People Explain Which Things In Their Life They Regret Putting Time And Energy Into

Online, But Going Nowhere

Arguments with idiots online. It's just a waste of time and it never seems to go anywhere.

- The__Eric__Cartman

This.

Specifically rightwing trolls waging campaigns of disinformation. They want you to get frustrated and waste your time, and they want you to argue so that they can spam their BS.

Best approach is to spend no more than five minutes posting a fact-check, and then move on.

- DyingFire

Fitting In

Trying to fit in. Wasted years finding myself.

- evilnaos

Great comment. Life is much easier and less stressful when you stop pretending and start being yourself. Not giving a f*ck about some absurd social norms can lift a lot of weight from your shoulders.

- Bacha-

Contact

Friendships that were only kept alive because I made it so. I don't mind initiating the majority of contact with other people or organize the majority of events with other people, someone has to do it.

But if I'm the only one in a friendship doing it and once I stop the contact is literally non-existent, its probably better to not invest that energy into a person.

- PandaDerZwote

Sometimes I'm Bitter

People who don't deserve it. I've realized there was someone who I was a friend to, but they definitely weren't a friend to me.

Perhaps regret is too strong a word. She's fighting some hard battles.

I think about her a lot. Then I wish her well. Sometimes I mean it. Sometimes I'm bitter.

- ChocSyn

You'll Need It Later

When I grew up in the 80's I had an horrible penmanship and I had to spend countless hours trying to correct it because everyone was telling me that it would be a huge handicap latter in life when I'll have to work.

I've been working for 20 years and I never had to write anything to anyone using a pen.

- inckalt

Love Me Back

Trying so hard for years to get my mostly absent drug addicted parents to just love me back.

- RedeRules770

That sucks, I'm sorry. Just because your parents didn't love you, that doesn't mean that you are unlovable. It just means you were born to shitty parents. You're still incredible.

- mappinit

Military Career

My military career. Once they broke me and I needed help, they tossed me aside. I was just a worn out tool.

- mwr885

Same here. I try and think of what I gained during my service and always come up empty.

I'm still paying back an "overpayment" that happened back in 2010. Completely cut off my benefits 5 years after I EAC'd saying I owed them money.

- Vengeful_Doge

Paying To NOT Play

Certain mobile games that have "spend time or money" designs.

The time is never worth it and the money definitely isn't.

Just delete it and you'll have forgotten about it in a couple days

- UltimateApe

I love that most of those games you end up paying real money to skip playing game, buying the so called 'time savers' to get the pay for cash quicker or not have to sit through cool downs.

Real money, to not play the game.

But you want to charge $10 for a complete game, no wait times, no unlocks, and it's going to flop because it's a 'bad deal'.

The mobile market is trash, sellers and buyers alike, and it's dragging every other gaming market with it.

- Mr_ToDo

College

The whole college process.

Man, going to a competitive high school makes it feel like life or death. I spent way too much time stressing and worrying about not getting into a top school and then ending up being a poor failure.

I'm 3 years out of high school and I'm so ashamed at all the unnecessary effort I put in. It literally didn't matter at all.

- IdRatherGo2Jail

Make It Work

Trying to make an ill-fitting job promotion work. Last August I was offered a promotion that made me a salaried employee with benefits. TBH, the main reason I took it was that it meant being paid biweekly instead of monthly. Only being paid once a month can be a gigantic pain.

Anywho, it was awful from the start. What my job title said I did and what my boss expected of me were two different things. He basically felt like he "owned" me, and managed to completely dominate my life even though I worked from home. Seriously, I was working 7 days a week routinely. Boss and I had a few skirmishes, culminating in a big blow-up in mid-April. At that point, I quit on the spot.

In other words, I deliberately quit a salaried, stay-at-home professional job to take an essential-worker job in the middle of a global pandemic. It was that bad.

Thing is, I work physically hard now, but it is unbelievable how much happier I am, and my weekends belong to nobody but me.

- sirdigbykittenceasar