Name one mistake you made that you feel altered your life

When I was young I told someone I wanted to be an interior designer and was told it was "too sissy". Ultimately I think I would've become an interior architect and I'm pretty sure I would've been fucking great at it.

I did not realize that my first partner was as seriously suicidal as he actually was. He was the love of my life. And he shot himself in the head. While I was home with him. I often wonder what my life would be like now if I had done more to deter his suicidal tendencies.

I didn’t sit all my professional exams at a young age and now I earn a fraction of my contemporaries. It is what it is I suppose.

Discovering The DataLounge.

I didn’t go to medical school because people lied to me that I have no bedside manner. I would’ve been a great neurosurgeon. They don’t need “bedside manner”.

Christianity

I was a cold fish to a few boyfriends. Not a cunt, but not warm and fuzzy. People need that.

I partied way too much my first year of college (it was the 80s...). I still graduated on time but made several bad decisions during that time that likely negated better career opportunities.

I chose to go into human resources and climb the ladder because I knew I would make a lot of money. The fear of money and not having any lead me to a career I absolutely hate. I’m miserable every day. I’m working on a career exit. Thank god for therapy!

I didn’t pursue a guy. We worked for the same corporation but in different departments. I was intrigued because he was good looking, never married and had a shy, self-effacing manner. I was out at work and a few women told me that he hadn’t responded to any of their overtures so they thought he was a closet case. He was friendly towards me and once confided that a neighbor had feminized his first name as a joke.

I voted for Crash for Best Picture.

I had success at an early point in my life, spent my entire 20s focusing on that rather than romance. I have great friends and a social life, but I expect I'll be alone forever. I used to think I didn't care, I do, and it sucks.

I agreed to move in with him and help raise his children, until he panicked and went running back into the closet and slammed the door.

Most painful thing I’ve ever gone through.

Not one, many. All due to silence and hesitation and an ethical framework which was broken. I still have time, fortunately.

The thing about "mistakes" is you never know if they were a blessing. You could have been run over by a truck en route to med school or met a psychopath at another job. So it's best to just make something great of wherever you are.

I can't think of a mistake. Sure I've made decisions that didn't turn out as planned, but I'm now in a good place. I honestly have no complaints other than getting older sucks, but it happens if you live long enough.

R2 OMG, how awful.

I didn't take enough time between college and graduate school--only one year. As a result I spent the age between 23 and 30 living in a university town far from everything, miserable, and without a gay bar for hundreds of miles.

I got a good teaching job and am now a tenured professor at a highly respected college, but I feel I lost out on the love life I should have had at that time.

r11, I don't know if it was "best picture," but it wasn't as oppressive as Ode to the Tire Iron.

I swallowed.

His name was Ken. When he broke up with me the first time, I should’ve held him to it.

I was business partners who was a drug addict but he hid it from me until it was too late. I went broke trying to save the business. But couldn't renegotiate our bank debt because he was a co-signer and he was missing in a crack den for months at a time. I lost millions of dollars in property, now worth many times as much.

Keeping the entry level job I had in college for 7 years.

oddly, career complacency due to my alcoholism kept me in a job I hated for 25 years. I ended up retiring quite wealthy and sober as a result however. A very unlikely outcome !

R24 - I think there's a lesson in many jobs. I was able to create my own position 3 times at my last company. People thought I was crazing for staying at one place for so long, but I built up so much knowledge and skills that I'm in a really awesome career position.

Look around your company and see where else you can fit in - it can actually happen.

Regrets—I’ve had a ton. I blew up my life a few times. I should’ve stayed in my first job after college and continued working at the radio station. Instead I quit and dumped someone and made a big mess. Drank too much tequila. Acted like an idiot. I am ashamed.

Can sociopaths and narcissists feel regret?

I wish I hadn't quit swimming as a 7 year old because I think I was gifted.

My parents were going to send me to an excellent prep school because I hated my public school. But I was too much of a Momma's boy and was afraid to leave home. I would have gotten a better education, gotten into a better college, and made friends for life.

A guy I spent an amazing night with in Raleigh, NC in '97. A while later he came into the coffee shop I worked at, left his number for me and I never called. I often think he was the one put on my path and I missed it completely.

Not going to Oxford for a year because I was worried about the debt. It probably wouldn’t have made a huge difference in my life, but you never know.

Maybe I should have stayed in New York and asked Scott to move in with me. But I'd been done in once by a "bi," and I wasn't about to let it happen again.

Also I don't forgive quickly enough. True forgiveness washes things away. Doesn't mean you need to have anything to do with the person forgiven.

Also rebound romances are the way to go. There's no use stewing in spoiled milk. People say they are a bad idea and don't work out but the company, touch, and sex is actually very healing.

