What were some of the best decisions you made, what were some of your worst? Why?

[Anonymous]

I am curious about other people's good and bad decisions in life.

[Anonymous]

Marrying DH. I knew at the time I shouldn't, but I thought I would fall in love with him over time - like an arranged marriage (it wasn't.) Now it has been 25y. I love him, but I have never been in love with him. We have a nice life and are great co-parents, but I wonder what a different life would have been like.

[Anonymous]

Best: college and grad school choice, who I married. Worst: decisions about when/how to become a parent

[Anonymous]

Marrying DH Felt like I didn't really have a choice in the matter at all at a very young age. I knew something was very off and a miss but nothing I could do about it now its decades later and it's been a horrible disaster in many ways yet he's a really good friend of mine so my feelings are very confused. I love him as a human being but don't know that I'm in love with him.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Best: college and grad school choice, who I married. Worst: decisions about when/how to become a parent

Mile-high club?

[Anonymous]

Echoing college/grad school choice, and marrying DH. Adding career/field choice (this was a risky one), a major cross-country move that fast-tracked my career, and choosing not to have children.

[Anonymous]

Best: buying real estate - fixer uppers in up and coming neighborhoods. Then, when the the neighborhood gets “discovered”, I sell and repeat somewhere else. Did this three times. Also best - choosing my occupation and investing max in my 401K since I was 22.

Worst - marrying my first husband. I love my kids that resulted, but I lost some of the best years of my life to that marriage.

[Anonymous]

Worst: quitting a job before I had another one lined up. I quit because in order to stay I'd have to commute about an hour each way and didn't want to. I thought it'd be so easy to find another job but it wasn't. I was out of work for two years and burned through all my savings.

Best: learning to be direct (while not being mean) and setting boundaries. Learning to call my mother only at the very end of my lunch hour - otherwise she'd keep me on the phone for ages. But if I said "Ok my lunch hour is over - I have to go back to work now" she somehow understood that and would say goodbye. (She's dead now, so it's a non-issue but this gave me a ton of stress while she was alive.)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Worst: quitting a job before I had another one lined up. I quit because in order to stay I'd have to commute about an hour each way and didn't want to. I thought it'd be so easy to find another job but it wasn't. I was out of work for two years and burned through all my savings.

Best: learning to be direct (while not being mean) and setting boundaries. Learning to call my mother only at the very end of my lunch hour - otherwise she'd keep me on the phone for ages. But if I said "Ok my lunch hour is over - I have to go back to work now" she somehow understood that and would say goodbye. (She's dead now, so it's a non-issue but this gave me a ton of stress while she was alive.)

Oh, I forgot two more bests!
1. Learning to make small talk. I practiced on hair dressers, because ... captive audience. I still brought a book, because hairdryers are loud, but learned to chat about casual things that aren't personal and ask questions. I did not have this skill until my 30's.
2. Learning to ignore my parents and go with my instincts. My parents had this "worry about yourself - don't worry about other people" attitude. I got yelled at if I asked if we should tell someone their headlights were on, for example, because my bedroom wasn't clean. Now as an adult, if it's a hot day and a kid is waiting on the stairs locked out, outside my apartment I feel free to give them a bottle of cold water. Even if my laundry isn't folded. I gave a work-friend an encouraging card last week because she's been struggling, even though my kitchen was a wreck. One has nothing to do with the other.

[Anonymous]

Worst: waiting years (until my late 30s) before trying for kids. I ended up having to undergo extensive fertility treatment and ultimately got pregnant via ivf. We have the family that we want now, but it was a hard and costly journey to get here.

Best: Taking my time after college to figure out my next step instead of jumping straight into grad school like many of my friends did. I ended up quitting a comfortable job in my late 20s to go to grad school in a different city and completely changing my career.

[Anonymous]

Best: staying at home w my kids
Worst: staying at home w my kids

I loved that time with them and it made our family run very smoothly, but now I’m divorcing and have no career.

[Anonymous]

Marrying dh was best. Not staying at my boarding school job with free room and board and private school for my dcs was the worst. I should have sucked up my unhappiness for the advantages it would have offered.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Worst: quitting a job before I had another one lined up. I quit because in order to stay I'd have to commute about an hour each way and didn't want to. I thought it'd be so easy to find another job but it wasn't. I was out of work for two years and burned through all my savings.

Best: learning to be direct (while not being mean) and setting boundaries. Learning to call my mother only at the very end of my lunch hour - otherwise she'd keep me on the phone for ages. But if I said "Ok my lunch hour is over - I have to go back to work now" she somehow understood that and would say goodbye. (She's dead now, so it's a non-issue but this gave me a ton of stress while she was alive.)

+1 Applies to almost anyone you might call.

[Anonymous]

Best: joining the debate team. I didn't realize I was intelligent and capable until I joined, and then I started caring about school more, which led to college and grad school. I am the first person in my family even to start college, and I graduated undergrad and grad school summa cum laude after getting poor grades in middle school and only slightly above average grades in high school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Best: college and grad school choice, who I married. Worst: decisions about when/how to become a parent

Mile-high club?

lol, fertility treatment, foster care/adoption, timing, etc. Wound up without kids and mostly content with that but sometimes sad.