...aaannnnnd as long as I'm sent back to my original past timeline! Being a young person doesn't seem like much fun these days.
Yeah, no. The music was better back then, but I rather benefit from some of the social changes that have taken place in the past couple of decades.
If I could go back to age sixteen, and know what I know now, I'd be there in a heartbeat. Would you go back if it was understood you'd die at 50? Yes for me.
My childhood was not happy. I would not go there if I can avoid it. My adolescence was a mixture of having fun in various ways and pointlessness. Once I wanted to show to someone that certain depression test is bs. I did it. I was as honest as is possible. The result was "deep depression". I told her: "See! I'm happy. I'm having the best time of my life. And this test tells that I'm miserable. You can't trust this kind of tests!" Few years later I found out that test is valid. The best time of my life meant that I had risen to the level of deep depression from much deeper depths. Now life is good. Would I go back? No! Never. I don't miss so called "having fun". I don't go to details but very few of the friends and "friends" of that time are alive. Only things I miss are long talks with my father and certain some other kind of moments. Moments where I could be seen and heard as what I was inside instead of some gaslighted straw man. When I was much younger I did hurt many people in some ways because I did not understand that something would hurt them. If I could take that back I would. Most of them were nice and kind people who should not be near anyone with self-destructive lifestyle. I would leave some words unspoken. I would encourage some people. I would warn some people about some things or persons. (I would warn some people about me and my lifestyle.) But to go back to "have fun"? Never!
When faced with these hypotheticals, I always feel compelled to say that I'm not a danger to myself. Hell no, I want out. I don't want a replay. Plus, so many of the good things in my life came out of Sliding Doors moments that I'd never be able to reproduce. Nope.
I couldn't protect myself, so no, I never would. Neither do I generally like spending time looking at the past. What I'd want instead is to protect any kid within my reach from what might be done to them. I had the wrong kind of adults around me.
I think anyone would go back if armed with what they know now. However, would that be the same place? You would be different and know more than that young punk. I would go back because that was a time of great revelation and people actually spoke to each other. Today, we are hyper-connected but many are more lonely than ever. We carry on with someone online who we have never met in person but do not know the name of the neighbor physically living next door. I don;t consider that a good thing. FYI, I know my neighbors and we also have meals together.
I wasted my very late teens and early twenties drinking beer, building bonfires and play fighting with a bunch of habitual thieves. This was in lieu of getting an education or developing skills Now I have a desk job alongside people with mountains of student debt. Same salary. Fuck yes I'd go back.
I'd go back. My childhood was good. I'd want to work out a lot so I'd be in shape at this stage of my life (I'm horribly out of shape and overweight now, and I sure wish I wasn't). Also, and this is the big one, I'd avoid alcohol. Drinking stole a big part of my best years and was the biggest mistake I ever made. If I could go back and not make that mistake, I would in a heartbeat.
Can I keep going back as I grow old, as a means of achieving immortality? Yes, if so. If I can only use this chance once, and it would extend the time that I am likely to be conscious for 24 years then perhaps.
I don't think there is anything about my younger days that I'd want to relive or change, even though somethings might have been better. I hated secondary school, and I'm only just starting to become more settled within myself now I'm in my thirties. If I had to go back and relive my teen years of hopelessness, emptiness, and mourning, definitely not.
I wouldn't go back that far, less than two decades. There are some things I would change. I'm good with the rest.
Okay, this chart fascinates me a bit too much. I had to take all these classes myself, plus a bit more (Cal C I think? Then linear algebra and 300-level probability and statistics *shudders*). I ended up down a career path where I only needed mid-level math; I've used coordinate systems from Cal B, some concepts from probability + stats, trigonometry, and some other stuff. But I haven't used calculus beyond the most basic concepts. Just considering math, I haven't used any more complicated ideas since finishing college. But I think it's unfair to just think about math for most professions. We learn a lot of things in careers that colleges don't teach, or just brush on. That will vary by career. In general, college teaches theory and careers teach how to pragmatically succeed. This is the progressive that I see in software engineering, as one example. College barely brushes on the first two, and the second not at all. Something similar probably exists for writing too. Brandon Sanderson comes to my mind, who I'm pretty sure got either a master's or a PhD in English/Writing, but didn't actually have enough experience to get published and know the business until much later.
I wouldn't go back, even if I could. Knowing everything that I would have to relive would make it intolerable for me. If I could come back to this moment any time I want, I would certainly consider going back. But no way would I consider it if I had to relive everything; just too much trauma; I don't think I could survive experiencing it twice.
I don't know. I didn't get everything the way I wanted it, and have at least one large regret, but I'm pretty contented where I am now, at age (nearly) 70. If I had taken that other road, who knows where it would have led? Probably not to Scotland, and I'm quite contented here.
Let me put it another way, relationships cause far more problems than they solve. If you're not comfortable with the problems not being in a relationship presents, then relationship problems will bury you alive.