I was living in NYC in 2000 and worked at a temp job that wanted to offer me a full-time position. It was going to pay more and be a solid job near the WTC. I turned it DOWN because I was so focused on getting into the publishing industry. LOL! What a fucking fool I was. I was asked TWICE to consider taking the job but I declined out of ignorance/arrogance. I eventually found a temp job in the publishing industry, but when 9/11 happened, my contract was not renewed and I was unemployed. I couldn't find another job to save my life. I wound up moving back to the mid-west with my tail between my legs. My life was ruined, albeit temporarily. But, I'm glad I wasn't working three blocks from WTC on 9/11 if I was working there full time.

Twenty years later, I found my calling on the other coast and doing well. But sometimes I wish I just accepted the job.

Not doing any extracurriculars as a kid. I'm naturally athletic and an art kid at heart and my parents never harped on putting me in anything, so my lazy ass stayed at home directly after school and in the summer breaks. I never joined any clubs, never put myself out there.

I once threw my boss out of my office. Not a good career move. Now I’m a docent at a zoo.

Being lazy.

R15 is right. I ended up with the wrong guy. He was a good guy, we just weren’t good for each other and held each other back. Now very amicably split.

At the time we met, it almost didn’t happen thought I had a desperate crush. In the short term, I would have been devastated if we hadn’t gotten together. But i would have been much better off, I think. I would dodged a bullet.

R27 I don't think so. They are incapable of believing they did anything wrong.

On the other hand, the most successful guy I know has trouble pointing to any mistakes he's made.

I know he made a few whoppers over the years, but he dismisses those as challenges, not mistakes.

I think those of us who don't feel that we have the success or happiness we think we should have, tend to dwell on every mistake and refuse to forget them.

Dating my ex. Away went my youthful optimism and kind spirit and I became bitter and jaded.

Passing on Pretty Woman.

r7 Frank?

I never should have went down to that damn basement.

I married the wrong woman.

I started smoking at age 15. I managed to quite 40 years later but now have health problems due to smoking.

I thought I was an "artist" and it took a shitty movie to bring me back

I have too many to name, but if there is anyone who can make a wrong decision, it's me.

My biggest? At age 12, following that older boy into that house; into that boy's bedroom; and letting him remove my clothes. I spent a summer being sexualized and taught to do things that no child should know. Ultimately, I became a hypersexual teen, who was constantly looking for a hook up with a man. I was addicted. I spent my whole life enslaved. I deal with side affects and consequences to this day, 35 years later.

Exactly like yours, OP. I had a great job straight out of high school, they even gave me time off to attend college. But I got talked into 'bigger and better' which I took strictly for the money and then it turned into a 30 year death march. Boring, got into affairs, drank too much, and finally wound up alone! It all started by my leaving a wonderful, generous company that now rules the city I live in! I would have easily retired as some type of exec VP.

R47, I am so sorry for that. That sounds absolutely terrible.

Lots of mistakes, unfortunately.

I didn't leave my hometown and country to move and try out a new life, because I was very shy and homy type.

I didn't spend enough time with my grandpa who went to the great lengths for me when it was needed.

When my poor doggy was to be put down, I's hiding in another room. Because after few deaths in my life I can't handle when the death is around.

Why I didn't try tongue piercing when it was trendy?

My mother discouraged me from auditioning for Juilliard (piano) for college, because she couldn't see where it could lead career-wise (she wanted me to be a teacher). I also wonder where it might have led.

I flashed my nipple at a big event, my brother saw, and now he's dead. Whoopsiessssss.

Blowing off a great scholarship at a decent school to “take a year off”. It lapsed into more than a year and I never got a degree (although I did take classes)

EVERYONE told me what a mistake it was, and I didn’t give a fuck. What a FOOL I was.

My biggest regret is not spending more time with my dad when he was alive. He died unexpectedly in his mid-60s. I thought I had many more years with him.

Going to seminary

Getting arrested for sticking my dick through a glory hole when I was 18, at the end of High School. I had spent my formative years wanting to be a teacher, and this ended that dream. I would of been a great teacher.

That sucks, R56.

Regrets, I’ve had a few

Turning down Klute

[quote]I would of been a great teacher.

Oh, honey.

During my senior year in high school, my drama teacher asked me what I was going to do after graduation. I told her I was going to college in the state I lived in. She shook her head and said, "No. You need to go to New York, audition for some shows, and see how it works out."

I was 18 years old and terrified of the thought of being alone in New York, so I stuck with my original plan. I always wonder what my life would have been like had I been more adventurous and gone to New York instead of taking the safe path and ending up in a life of soulless drudgery in corporate America,

Not asking for a raise and a better position at the beginning of my career and seeing less competent people being promoted above me. Leaving another job where I was respected and loved and was about to be promoted to a more senior position into a field that was totally different. I ended up hating the new job but the experience I received boosted me into better positions when I went back into my previous career.

