69 Regretful Decisions Shared By The Bored Panda Community

We all make decisions that we later end up regretting. Some are minor or even funny while others really impact our life negatively. Have you ever wished you could go back in time? Well, these people have.

Our community members were asked to share some bad decisions they regret making, and quite a bunch of them delivered. Scroll down to do some “eavesdropping” and see if you can relate.

#1

Procrastinating. I wanna stop, but maybe later?

#2

Not being able to say "no" when I should.

#3

Not visiting my relatives when I was a teenager because I wanted to look "cold and distant". Now many of my amazing and loving aunts, uncles and grandparents are dead, and I would give up anything to go back in time and hug them.

#4

Not focusing too much on school when I should have

#5

overeating

#6

Stress eating, “eating my feelings”. Wish I could address my stress and anxiety better, and stop normalizing food as stress reduction.

#7

Staying at a job too long where I was unappreciated and paid crap wages, for no good reason other than it was familiar and the prospect of leaving it was scary.

#8

Letting myself get used time and time again.

#9

a messy room

#10

Going to a huge 4-year uni instead of a CC. Costs were nuts and the teaching was impersonal

#11

marrying the wrong person

#12

Not speaking my real feeling because it can sound harsh. It always ended up with me being hurt cause I’m too sensitive.

Boy, how great my life would be if I can speak it up.

#13

Using the key once on my math homework. Now every time I can't complete it easily I get frustrated, remember how easy copying the key is, and copy it. I can not stop it's insane

#14

Trusting a fart after eating Mexican food.

#15

Staying with my mum when my parents split up

#16

Gas station sushi.

#17

Not caring about high school, I had no GPA in 11th grade. Still doing well in life but if I would have applied even anything back then who knows.

#18

binge watching shows, and them missing them once i watched all the episodes later

#19

Playing video games at school, I never got caught but now I can't sleep well.

#20

When I bought my home, I put my husband on the deed even though the mortgage was in my name and my parents had given me the downpayment. He tried to get half when we divorced, but I reminded him that I paid off his student loans with my inheritance and he shut right up. I miss that house.

#21

engaged in an online discussion

#22

Looked for happiness and left a high paying job to do things I wanted to do like travel, write and what not.

Now I am in a role that is not just annoyingly demanding but comparatively low paying.

#23

Trust a friend that pushed me in a lake causing me to get surgery on my foot.

#24

Not going to college! I wish I had pursued my dream to be an avian vet; now I don’t have the time to do it.

#25

Started "dating" too soon. It set the unstable pace for the rest of my emotional life. And led to worse decisions.

#26

Nearly committing suicide

#27

I said my opinion on a character's sexuality in an anime because I think he's Bisexual (not proven and I even say that but it is a huge theory) and I started an entire war on a YouTube video with one comment that said "There is no way this character is straight"

#28

50 years ago, I could have bought cakes of Red Seal pu’er tea in Hong Kong for about two bucks a cake. They had piles of them. Now one is worth about $300,000.

#29

Smoking ?

#30

Quitting a job after 20 years due to racial discrimination ?

#31

Not attending an Amy Winehouse concert because I was too hungover and really didn't want to travel an hour to the venue. I never got another chance :(

#32

Staying with my family. My parents divorced and I stayed with mum, she overworked herself to the point where she had to retire early due to mental breakdown. Now she has crappy pension and (in her opinion) has to take care of Granny that can no longer walk. Since I started working along with attending Uni, I became far more straightforward and clearly say that I don't agree with that. She is exhausted and all she does is complain to me in the evening about everything at granny's. I love my family, they gave me and my brother what they could with the little we always had, but it's a while that I started to notice just how toxic this family actually is. Every little thing will either be ignored or start a both sided yelling fit, there is no room for healthy discussions, every time I wanted to raise a valid argument over something, it's ignored or I'm point blank told that someone like me (a stupid student that can't hold a job, I work with people, not really possible nowadays) should just shut up and leave if I don't like something and in the next breath they start to discuss when will we do the transfer of ownership of Granny's apartment (another issue altogether). I just can't, I'm exhausted, every little thing that happens at our place becomes my fault although I warned them it could happen. I just wish everything will be open again so I can at the very least escape to my job...

#33

i decided to skip pe for a day next pe class we were doing gymnastics and it was compulsory and they practiced in the class I missed so I had a sprained foot because I missed 1 pe class

#34

Decided to make a curry last week. But instead of mild curry powder, put extra hot chilli powder instead. Guess I should have labled the containers. Fiance' was not happy.

#35

Deciding to drive to the hospital to see my dad for the last time. I wrote the car off, thankfully was not injured but could have avoided that accident by realising I was too emotional to drive.

#36

Lying a lot ?

#37

I'm going to tell myself that I'm going to play Minecraft for only 1-2 hours but i end up playing it for 5 hours

#38

To come to work today...

#39

16 when a lit agent wanted to represent my novel. I told her I could only write short stories ??

