My greatest regrets
Hi everyone,
I was thinking today about my regret of how my conversation with a senior editor at Penguin Random House went in 2006 and how big an impact that has had in my life, and how it compares with some of my other regrets. This led to a bit of soul-searching, and ultimately I came up with my top 10 biggest regrets, or mistakes, in my life:
1. Not going to university straight away in 1991.
2. Quitting my high-level job in 2005.
3. Saying no to the Australian Olympic Committee when they offered to get me to try out for triple jump at a special trials for the 1994 Commonwealth Game in 1993.
4. Ghosting a girl in Grade 8.
5. Telling a girl to cut her hair in Grade 10, 1990.
6. Stealing $2.30 from my dad to buy a toasted sandwich for a girl so as to impress her in 1986.
7. Not accepting Penguin’s offer to publish my Children of the Crescent Moon novel in 2006.
8. Being too nice to a girl who cheated on me in 1995.
9. Delaying visiting my grandmother before she died in 2007.
10. Not going to my grandfather’s funeral in 1997.
So my regret about Penguin's offer to publish my novel is only number 7 in my list of greatest regrets, and I think that might be about right too. While lists like this can be a bit subjective and I might change it later, the way I am thinking right now it does sound about right.
My number 1 might not sound like much when you look at it like that, but the result of my delaying going to university by a year was that I couldn't do my maths or statistics degree that I wanted to do, as they were only offered in Melbourne and Sydney, and after I delayed going to them, my offer expired and the next year Melbourne and Sydney banned everyone coming from Tasmania for the entire year, as a result of Tasmania trying to manipulating Melbourne and Sydney's universities into taking Tasmanian high school students as locals (instead of preferencing people from their own state). I got in there in spite of the harsher requirements from being from a different state, and got in a year early too, but could not get in later. The result of this was the difference between doing a subject that I was good enough to go all the way to PhD level in versus not being good enough even to finish a degree in it, and then having to start my career as someone without a degree at all as compared to starting it with what could have been dual PhDs in mathematics and statistics. While I guess I can't guarantee that I would have definitely done that well, I was doing that well up to the end of high school, and if things continued the way they were going then that was looking very likely, and my whole career started really slowly because of it. It basically delayed my career for 30 years until 2022 when I was finally allowed to do the degree I had got into in 1991, then as a post-graduate. I got a scholarship for it and got into a special course where I could do it in 6 months, which was great, but it was still 30 years later than I wanted, and it was still just a basic degree. This was a pretty big regret. And I can't blame anyone else either, as I knew that Tasmania's high school system was fighting with Melbourne's and Sydney's. Other people in my grade went to Melbourne high school and did Year 13, or even transferred there to do Year 12. There were many ways around it. But I didn't try any of them. I just assumed that it'd work out. And then it didn't.
The second one was also work-related, as I progressed rather quickly once I got into the workforce, and by 2004 I reached what would be my highest-ever level job, which I kept until 2005. I was impressing all of the senior members of staff and was looking like going up and up and up, meaning effectively that not going to the university degree I wanted to do didn't matter, only then I had an argument with someone I worked with, and, instead of trying to work it out, I panicked and quit, and as a result I lost all of my references and basically had to start over. It took me 14 years to get back up to anything approaching the same level. If I had just stayed put and made them try to fire me if they were going to instead of just quitting before it got to that stage (and then sued them if they dared to fire me etc) then things probably would have worked out, and I would have been at a much higher-level now, most likely. Even if I had quit, I should have done it in the right way, getting references and making sure to do it with another job to go to. I just quit suddenly and lost everything. I had no idea that the corporate world was so cruel and punished you that much for quitting like that, but it is like that. Lesson learned, but it cost me a lot.
The third one is something that a lot of people don't know about me. I was pretty good at triple jump. I got into the National Under Age Athletics championship 6 times, but never actually went into it, because my parents never had enough money to send me, and because my club didn't want to spend money on sending me. A lot of people don't realise this, but if you are not living in a big city you have to pay to go for things like this. While my club sent a few people, they were people that were a lot better than just sneaking into the national qualifiers. I stopped when I was 13 and started again when I was 15, and when I was 17 I got the best results for the year nationwide, and, as underage finishes at 16, I was to go to the open championships, but again my club didn't want to send me and I didn't have enough money. I didn't have a choice about that because it was a money thing. But after the national championships were held, I was a bit surprised that the Australian Olympic Committee called me and asked me to try out for them in a special try out in Canberra, ahead of the Brisbane Commonwealth Games the next year. They were going to pay for the trip and accommodation, and all I had to do was to take some time off university (doing my computing degree, as my replacement for the mathematics and statistics degrees I wanted to do) but I was doing so badly that I was worried that if I took a few weeks off then I might fail. Bad move! I should have just gone! So what if I failed? If I knew now what a big deal that was, I would have gone. Sure, there was no guarantee that they would have accepted me, but if I'd done my best then they would have. I thought that since I hadn't trained for a few months that I might not be good enough, but considering that I haven't trained in 32 years now and I can still get close to what I could do then, I think that I probably would have been okay. If I had gone in the Commonwealth Games and done my best, I would have gotten 17th. It might not sound like much, as it's not even the Olympics, but getting to mix with real international athletes would have been a big deal for me. And money wasn't the issue as the Australian Olympic Committee were going to pay for it all for me. I was so stupid!