Put too much pressure on myself when young. Permanently lost ability to relax or sleep properly by 23. I had the false idea that you could do anything if you put enough pressure on yourself.

If I had stayed in LA right when my career was gaining traction. I had moved out there from nyc with the live of my life and started working as a PA on music videos. Within a year I was reading scripts for 20th Century Fox. Eventually I was getting interviews at other studios as a study editor and even got offered a slot in the agent training program at William Morris. But my partner was severely depressed, missed NYC and demanded we go back. I assented to his wishes. Left all that behind. 2 years later we broke up.

I did fine back in nyc doing something else but I often wonder where I’d be now if I stayed (a few friends out there have gone on to massive careers).

Oh well I guess?

Hey R29 you are me. I could have gone to Andover but instead I was too afraid to leave home because I was so attached to my mother. Instead of having a great education and making life-long friends, I stayed at the crappy public school where I was bullied and had terrible teachers, but still, I got to go home every afternoon to my mother, whom I adored.

Of course, by the time I graduated from college I realized that my mother was a narcissistic manipulator who was trying to turn me into a sissy boy who would take care of her the rest of her life. I eventually went to a good shrink who helped me wean myself off of my mother in my twenties. After that I had little to do with her, except the polite obligations. I think back about how different my life would have been, how much I would have gained, if I hadn't been so scared to leave home.

R61 Same as you. Not listening to my art teacher when he said I should go to art school. Not that I didn't want to. I've never wanted anything more in my life, but my family would never have accepted it. I wasn't ready to fight people I loved, because I know it would have been ugly. I took a good, respectable job that I kinda hate instead.

Maybe I would have sucked at it and never gotten a job, but I wish I could have had the opportunity to try. For something that happened 25 years later, I think about it a bit too often.

* 15 years ago

I didn't get counselling after my partner died when I was in my early 30's. When I finally got some therapy it was painful but the depression finally lifted.

r66 Nothing is stopping you from picking up a paintbrush. You can take art classes anywhere. Even on youtube. You get better by doing it and having the discipline to pick up the brush.

R68 I made the same mistake after my partner died it put me in a 3 year depression. I had great support from family and friends but professional help was what I really needed.

R69 You're right. I just get frustrated with myself when I try because I haven't done anything in 15 years (I was just trying to get that art stuff out of my mind and focus on real life, but it didn't work). I was a talented 17 year old but for a 32 year old I really suck. I'm envious of the people who had the guts to go all in, for better or for worse.

R71 It doesn't matter if you're good or not. It makes you feel good. It nourishes your soul. It's meditative. That's the reason you paint.

R68,R70 I feel your pain. When my husband of 12 years died in a car accident,I shut myself into our house (until they repo'ed it) and isolated for a year and a half. I drank copiously,put on 50 lbs and shut out all friends and family . I truly think I hoped to die ,and it took them tacking a notice on my door telling me I had 3 days to vacate to FINALLY snap me out of it. That is my biggest regret in my life for sure. If Id gotten help,I could have kept our house and who knows where my life would have ended up . I swore that Id never love again,or even try,then I met my last husband who died on me after 7 years (of MS) and that definitely ended that part of my life. I couldnt survive that again.

Focusing on making money (finance job) instead of a job or career I liked (teaching). Hating my life for 20 years then burning out before 50. If I had been a teacher, I would be looking forward to retirement with a cushy pension worth $2 million+. Instead I have to keep working to try to save all that money myself.

What teacher has a cushy pension of $2 million plus?

Choosing to major in design. Choosing a chronically underemployed partner. I miss having money.

Anyone who lives to a “certain age” and says they have no regrets is either a liar or delusional.

I am in my 50's and I know that I did the best that I could, I don't have regrets. I have disappointments based on things that I had no control over and resulted in my life not being what I wanted it to be.

I love my family, and they made some poor choices for me when I was younger that really impaired my possibilities for success. I have forgiven them for that, as they did the best they could.

However, I should have gone to do what I wanted to do as soon as I turned 18. Between a misguided feeling of obligation to stick around, and a lack of confidence, it took me until I was almost 35 to live my life the way I wanted to live it. It affected my career and as I get older, it made me realize how much time I really, truly wasted on people that never knew or loved the real me.

I was in architecture school and having a tough time. Instead of figuring it out, I changed my major to something easier but less fulfilling. Have always regretted it, but I did start a part-time staging/design company several years ago that I'm enjoying immensely.

