, some of the stocks I sold off because I panic selled them as I thought the price was going to go down, actually went up like 10 times from their original price, and if I held on to a bunch of stock at 30 cents a share, I would have benefited when it reached up to 7 dollars a share and made hundreds of thousands of dollars on my original investment.

 

Ended up panic selling and panic buying and trying to get my money back that I lost in the stock market but just experienced bad luck. Never saw my way since and while God through my mom had given me warning not to enter, I still think He was unfair by allowing 4 years of Real-Estate to go by, and not being able to collect one cent of commission to pay back those debts as a whole string of bad luck followed where I was unable to pay back the credit card debt or get back on my feet and feel in retrospect I should have used the money to travel to Thialand or Costa Rica or something (I say this as I'm upset none of those deals worked out), rather than a stock market loss. Anyway...just my thoughts.

 

The only very, very cold consolation was I got a warning before I did this a few times, and at first believed I was in control and could have stopped if it didn't work out. I still think I got too much bad luck and those debts would have easily been paid back if people were straight with us and gave us a break on the commerical Real-Estate. You wonder why some people take out a gun and do things, I'm not that type of person, but I got really angry when some developers or builders messed around with us. However, I'm a quiet momma's boy that feels sort of stuck in this set-up, but hey, that's life, and allot worst things could happen to me than this so I just have to see what makes me happy apart from having money. Things haven't been so bad in my own reaction to this, but I did contemplate suicide at some points, and did take these people to court so they would have to use expensive lawyers and lose money defending themselves (although we didn't have a case since there was nothing in writing).

 

A further opportunity loss was that since I had $ 30 000 of credit, I could have manipulated the credit cards at the time, established better credit, and apply for a credit line increase after six months, but just juggle the cards to use credit to pay each one back or something, and continue applying for increases with just the 'interest' factor to worry about, and may have ended up with $ 100 000s in credit money - then I could have withdrawn all the cash, and run with it. Having no assets or anything, I would be home free and could have travelled the world.

 

I'm stuck here as a poor guy, that rarely travells anywhere, and regret my stupid choice of whatever I did with that credit cash back in 1998, and if I had a time-machine, I'd have a good talk with my past self - if that credit money was used in travelling, it wouldn't have been so bad.

[luvursmile]

My worst mistake so far is having an emotional affair (I call it that because nothing physical ever happened)

 

What were the consequences? How did it affect you? What did you lose?

Well, I felt really guilty about it because my husband is a woderful man.

 

What did you learn from it?

To Never take him for granted again & I realized how much I love him.

[Jetta]

What has been your worst mistake so far? I hate to even say this but it's having a child at 21 and opting to raise him rather than put him up for adoption. I knew then I wasn't ready to be a parent, but I thought it would get easier.

 

-What were the consequences? How did it affect you? What did you lose? Well I struggled for 10 years with a kid who was later diagnosed with some developmental disabilities, and has major anger problems in addition to being very physically strong. Well my ex and I have had our parental rights terminated after 11 years. I suffered a complete mental breakdown. Lost my job, then lost custody of my now 4 year old daugher whose been my joy in life.

 

-What did you learn from it? I've learned.... Th at some people love to kick you when your down.

That no matter how awful things are you still have to get up and live even when you don't want to.

That once you hit bottem everything is up. So my job is blessing, the car my brother help me get so I could get to my job is a blessing. Any numerous other blessing have been bestowed upon me.

That I didn't know how good I had it before. Now I appreciate things I wouldn't have because I literally had nothing for a while. Darn near homeless.

That it's really easy for kids to be removed from homes. I don't understand how kids are ever left with violent parents. They just swooped in and it was done. All I could say is no one will love him like I do. But love isn't enough.

 

 

-If you could go back in time and give yourself advice, what would it be? Listen to your intuition! I thought about putting him for adoption again at 6 months but felt I was too attached. Would have saved tons of misery all around. I really feel like my life is over, but I'm still alive so I have to figure out something.

[jengh]

Okay...this is hard to write but....

 

The biggest mistake I made was, despite the warnings of my close friend, going out with a guy who gave her the creeps.

 

The consequence was being drugged and raped. I lost my self esteen, my happiness, my honesty--I began lying to cover this incident up (he threatened to harm me and my friend if I told anyone. Being 14, I was naive and believed him).

It affected me in so many ways. I fell into a deep depression, shut out from the world, had a miserable high school experience in general. Took up smoking and drinking.

I'm just thankful I managed to convince my parents to put me in therapy (they didn't know why). After a year or so of being in therapy, I brought them into a session and told them. I've never seen my father break like that. I'll never forget what he told me "I was thinking you were bringing us in here to tell us you hated us... never in my worst fears did I think it would be something like this"

 

I learned to be more cautious. I learned to trust my instincts (I, too, had a bad feeling) and listen to my best friend. I learned that a few hours could ruin years of one's life.

 

Advice I would give to myself: TRUST YOUR GUT

[jusified]

Jen that is an amazing story, I hope you are doing well and life is/well treat you good and give you fantastic surprises around every corner.

[jengh]

Thanks, Justified... I am doing well, very well actually.