The fourth one might not sound like a big deal, but I had always prided myself on how kind I was, and in Grade 8 I was going out with this girl who I really liked, and I liked her family, but then when I got to meet her friends I hated them. And then they were just hanging around everywhere with us. Now, if that was me now I'd just ask if we could just hang out without her friends, and if I just couldn't stand them and she insisted that they hang out then I might say that it's either me or them, or something like that, and maybe we might have broken up over it but at least she'd know. But I got some really bad advice from a friend, and he told me to just stop talking to her. So for 3 months I said nothing to her, and then she asked me what the deal was and I told her that I had broken up with her. I was really cruel. I am not that person. It was my friend telling me what to say. I really hurt that girl and no amount of apologies can make up for it. I tried to apologise to her later and she said it was okay but I don't know if it really was. It was really mean of me.
The fifth one was due to that same friend giving me bad advice, with a different girl. This was a really pretty girl and I was worried that I was "out of my league" with her, and so I asked him what to do, and he told me to be mean to her, so I told her she had to cut her hair. That might not sound like much but I was just really controlling. She even cut her hair how I asked and coloured it and styled it exactly how I said, and wore the clothes I told her to wear, then she just got sick of it and dumped me, and I deserved that. We got back together a few more times but then it didn't work out overall, and maybe it never was going to, but I definitely hurt her, quite unnecessarily. Maybe I should put this down to having a friend who gave really bad advice! And me being a fool and listening to him! But this was the same friend that set us up so he wasn't all bad. And it was my choice to listen to him, so I have to take responsibility.
Number 6 was a bit of a weird one. My dad used to keep a jar of coins in his car for paying the parking meter and there was probably $100 worth of coins in there, so one day I was going to meet this girl and I decided to impress her by buying her a toasted sandwich, which cost $2.30, which was a lot of money for me at the time. The girl talked to me for about 30 seconds then ate the sandwich with another boy. She didn't even go out with me! My regret is not to do with the girl as it was good that I found out that she didn't like me; my regret is that I stole from my dad. It is the only time I stole anything from anyone, and I feel really bad about it. I didn't even tell my dad I did it for 6 years and when I told him he told me just to pay it back. I still think he should have punished me a bit more for it!
The 7th one is the Penguin one, and I will explain why it is so low.
Penguin never gave me a written offer, and, as the saying goes, verbal offers are worth the paper they are written on - in other words, they are useless. They never said to me oh they will definitely publish my work, here is a contract. What they said was that they would consider it. And I never said no either - I told them that I wasn't happy with my book yet. And I wasn't. If I had gone along with publishing it then, when it was still half-baked, I would have regretted it. My fear was that then people would be seeing my great work in a not-so-great state, and thinking that I don't know how to write. Don't forget that Penguin had earlier rejected me with the same book in 1999! And I just thought that if they offered it to me in 2006 that they'd offer it to me again when I finished it in 2018, and realistically they probably would have if not for the ban on publishing fantasy by new authors, which is because of an influx of authors writing Twilight-like novels so much that a lot of Australian publishers have shied away from all fantasy. But it wasn't that big a deal because I had other offers, and I eventually settled on one that I liked in 2021 when I went with Red Cape Publishing, and it's okay. Sure, Red Cape Publishing are UK-based instead of Australian and they don't have the kind of reach that Penguin has, but the book is out there and ultimately I don't think it should really matter who the publisher is long-term. It just changes how long it takes for people to realise that it exists. Plenty of authors have had big sales from small publishers. I just wish that I had explained myself a bit better to Penguin so that they knew that I was actually still wanting to publish with them. I think that they misunderstood me and thought that I wasn't interested.