Oh, and I wasted 7 years being in love with someone who wanted me to be his sidekick. He used to compare us to "Beaches." I was more like the Ethel to his Lucy - he always wanted to be The Star, in charge and/or the center of attention.

He wanted someone funny to entertain him and occasionally blow him until something better came along....and I was dumb enough to do it.

(Thankfully, that mess was cleaned up long ago.)

[quote]Name one mistake you made that you feel altered your life

It's amazing the number of people in this thread who blame other people for their poor choices.

For all of you, it seems to me that the one mistake you've made and continue to make is not taking responsibility for your own choices while blaming other people.

Not I, R82. My biggest mistake is not having my shit together when I was young. I wish I had earned my degree when I was in my early 20s instead of mid 30s.

Who are you talking about, r82? I read back to somewhere in the 60s, and people seem intent on blaming themselves.

Who is "blaming other people"?

Gee, I just can't think of anything.

A lot of the regrets here don’t sound too serious. Going to college instead of running off to NY to audition for Broadway? Pursuing money instead of becoming a teacher, a thankless job with a huge rate of burnout? Usually regrets run the other way.

I say this because you shouldn’t beat yourself up about those, nor problems following the death of a loved one. No one does that well, and you survived.

Turning down Klute.

Trying crystal meth for the first time August 15, 2004.

Still struggling with stopping.

Looking sideways while attending Mass.

My ass injections.

Dropping out of college in my early 20s. Going into college straight out of high school instead of waiting a year or two

I shouldn't have offered that cigarette to Rush Limbaugh.

I wish I'd been less fearful in general, and wish I'd learned to love myself before I did. I've had a great life and career, but looking back, I wish I'd been more daring earlier on personally and professionally.

Also, I wish I'd procrastinated less at several critical points.

I find this prompt interesting. Will continue to think about it. Thanks, OP.

I went to college.

It wasn't a mistake to go. The mistake was in my taking out student loans to pay for it. It was either that or don't go and remain working jobs that paid only $12 an hour. So I went.

I graduated in 1995. I will technically have my loans paid off this year.

Going to college completely altered my life in that if I hadn't started off in so much debt, I would have had more choices. I just turned 50 and will never be able to afford a house or to retire. I do work in a field that I went to college for so there's that, I guess.

So sorry R2.

I was accepted into Stanford and didn't go. I was afraid of student loans. Biggest mistake of my life. Oh and most men I've dated.

A lot of what I wonder is how my life would have been different if I had made another decision, rather than the one I did.

I did not go to Harvard because I was afraid I would not be able to cut it academically. I did not go to grad school until much later because I did not understand the impact it would have. I lived in the same city longer than I should because I did not know what any other city would be like.

Most of the decisions I question were ones I made in ignorance. So now I try to know as much as I can.

That first credit card in college.

Becoming an academic instead of going to law school.

Law school is never a good idea. Employment is difficult and the job is glorified clerical work.

I know a large number of lawyers and all their life satisfaction comes from something other than their jobs.

Three main ones.

As a young teen, not sexually exploring or experimenting. I was celibate long past18 because I had (and still have) an aversion to touch and massive issues with boundaries & assertiveness. I was virtually friendless as well as virginal so it was agony growing up. No matter how impossible it seems then I should have just thrown my hands up and said, “yeah I’m a lesbian” at 15, or at least called my local LGB help centre.

As a highschooler, not working hard every day on performing arts/creative skills and tracking myself into theater school or an internship in film & tv. Had I walked into the industry at 16 or 18 or even 21 with a box of tricks instead on wasting my time & money on studying for a bullshit College degree and trying to live a “normal” 9-5 paper-pushing life? I’d believe I’d be more fulfilled and maybe even making decent scratch while at it (though who knows what could have happened, right?)

As a current working adult, staying in McJobs where I am treated like a volunteer or worse a slave. Some months I don’t get paid, others I get pennies. Then my employers have the gall to criticise my performance and accuse me of stealing and lying. I’m now about to have to sue the insane bitches who last hired me for a lot of money and it is stressing me out. It would have been cheaper and less damaging had I never answered that job admins just stayed unemployed for another year.

I also wish I’d taken the one shot I had to seduce and make love to the most beautiful girl I’d ever seen or met. I got so wrapped up in my own conscience (“she has a kid; she’s straight; she’s my niece’s babysitter; she’s too good-looking for me..”) that I completely overlooked the deep connection we had and let it disappear. Looking back I know intuitively that it could have been the most beautiful night of my life.

There’s a pattern here, but I’m no genius so I haven’t managed to figure it out.

Damn R79, I think you and me are the same person.

[quote]I was in architecture school and having a tough time. Instead of figuring it out, I changed my major to something easier but less fulfilling.

