If You Could Have Your Time Again

[nailit]

how different do you think your life would be now?
If you knew then (when you were young) what you know now (many years and life experiences later) how different do you think it would have panned out?

I think that very few of us really know what we want/ask of life when we are young. Although some do obviously. But if I could go back to my school years I think that I would have definitely have worked towards been an airplane pilot...that would have been my dream job. I would've made sure that I never had kids (love my son more than life now, but he wasn't planned) and I definitely would not have gone down the road of addictions of one kind or another. But wisdom comes with experience I guess..

So what about you?
(not talking about regret....useless emotion....but about how things could have been different if you knew more *then* than you do *now*.
Thanks.

[tonyav]

He was at Monte Cassino and provided bridges etc for the troops

If they were Baily Bridges my grand dad used to build them, chrissa.
https://www.thinkdefence.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/M4-plymoth-bailey-bridge-e1440842724173.jpg

[Theland]

Amazing! I would not have lasted five minutes!

[chrissa1]

As I said, he never talked about it but I know he saw the battle and he was in Italy for a time.

[retrocop]

Monte Cassino. oh dear my poor uncle Jock. He joined as a boy soldier in the R.A. in the early 1920s.He survived being straffed at Dunkirk whilst standing up to his neck in the sea for 12 hours.When long suffering uncle visited I asked him about his exploits in the War. Having fought in most campaigns he sat me on his knee and related his role as a BSM i/c a LAA battery at Monte Cassino.In his strong Scottish accent he recalled his Light Anti Aircraft battery hitting a German Luftwaffe 109 fighter that had been harassing allied troops scaling the heights of Monte Casino. The pilot bailed out and a cry went up,"Remember Dunkirk". Every man picked up their rifle and shot the F...... B....... so he resembled a colander when he landed. "Now Jock",said Aunty Nance, "Language. He's a 5 year old wee bairn". Lol

[rowanwitch]

I have been giving this further thought, and could I not have been born at all.

[Theland]

Everybody must have lived in terror. Civilians with the bombing, and dreading the telegram. Merchant seamen dreading the torpedo night after night. The air crew, bomber command and the fighters, "the few," and the armies, all over, never knowing the minute. Oh God we have so much to thank them for.

[jennyjoan]

My biggest regret would be is that I never fully trained to be a musician so that I could have been known world-wide - not for the famous bit of but of the achievement that a deaf child made into the music business. I am not a jealous person but do envy the younger children getting that wonderful opportunity in school to be able to learn anything they wish. My biggest regret. Very Much so. sad

[Theland]

Jennyjoan - My son in law, Michael, is profoundly deaf since birth. So sad, but what an achiever! He drives for Asda, has six children, also has a part time job, and is a whizz with anything technical. Phones, computers, anything with wires. Puts us to shame. We love him, and find it so sad that he can never hear his children. Life is so unfair.

[jennyjoan]

//////the land - My son in law, Michael, is profoundly deaf since birth. So sad, but what an achiever! ////I drive also have a part time job, and and will try to repair literally anything. Electricity, fixup old radios, repair and decorate. Wire sockets etc etc. BUT it is not MUSIC

[jennyjoan]

hadn't finished - sorry. - I would have liked to either the keyboard, but mainly Clarinet.

Classes are held where I live for Saxophone.

[Theland]

Go for it Jennyjoan! Make music!

[rowanwitch]

I am learning the recorder, it's not too impressive but it's cheap easy and there are plenty of idiot guides aimed for children. It's mainly to learn to sight read before I try something a little more difficult.
I am 61 so it's never too late

[AuntLydia]

My biggest regret was not doing the subject I wanted to do at Uni, Paleontology. I had been very interested in it from about 10 years old and at age 11, in 1969, actually wrote an essay on how I thought birds had evolved from dinosaurs ( I still have the essay with teachers remarks ' imaginative) ! I had no parental support and ended up not going to Uni. I could have been at Cambridge now as a professor I'm sure of that, but too late now.

[spathiphyllum]

"how different do you think it would have panned out? "

VERY differently. Hindsight is a gift.

[jennyjoan]

good luck Rowan - I did play the recorder when I was 13. I think I put my family's head away with "Oh my darling Clementine". That too was my claim to 5 mins of fame as I played onstage in school.

I started to learn the piano about 13 years ago but could not grasp playing and sight reading the left hand. Just wouldn't come in spite of going two years privately.

As I said they are teaching Saxophone in our local school and last term I said I would enrol only to find there were not enough numbers to start a class.

Don't know about this year. What stopped me was that tutor told me I needed to provide saxophone myself and I sure didn't want to invest in one in case I gave it up.

Now I think you can rent - next term is January - may look it up then.

[rowanwitch]

Go for it, if nothing else learning a new skill helps brain health.

[WELSHYORKIE]

If i could turn back the clock I would definitely have studied harder and made the most of my Grammar School education and gone on to Uni. I would also have tried to find my absent father and ask him why he never came to see me or send me cards on my birthday and at xmas. He's dead now so that question will never be answered.

[jourdain2]

Chrissa & Retrocop - My Uncle George (also Scottish) was at Monte Cassino too. My English Uncle Gerald was at El Alamein.