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@RickiTarr Does making the same mistakes and expecting different results count? :D

@RickiTarr I probably wouldn’t end up in the same place, which is sad, because I really love some people in my life.

There are some bad people I’d avoid at all costs. And make a decision at a crucial time that would have far-reaching effects…

@RickiTarr I'd get my ADHD diagnosed earlier like at 10 or 11. It really would have helped. I don't blame my parents for not knowing. I didn't even know it was a thing for me.

@RickiTarr This is so tough… if I could do something not to suffer so much I would want to do it, but then would I be the same person? I mostly like me

@RickiTarr God, I hope not. I often think about two very significant mistakes I made in my youth. Essentially, once when I stayed when I should have gone, and once I left when I should have stayed. (Technically, only the first would need to be altered so the second never would have come up.)

@RickiTarr Exactly the same place. I offer this as proof - I was behind a car on a 4 lane road, changed lanes, passed him, changed lanes a few other times and ended up at a stop light behind the same guy I was behind at the start. Choice is an illusion!

@RickiTarr ha, well, no way we'd survive. we got SO lucky.

@RickiTarr Id change the having depression and previously severe anxiety part. There are many forks in the multiverse where Ive long since expired.

@RickiTarr tbh Im just tooting my own horn about having saved my own life so many times, from that villainous aspiring murderer, me. I owe myself so much, I deserve a medal. I hope I learn a lesson and never threaten me again, now that I am on the case, hard at work.

@RickiTarr I’ve thought about this a lot, and you know what? I wouldn’t want to go back, and also, I don’t think it would be wise for me to change anything if I did.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s tempting. If I could go back and still retain all the hard-won knowledge and wisdom I’ve accumulated, I might be tempted to give some people in my past an earful. I might also come out sooner. But no, everything that happened to me—good and bad—made me who I am today.

@digichelle Yeah, that's what makes this thought process hard

@RickiTarr
A do over question! Professionally, I'd be in about the same place. Do I get to warn myself to stay away from "that guy" in college?

@RickiTarr This is a very complex question. Yeesh. I have made so many life altering choices that didn't quite work out, Though there is no knowing if the alternatives were any rosier. I suppose, I would recognize my mental illness far earlier, and dedicate more time to the people in my life that mattered to me.

There's so many things that prior knowledge of having been right would shift my personality entirely. Then again, it's just as likely it would go to my head and I'd be incarcerated.

@RickiTarr I'd like to think I'd have made a bunch of big changes earlier, but then there was a reason I didn't make them earlier in the first place so ... dunno.

@RickiTarr I sure as hell hope I would end up where I am. Even one small change would cause me to not meet my wife and be forever in a life of not really loving or being loved like I am.

All my mistakes led me here. And I am ok with that.

2 secrets: Don’t find someone you can live with, find someone you can’t live without. And remember, happy wife, happy life. (Or whatever your equivalent spousal situation is. But my versions rhymes)

@AirlockDoc @RickiTarr You put it brilliantly!

But, if there were a less painful way to get where I am now, I’d take it.

@AirlockDoc
Try "Happy Spouse, Happy House"

@RickiTarr I learned some things about myself and the world, but i could only learn these things because of time and circumstances. So there isn't really any big *revelation* for me to give back to my younger self and I don't think things would go much different a second time.

@RickiTarr If I could change one thing I did, and I would not want to do again...

I would take that additional detention, and spare myself from irrecoverable carpal tunnel I have now.

If only I knew then, what I know now... Better grades were not worth losing prolonged functionality of my hand.

@RickiTarr

I really doubt I would end up in the same place. Looking back, there were too many random coin-toss moments that completely changed the direction of my life. No way could I replicate them.

That said, it's been a pretty good life. "Some of it's magic, and some of it's tragic" but I wouldn't change a thing.

@RickiTarr
No! Yes... so many, many things - but most of them I only learned much later in life, or would only have known in hindsight. It's complicated.

@RickiTarr ooc: a huge part of how my life is the way it is came from being at the exact right place on November 13, 2010. I don't think I'd get that right if I re-lived my life.

If I got to hang on to any wisdom or guiding principles or learning from my current life, I think I could do a great job in round 2 and avoid a lot of little headaches and worries. I think I'd start applying myself in school earlier, I would -not- go to college in Seattle, and I'd spend more time being nice to myself.

@RickiTarr That's a tough one. The immediate reaction is I wouldn't marry my ex wife. But if I didn't have that relationship I wouldn't have moved to Canada. And had she not ended the marriage, I wouldn't have met the amazing woman in my life now.

@RickiTarr Actually I do have another one.

One rainy Thursday afternoon in 1995, I would accept Carol's offer of a lift.

And that's all I'm saying about that...

@RickiTarr I couldn’t change anything if it meant that my kids didn’t exist exactly as they are. But generally I think I’d sit my adolescent self down and tell them things I wish I’d known about mental health and maybe sex and relationships, that might help them have an easier ride and make better decisions.

@RickiTarr My life has had so many random happenstances, so starting from scratch would probably end just as oddly.

As for changing things, even the worst moments of my life? No. I am the sum total of my mistakes, heartaches, and the lessons I have learned along the way.

@MizFidd @RickiTarr It's been an experience for sure. So much introspection.

@RickiTarr

I would change my education choices, go farther, sooner. Would not change who the people closest to me are, but would change what I could do for them.

@RickiTarr

That's a tough question. The things I might want to change would fundamentally change who I am. So much could have been better in so many ways. For example, if I *could* tell young Janet "You're trans, accept that now", then I would almost certainly never have met Barbara. And yeah losing her was traumatic, but the time I had with her was so beautiful.

No, I don't think I'd have ended up in the same place. No, I wouldn't change anything.

I love me. That made me, me.