Same. I was top of my HS class (not much of a feat) and a decent mathlete. Went into engineering and had a real hard time with it. Switched to English Lit because I love reading. Did ok, but I'd have a more stable and lucrative career if I had stuck it out with engineering.

Also regret letting one specific relationship go down the shitter. His family loved me; we had a beautiful house. But I wasn't happy with myself and projected that into the relationship. He was "the one" and I let him slip away. Every relationship I've had since has been one sided and not worth pursuing. Think I'm finally calling it quits when it comes to love.

R99 - Appreciate your response, but the truth is more nuanced: depends what sort of lawyer you become and where and what branch you practice. Among my circle, all those who chose the law as a career have been far better rewarded than I have, financially, and as lawyers are seen as problem solvers, their options range from straight up corporate drudgery, to in-house counsel, to nonprofit work, to criminal and trial work. I would have preferred to turn into someone like Anthony Julius, both a scholar and a distinguished solicitor.

Yes, I know it doesn't always turn out that way, but I feel I should have tried. I took the path that was far more clearly within my grasp.

R100, I went to film school and trust me when I tell you, it's almost impossible to "make it" in Hollywood. It's very, very rare and unless you know someone big in the industry, you won't go anywhere.

You could still pursue film if you want to. Make your own shorts or write stuff. But believe me, I speak from experience that Hollywood is a nightmare and most people who pursue film end up doing something else because it's not lucrative unless you already have an "In."

Joining Datalounge - I was a half descent human being before this place. Not that I remember what that was like

Agreeing to go out with my (now) ex. Changed my life for the worst.

[quote] I went to film school and trust me when I tell you, it's almost impossible to "make it" in Hollywood. It's very, very rare and unless you know someone big in the industry, you won't go anywhere. You could still pursue film if you want to. Make your own shorts or write stuff. But believe me, I speak from experience that Hollywood is a nightmare and most people who pursue film end up doing something else because it's not lucrative unless you already have an "In."

Someone else who went to film school here R104 and R100.

Everything R104 said is true. (A caveat: I went to a great school which I didn't think was a great school when I was there but we all learned how to paddle our own canoes. That was the best thing they did for us.) Everyone that I went to film school with ended up working in film or tv and we all eventually got great jobs at different times. The problem is once most of us got to the "top" of that mountain people decided they didn't really want it. It isn't exactly what people think it is. The people aren't exactly what you might think they are. It can be fun but it can be nasty and depressing.

I'd say out of the 20 of us, probably about 7 are still working in the industry and that includes myself. You really do have to know people and if you don't you have to spend time getting to know people who can help you and that is much easier for people who are younger.

A couple of the girls I went to school with have dads who are huge producers. They had excellent jobs working on shows that people saw in positions they didn't have to work hard to get and neither works in TV anymore over almost a couple of decades out. One has a dad who has a bunch of Emmy awards and is a well known actor and she had a great job. Then she decided she didn't like it and left the industry. One of my classmates has an Oscar and the other was just nominated for one and both were people who had zero connections initially and worked very hard.

The key really is knowing if you want to make a lot of money or if you want to be personally fulfilled because those two things don't go hand in hand all the time. If it's the second one then you don't really need school for that what you need to do is actually make interesting projects that YOU enjoy whether you get paid or not.

r107, out of the 30 of us who attended UCLA's Film school and graduated the same year, I believe only three of us are working in film. On was Justin Lin who went on to direct big films. Not sure how that happened because he was of average talent when he went to school. The other two of us work in porn. I've tried for 23 years to "make it" in Hollywood and it isn't happening. Porn doesn't pay. You can always be employed though, but you'll be living paycheck to paycheck. I've done some mainstream stuff and the hours are shit (18 hour days? Yeah, no) and the work is sporadic when it comes and most of the people I know are over how they treat the workers in Hollywood. California is the only state that has exemptions from overtime laws for people who work in the film industry. How fucked up is that? Unless you have a partner who holds a steady job while you work a few times a year, mainstream Hollywood is a shit place to work. I'm ready to walk away from it all and find a different career.

R108 The film industry isn't technically exempt from Labor Laws. I worked in film as a production coordinator and I was instructed by the accountants, to explain to each production assistant, after I hired them, that they were on a flat daily rate regardless of the number of hours they worked. I was then instructed by the accountants to forge the time cards and fudge the hours to make it look like the PAs worked 50 hours instead of 90! I did this every week to help avoid the production company from getting caught violating labor laws. There was no record of their true hours. Looking back, I can't believe I was instructed to commit this fraud, considering I was working for all the major studios and they had more than enough money to pay these meager wages. This practice still exists.

