If I knew then, what I know now....

Honestly, not much. Not because I haven't made mistakes - I've made boatloads of them.

But the totality of the mistakes I made in the past helped form me into the person I am now and I'm pretty happy with who I am and my life. Maybe things would be better if I'd made different choices, maybe they wouldn't.

Not going back to work for the federal government.  I was originally hired as a temp, got laid-off and was offered my old job back as a permanent employee about 2 months later.  By that time I had a job that paid better and with better benefits so I turned it down.  I’ve always said that was the biggest mistake I ever made.

One of my regrets is not going on that senior year, high school spring break science club trip to Padre Island.
I had stupid teenage reason's for staying home (an idiot boy).

Also, I would have tried out for sports, especially soccer, volleyball and the dance team in jr. high and high school. I was scared of not being picked.
Of course, if you don't try, it's for SURE you won't get picked!

I would have broken up with my college boyfriend at the end of my freshman year. My college experience would have been much better without him. 

I would have gotten my master's degree. I took classes up to where I could top out on our salary scale, but my retirement would be better if I would have gotten an actual degree. 

I'm not sure if this is a "grass is always greener" type of thing, but I think I would have focused on a job role that required me to work in the office. I've been remote since 1998. I feel like I would have a larger/healthier friend group if I was working in the office. But, then the trade off is the commute and the office politics. So maybe not?

Funny, I always say I would have had more fun and not worried so much about my grades. 😄

To be better with money.

I'll keep mine light. I would not have:
Cut my hair that short in the 90's
Worn so much denim
Said "no" to drinking anything at a street foods market in a foreign country. Lol

I'm not big on regrets because I think you learn from the way you live. One I definitely wish I knew then was to just embrace my body/shape. I look back at pictures of when I thought I wasn't thin or weighed a few too many pounds and realize I looked pretty good. With age has come a few more pounds, but I try a little harder to be better about it.

I don't dwell on it, but I also wish that I hadn't wasted time in fights with people that are important to me. You know eventually they'll blow over, but what a waste of time.

Hahaha… ok that is a regret! DH and I had the opportunity to buy into Amazon at IPO because we worked for a preferred vendor. But the minimum investment was $10k. We were not married yet, so joint investing was extra risky. Plus that would have been most of our cash savings at the time, and we were not comfortable with draining that.

It was the appropriate decision for our particular circumstances at the time but if we bought and held, that single investment could have more than funded our entire retirement. It would be worth $18.5 million today.

I would've finished my degree. I still might.

My number one “wish I had” has always been… that I had been less of a nose-to-the-grindstone, on-to-the-next-accomplishment, good-girl-by-nature. That I had explored a *little* more of my wild side. That I had taken a year off to backpack Europe. If I had only know then how quickly life goes by, I’d have gotten off the treadmill to smell more flowers along the way.

never started smoking. I quit 15 years ago but the damage to my skin was done (plus years of laying in the sun with baby oil in the 80's!)