If you could start your life all over again, from what age would you do so?

At the age of 17, I was offered a full scholarship to a very prestigious college and a lucrative job offer while attending college that would lead to something bigger once I graduated. Unfortunately, my mom was against me it all and thought it would be best for me to get a full time job in order to help out with the finances at home. Throughout my adulthood, the majority of the time, I worked two jobs to which I had always wound up helping out a member of my family financially. This prevented me from considering going back to school until recently. Nonetheless, if I could start over, I would have done things differently and took that full scholarship ride.

 

I'd go back to 18ish and do college over, with the knowledge that I am in fact gay (took me until after graduation to figure out, strangely enough for someone as - relatively speaking - young as I am). At times I wonder how my life would have turned out had I been able to avail myself of the resources at my university's LGBT student center, make more LGBT friends in college, and realize that moving back to my rural hometown wasn't the greatest idea for my emotional sanity (its saving grace is that it worked out ok financially, but I'm still hoping to move to somewhere more accepting someday).

 

I wouldn't go back completely until I was born cause I had some painful medical problems I do not wish to relive, so around 7-8 years old, to change the way I acted around others and block all the bullying I will be receiving in the future. Would help A LOT.

 

I'd probably opt out of starting over, especially since I've been through too much that I'd rather not go through again.

 

Check that, I'd go back to my conception and try and see if there's any way I could be born to different parents.

 

13 for me, mainly to tell my brother that I loved him, and to stop him from going out that night, he was drunk and chose to walk home... He friend chose to drive... His friend hit and killed him 8 blocks from my house...

Also so I wouldn't have screwed around so much and maybe went to university and became an engineer, or a biologist... Instead of this dead end career I chose for the money at the time.

 

Honestly I've been enjoying life a fair bit recently. I voted for 7-8 because while I enjoy how I am now, I do sometimes miss being ignorant to everything around me in the world and being more carefree.

 

There are plenty of mysteries that vex me, even at this age. One thing I've learned though, is to be careful what I wish for. I'd opt out.

Another very good reason for this, is that I haven't determined the solutions for many of the problems that I had when younger. Social problems. So, if the question implies I would take today's knowledge back, then I still wouldn't be able to produce different results.

Unfortunately, the millions I'd make from taking all the money I had and buying put options the Friday before October 19, 1987 would not provide enough comfort to make it worthwhile. But if you force me to do it, that would be the date I'd pick, October 16 1987, minus enough days to open an options qualified brokerage account and fund it up. Perhaps the absence of a need to be a wage slave for the subsequent 23 years would have given me some time to do more work on those social problems.

 

I said 15-16 as 15 was the age I fully realize and accepted that I am gay.

So starting that age with current knowledge I might avoid falling for wrong guys and have meaningless sexual adventures.

 

I'd start over with 3 again because I met my former best friend then and if I could prevent myself from being friends with her, I'd be saved from a lot of heartbreak. However this made me who I am and who knows whether or not my life wouldn't be awful if I made different friends. Maybe it's good that we aren't given a second chance.

 

I would pick 13, simply because that's when I feel I began to really spiral out of control; I developed anorexia and the symptoms of my bpd were beginning to manifest themselves violently. and all I did was sit in the middle of my pit of self-destruction defenselessly, like some passive victim. I lost my teen years like that, being static and angry and obsessed. as a seventeen year old, I feel like I have missed out on so much freedom and fun. so many potential friendships and relationships and experiences dissolved into nothing simply because I didn't make the choice to reach out and seize them. I wonder if, as the more self-aware person that I am today, I would have developed my ED at all if I took myself back in time. In any case, the motion of time frustrates me beyond words and I have this constant fear that it is running out and I am not using it well enough. if I had done more STUFF from the age of 13 (as well as stood up to abuse the way I'm not afraid to now) I wouldn't be so on edge all the time.

 

I'd say 5-6

I would not have to live through all the dependency of a little kid and gain a lot from those memories...on the other hand it would feel like killing my younger self..i was not the same person back then, hell i am not even the same person i was 1 year ago. I might not agree with everything i did back then but that person i was had a right to be there. I had other thoughts and other dreams but all of those things had their validation.

So..on second thought..i think i won't start over to let my past self be my past self without the influence the memories of my current live would have over it.

 

From birth, purely because my childhood was the favorite part of my life.

Then again, the teenage years were hell...

 

There's no option for 'I wouldn't. I felt like I was in hell up until the age of 16 dealing with bullying, parents divorce, self hatred, depression and all the shit that comes with that. The past two years of college have been difficult and I don't think I could relive them and do any better. I'd rather stay where I am and see where this life takes me.

 

I'm going to have to say that I'd be better off starting at birth. If I had the memories I have now back then, I could done something to prevent myself from having the mental health issues I have now and I could've possibly gotten on some hormone blockers while I was a teenager. I know I'd have to go through the process of being disabled for several years but I feel like if I knew what I know now, I might have been able to cope with it better.

 

This sounds pretty wise to me. As in your case, my middle- and high school years were absolute torture. I feel like I could have been one of those school shooters that flipped out or even someone who committed suicide. It wasn't quite that bad, but almost. College was a whole lot better, but I still had social difficulties.

As time went on, things got better. I've learned to be more grateful for the way things turned out, and I realize that I probably couldn't do any better than I've done already.

There is an advantage to all of this. Perhaps the popular kids turn into adults and develop adult problems, and they wish for the past. We wished for the future. I think the delayed gratification is way better than the remorse.

 

I would say 5-6. Good time for me to get an early Asperger's diagnosis. Plus I just miss that part of my life, the friends I had at that time...

 

I would never go back! However if there were specific moments in my life that I could have gone back to and done over, then I would probably do that and then go straight back to the present.

 

I wouldn't go back. I'm all about now and the future. I do wish though that I was like 21 or 22 again physically!

 

From 3-4. Fix a great number if mistakes in my life.