Back in 1995, as a production assistant, I used to get paid 150.00 per day. I just found out that productions assistants STILL get 150.00 per day. I was shocked! I could barely afford to live on that. Today's PAs must live four to a room just to afford to pursue their dreams!

With the long hours, high-school level set politics, excessive and absurd amount of food consumed on a daily basis combined with the lack of cardio activity and Adderall usage, production crew life is not a healthy lifestyle.

Yep. I know several who live in vans and drive around to sets. They can't afford to live but the illusion that they are all gonna make it someday if they just keep doing it hasn't worn off yet. I know people who became assistant editors thinking it would be a step up to editor and 20 years later, they are still assistants. The same is true of me. Kept thinking if I was talented enough and kept winning awards, I'd finally be making the big bucks that some editors make.

Boy was I wrong. Talent means nothing.

Dropping out of high school in the 11th grade because of depression. If I was able to stick it out another year I wouldn't be ashamed 30 years later to run into old classmates and teachers. Unfortunately the SSRI class of antidepressants didn't hit the market until what would have been my senior year.

I had a midlife crisis and mental collapse at 29 after 5 years of working 90 hour workweeks (6 days per week) in that shitty business. It sucks the life out of you. There is a reason no one is married, no one has kids, and most high level employs are gay (because gays don't get married nor have kids so they can work those ridiculous hours!)

For the person up thread who laments about not pursuing a career in Hollywood. Don't. I have no friends today because of that business. It sucked up so much my life that I didn't have time, nor make time, for the people that mattered to me and my relationships slowly disconnected and dissolved. After 20 years in that business, I walked away feeling empty and dissatisfied. I never heard from one "Hollywood friend", curious as to where I was or why I hadn't been in touch. Why? That's the nature of that business. Friendships are very surfacey, and no one is "emotionally invested" in you. Everyone is "agenda driven". You can't maintain relationships working those hours and you can't "emotionally connect" and bond with people that you know for short periods of time, and most likely will never see again, because you're onto the NEXT job as soon as the current one ends.

Girl, it's been 1 after another. I've realized I'll never change. And that's ok.

R113 -- did you really mean to say you had a mid life crisis at the age of 29?

I think I went to film school with pornchick, everything she says about the industry is true. I caught on quickly and realized that I didn't want to work for slave wages or unpaid and moved on.

R115. Yes. That business pushed me to the brink of my sanity and got up from my desk one day and walked out!!! (You don't do that in Hollywood.) I couldn't take it any longer! I drove around in my car for a couple hours and then went back. Had a screaming match with my boss for 10 minutes, hurling "fuck you's" at each other! And I knew that I was done! A month later I was on a tour bus traveling through the British Isles and then followed that tour with bus tour of Italy! And I didn't really enjoy it, because being a miserable fuck was programmed into me and it took years to deprogram myself.

I stayed in the business another 11 years, but changed jobs a bunch of times to try and find my niche, but it was just more of the same.

Thanks to everyone upthread so far who have shared their film industry horror stories. You have all been through a lot of unenviable bullshit and it can’t be pleasant to reminisce, yet you still share your experiences to prevent others making the same mistakes (what this thread is all about). I’m glad you got out and prioritised your peace, and I’m grateful and encouraged by your words thinking now that I dodged some major bullets not progressing into a screen industry career.

I must clarify something, though. It was never my fantasy or ambition to work in ‘Hollywood’ or big films; I only ever wanted to work in a creative capacity (mostly concept, story, writing & design) on indie films and also for stage (and my BA is in Theater, yuck it up....). It’s not like I dreamt of making theater releases as a hotshot name-Director or actor, nothing like that - which is lucky because I don’t have the clout or connections even if I wanted to!

The sad reality though is that there is such a glut of audiovisual entertainment now that any indie project in any artistic field is unlikely to be seen by a decent sized audience, and that’s assuming it ever comes to life with enough funding. Seems like a sadistic choice where you have to either go broke doing a passion project with buddies who volunteer on Sundays, or sell out to sponsors and do exploitation media.

But now I’m bumming myself and everyone else out. What I really would like is a job where I can write & design works of fiction that are appreciated by a loyal audience and where I can collaborate with other artists. That would be better for my existence than the jobs I have right now hocking cheap plastic crap I don’t care about to mall-cows for eight hours a day 6 days a week. Sales, admin, service...all my jobs have been so empty and don’t pay my bills, anyway (I’ve slept in my van and worked nights, too). I feel age creeping up on me even at 29, so I know I need a change.