#40

I was accepted into a few colleges and chose the one further from home. After one year I transferred and all my credits didn’t transfer so I basically was a freshmen for 2 years due to my bad decision of just not going to the closer college in the first place.

#41

Making my bedtime too late. Now, it's really hard for me to go to sleep any earlier and I have to wake up early so I'm always tired. :|

#42

Agreeing to wash the whole team's rugby jerseys when they played on grass on a wet day. (Their team colours are white and Maroon)

#43

Not studying enough
It's not too late to change this though

#44

When i didn't become friends with someone in my school. His name was lebron james.

#45

today... telling my colleagues at work that i once helped a young refugee with integration...

#46

I once saw a squirrel that had somehow got the wire of a bird feeder stuck between it's two front teeth and was hanging helplessly. Without thinking I cradled it's little body and helped it free its teeth. Once free it spun round and sank it's teeth clean through the fleshy part of my palm . It then shook around for about ten seconds (absolute agony) before hurtling off up a tree. Oh how the nurse laughed as she gave me my tetanus shot!

#47

Spend all my money I got from my first ever job, I was trying to save up for a car but I've never had my own money so spend however I please. So it was nice to buy things I wanted (a pc, a new phone) but now I'm saving up for a car and going to be more strict about my spending habits due to the fact I really want a car. :)

#48

being born

#49

accepting the job with the initial salary and not negotiating

#50

i got a lot of em.
repeatedly breaking the trust of those i love (not like commiting a crime, more like computer when not allowed).
Not taking my meds because "i can miss it just this once" and "eh i don't have water up here" or "i'm in bed already"
Less my fault, but not telling my mother that i'm not grabbing her because i'm joking around, i'm grabbing her because i have a bad headrush. if i'd told her, i wouldn't have hit my head on the table after fainting.
Overeating.
Staying up too late.
Not studying enough.
Not taking enough notes in class.
Procrastinating.
Breaking the "take care of yourself and your mental health and don't do dangerous things" contract.
The list goes on for miles, as most of my decisions are small and bad.

#51

drinking alcohol.

#52

yeah, I can trust this fart...

#53

Being Born.

#54

I was my blind aunt's home health aide. She berated, was rude to me, and always tried to make me feel guilty for not giving her her pain pills when she wanted them. She would put me down to her friends and never was happy with anything I did. I knew I should have quit and gotten a different job, but I stayed and let her mistreat me. That was the worst decision of my life. I still suffer from low self esteem issues from that time in my life.

#55

Creating and using a BoredPanda account.

#56

eating lots of food

#57

Letting my father push me into computer science instead of graphic design when choosing a carreer path.

#58

I was given the chance to fly a plane. I fricking hate myself for that

#59

Downloading Gacha-related stuff. I am too rooted in the community to ever stop. Ever. (Technically, its my sis's fault)

#60

not having a good voice if i did i could tell my sister to not want to move at 15 beacause our parents and family can die anytime and we need to spend as much gime with them as possible and she would take me serious

#61

Not leaving relationships soon enough because I didn't want to go through the breakup phase.

#62

Letting my dog get into my purse and letting it sniff around but instead it ate some pills, it died a week later ????

#63

I had a college assignment that required us to compile our notes into one document. They said we could use some of each other’s notes for extra detail or incase we missed anything. I went a bit too far with copying my classmates stuff. I wasn’t thinking. We both got called in for cheating. I nearly cried. Thankfully he was a really nice teacher and let me redo the assignment.

#64

Picking up German. Oh my Scheiße, I can't even stop it now

#65

Not realizing I wasn’t cut out for romantic relationships and that the real treasure was friends and family until I was nearly 30.

#66

I was on a toxic meme app for a while (it was full of racists, homophobes, transphobes ect.). I once posted something expressing myself (not a meme), big mistake. I'll tell you the full story, so, I am an insecure person, there's so many things I hate about myself and I wish I could change. I've never been open to my family about it and this was one social media platform that my family was not on. I've always kept it bottled up inside me for so long. I made a picture, just a blank picture with a text saying "when someone doesn't know how to respond to a compliment, it means they think you're lying to make them feel better, and when they compliment you it's because they don't want you to feel the same way they feel" and I posted it, on a toxic meme app...I got a lot of hate comments, only like 3 people actually cared. People were all just joking about it, but the worst thing is I actually started a huge argument because I was so pissed at these people, I was literally trying to express myself, and everyone hated me for it, and the one argument I was in was really ugly, this person kept calling me homophobic slurs and other mean stuff and then after everything calmed down they acted like it was nothing..

#67

Swallowing something all at once. I mean, its not that bad since I didn't choke.

#68

Bitcoin

#69

Not being born two weeks earlier than my actual birthday. My great grandpa passed away two weeks before i was born and i honestly hate myself for it. I wish i got to meet him everyday of my life and all of my other friends like to make fun of me for not being able to meet him. They all have met theirs though.