This thread is shifting my perspective a little and making me realise all is not totally lost, even though it really isn’t great right now and I may never rule the world. I can still get an internship in a creative field or start a creative group of my own, take an arts class (I’d go back for an MA if I could afford it), submit a script or a draft novel, book a few massages with a nice-looking woman and get to a softball game. To be honest as a broke Millennial with nothing and no-one in my life besides relatives and a dog, I have little to lose at this point. Though I likely can’t ever see or talk to my dreamgirl again. that’s a lesson learned for when my future wife comes along.

Thanks again for all the advice. Love you all!

Way back at the beginning of my career (which has been good, but still...) I was working for a small firm that I was eventually made partner. But being a small company, there was no support, and this was in the beginning of the networking craze when we were still figuring out how to connect PCs so they could share resources. While not a coder and hating writing code, I worked with a specific program and wrote the code to make it work on the network OS we'd just bought and installed. A few months later, we ran into a small issue, so I called the network vendor (remember those, before Microsoft killed them all?) and when I explained what I was trying to figure out, the support tech went silent and asked if I'd hold.

About 30 seconds later, a guy (who I realised later was the founder and CEO) comes on the line and starts grilling me how I made this work, what I'd done, blah, blah, blah, and ultimately, asks if I'd mind faxing (ha! no email yet) the code I'd written, the config.sys and .ini files... and then he says (I can remember this word-for-word): "...and include your resume. No... would you fly out for an interview? I'll send you a ticket. Can you come tomorrow?" I demurred. He then offered to hire me on the spot and threw out what was a huge salary number at the time. I said I'm not a coder. He said that he had coders with decades of experience that had not been able to crack the problem, and then he upped the salary offer, and then, the regret-causing whammy: if I'd accept, he'd grant me a number of stock options vesting over five years. That's how desperate they were to get a handle on this issue. I again demurred thinking this was some sort of ruse, thanked him, and hung up. The company was later acquired for nearly a billion dollars, and I realised those options would, due to stock splits and the company's growth, have been worth many millions. Oh, the days of the dot-com boom.

I'm still not a coder.

I moved out of a one-bedroom apartment and moved in with two guys into a three-bedroom one, to save money.

I was working a job that I knew was ending and thought this could save money. It did. Another job opened up so close to where I used to live!

I wasn't out of work for even a month!

Eventually, that old unit opened up, the roommate thing didn't work out; one roomie was closeted and angry and I wasn't out yet, but he was NEVER coming out; he had a ton of anger.

Anyway, because I lived so far away I said yes to another job. That ended up changing my life. It hasn't been as financially rewarding, but it's been a dream job and tons of fun. Still, had the other one was a sweet deal and I'd probably have a condo now.

I screwed-up my courage, got rid of everything, quit my McJob and moved to Seattle in 1997. I loved it. I got really lucky and found a steady temp job that could have turned permanent, and a basement apartment near Green Lake.

But my mother gave me a sob story about being left all alone blah blah so after a year I moved back to the Midwest (we ended-up estranged anyway because she's a passive aggressive manipulator).

Never let people guilt trip you to benefit their lives.

I should have married J. I don’t know why I didn’t and I regret it.

I just didn’t know how important it would be later. Spending your life with your actual best friend.

I miss him terribly. He suffered from mental illness. Like real heavy shit, not just anxiety or depression like me. I just couldn’t deal with it at the time, because I was scared. I understood that if we married, I would basically have to take care of him financially and even emotionally, for the rest of our lives. I didn’t care about financially, because we would have made it, but everything pretty much weighed on my shoulders, and I did not believe that I was going to be able to handle it all at that time.

I really fucked up. He was the most unique and amazing man I ever knew and would have been worth me walking through my bs fear.

I have no idea where he is. I have looked for him, trust. I suspect he might be homeless somewhere or who knows.

Why do we convince ourselves that we don’t deserve to be happy?

Wow R122. What made him so special?

Didn't kill myself when I had the chance.

Feeling “sorry” for people and keeping them in my life when I should have cut bait years ago. I don’t do it now, but am angry that I allowed an emotional succubus to clutter up my life with their drama. For you see, they were on the boarder of being a little person...and quite ugly inside and out! A hot mess with bad breath! Angry Angry Angry I’m relieved they are gone, but I can’t get that time back.

I took Cipro. Game over.

Sometimes I think I should have tried to work really hard in high school to get into an ivy league college and made connections to get into comedy writing, But when I read the posts above about making it in Hollywood I realize I couldn't have done it back as I am female.

Now what I think was my mistake was not taking the opportunity to get into therapy when I was 19 or 20.

R123, he was really smart, and had the most abstract way of thinking. Listening to his ideas, was akin to watching Picasso paint with words.

He was silly and funny, like me. He told me EVERYTHING, and that was really refreshing, because I had never met someone that was just as honest as the wind blowing through the trees. It was completely natural, and no filter was ever applied, though he kept it shut when we were out in polite company. Lol.

He’d write me songs, serenade me from outside the window, do my laundry, just because.

He had a difficult time staying sober. We struggled with his relapses, but I stood by him, because he was honest and never made excuses.

He never judged me, and I ended up judging him, in the end. He had a really bad relapse, disappeared for a few days, and I was looking at it all from someone else’s eyeballs. My friends were saying things like: you deserve a guy who doesn’t have mental illness issues, a guy who isn’t even a recovering addict, one is enough (I’m one), a guy who had a good job and a career like you, someone you can have kids with, etc., etc.

What I didn’t understand then, is that those things are not a requirement for a successful relationship. One size does NOT fit all, and I, myself, am not the picture of pristine mental health and “normalcy”. I like weird, I like different, and I like oddballs. I was trying to make a life for myself, that I never wanted in the first place, because I wanted to be “right” with the world or society in which I lived.

I could have had all of that with this guy, it was just not going to be conventional, or traditional. I’ve never been those things, anyhow.

I have forgiven myself for being afraid, and I am a helluva lot less afraid about anything I am faced with, now, than when I made the mistake of letting a good thing go.

Live & learn.

I've made a lot of mistakes that changed the course of my life, but the biggest one was not getting away from my family.

Maybe because I was the youngest everyone felt it was their job to control me and I let them because I was convinced that I was stupid, like they all said I was.

If I had just held my ground when I was 19 and moved out like I had planned maybe I would be worse off like they all said I would be, but maybe I'd be much better off.

I'm 47 now and I'll never know what my life could have been if I had just ventured out into the world.

Not cutting David’s Pringle’s can off.

would've double majored in something STEM'ish instead of a history/policsci major/minor

You could hir a detective to find him R128

I should have let them put me in the Advanced Placement group when I transferred to public school as a junior. They told me I could have "the Columbia slot." I was tired of being a genius: my brother and father (and his entire side of the family) hated me, and all I wanted, all my life, was to be "normal." Plus, the boy who'd originally been in the Columbia slot had killed himself that summer.

I ended up doing mediocre work in my last two years of high school, then went to a large university that was good, but not great, where I did fairly well until drugs took over my life.

Now I know I'd've gotten better jobs if I'd gone to Columbia.

R133, Columbia doesn’t necessarily equal high, future earnings. Yes, it’s an Ivy, but it’s probably the most socially progressive Ivy there is. Very diverse, from race, to socioeconomic backgrounds, gender, sexual orientation, etc. Plenty of Columbia graduates end up working for a living, rather than working at Goldman Sachs.

R129, or you could have ventured out and lived on your own all of your life, and ended up back w/your mother, like me.

R132, I could, however, I find that to be ethically wrong, unless the motive is something along the lines of finding someone for an urgent financial or life/death situation. I don’t do shit like that. It’s kinda weird and doesn’t sit well with me.

In my case I knew I had a talent for bending technology to my will. But I did five years in the soul sucking retail space instead. Then I got into I.T.?I.S. through a newspaper ad. Been my career ever since.

R135, so can you bend spoons to your will too?

Bending technology to your will? Overrated. Bending over? Everyone does it now. But bending spoons?

That could be MONEY, R135.

Ever letting alcohol into my life.

From the age of 15 onward, I can say with absolute certainty, that every stupid mistake, dumb decision, bad relationship choice, episode of underachievement, and every social faux pas, can all can be traced back to alcohol.

When I can get sober for any length of time, my life and my brain both start to work properly. But...I always end up back in the La Brea Tar Pit of drinking. I'm currently in the tar, and I really want out. My current relationship--the origin story of which involves making a series of radical life choices during a period of heavy-drinking--is now revealing itself as another strange and complicated alcohol-laced scenario that will be hugely challenging to pull out of seeing as I have been financially supporting this person for months, and will have to basically kick them out onto the street in order to get my life back, on track, seeing as they came into this relationship with nothing but a nice smile. This is all deeply discouraging to realize how stuck in the tar I am right now--AGAIN. Which is resulting in me drinking more heavily YET AGAIN. D'oh!

It's like the alcoholic character in The Little Prince who laments "I drink to forget that I drink."

Love this thread. And how gray a lot of it is. Like the “missed opportunity “ of chasing the a Hollywood dream - which is just that, a fantasy.

I just quit a well paying job that was soul-sucking and all-consuming. I was in a state of constant anxiety and depression for 20+ years because of it. I may regret it when I turn 65 and don’t have enough in my 401k. But right now, I am loving life for the first time in 20+ years. The right decision now - but in 10 years, I may hate myself for missing the opportunity to make money and fund a comfortable retirement. Or I might be dead.