Number 8 might confuse people because numbers 4 and 5 were about being too mean to girls so why is number 8 about being too nice? Well, number 8 came afterwards, and I think I was a bit too much of a doormat. This girl basically cheated on me right in front of me and I basically just said sure that's fine. A lot of really bad things happened afterwards and in many ways it was because of it. If I had it to do again, I would have maybe yelled at her a bit, maybe sworn at her a bit, and most importantly definitely broken up with her over it. I was just such a doormat. So stupid. It's bad to be too nice to someone who doesn't deserve it just as much as it is bad to be too mean to someone who doesn't deserve that either. I suppose it was an important lesson to learn, but also a big mistake, which I definitely wouldn't make again, and I didn't either. When someone else cheated on me, later on, I dumped them straight-up, and I was a lot happier with doing that.
Number 9, and 10, were both about missing funerals, but number 9 was a bit worse because my grandmother was sick, and instead of flying down straight away, I decided to move there to be with her in her final days. Even with the biggest rush I could possibly make, it took me 3 weeks to move, by which stage she was dead and they had the funeral the day before I got there. I hated them for doing that and not delaying the funeral by a single day. But I hated myself for not just flying down there straight away. I didn't have to move. I could have just flown down, taken a couple of weeks off work, say goodbye to her, go to her funeral, then go back. Sure, it was very expensive to do that, and I didn't have enough money, but I could have taken out a loan or something.
Number 10 is similar to number 9 but a bit different because I lived quite close to my grandfather, but we were arguing when he died suddenly, and so I refused to go to his funeral. It was a stupid thing, as I still could have gone to the funeral of someone I was angry with when they died. I didn't get to go to my other grandmother's funeral and I had no choice about that one, so I only went to the funeral of one of my four grandparents. But this one I easily could have gone to. It was only a short bus trip and I could have gone there on a weekend. I just refused. I should have gone.
I suppose that we all have regrets in our life, and it is good to make peace with them.
Some people tell me that I made other mistakes than that, but I refuse to let people tell me what my mistakes are. A lot of things that some people accuse me of being my mistakes were actually done by someone else, some didn't even happen, and some were things that I don't regret at all.
But these things I do regret. They are all things that, if I had them to do again, I would have done differently, and they all made a big difference to my life.
I made more mistakes than just 10, of course, and maybe I will think of a different order and put some other things in the top 10 and take some things out.
But these were 10 things that I did have a choice about and I most definitely made the wrong choice and by making the wrong choice it made a big negative difference to my life.
I have thought many times about what might have happened differently had I not made these mistakes. I suppose we don't know for sure but it is interesting.
Some people tell me that I shouldn't have written that contrary essay in the 1988 National Essay-Writing Competition, but firstly they explicitly told us that you were allowed to write contrary essays, secondly I offered to change it but they wouldn't let me, and thirdly without that I wouldn't have written Bob the Potato or Hopelessness and I would never have been inspired to write my novel. So no, I don't regret that. I do think that they were stupid to ban me though, but it worked out okay so that's fine.
I wonder what regrets other people have and if they would feel comfortable sharing them.
I was thinking today about my regret of how my conversation with a senior editor at Penguin Random House went in 2006 and how big an impact that has had in my life, and how it compares with some of my other regrets. This led to a bit of soul-searching, and ultimately I came up with my top 10 biggest regrets, or mistakes, in my life:
1. Not going to university straight away in 1991.
2. Quitting my high-level job in 2005.
3. Saying no to the Australian Olympic Committee when they offered to get me to try out for triple jump at a special trials for the 1994 Commonwealth Game in 1993.
4. Ghosting a girl in Grade 8.
5. Telling a girl to cut her hair in Grade 10, 1990.
6. Stealing $2.30 from my dad to buy a toasted sandwich for a girl so as to impress her in 1986.
7. Not accepting Penguin’s offer to publish my Children of the Crescent Moon novel in 2006.
8. Being too nice to a girl who cheated on me in 1995.
9. Delaying visiting my grandmother before she died in 2007.
10. Not going to my grandfather’s funeral in 1997.
So my regret about Penguin's offer to publish my novel is only number 7 in my list of greatest regrets, and I think that might be about right too. While lists like this can be a bit subjective and I might change it later, the way I am thinking right now it does sound about right.
My number 1 might not sound like much when you look at it like that, but the result of my delaying going to university by a year was that I couldn't do my maths or statistics degree that I wanted to do, as they were only offered in Melbourne and Sydney, and after I delayed going to them, my offer expired and the next year Melbourne and Sydney banned everyone coming from Tasmania for the entire year, as a result of Tasmania trying to manipulating Melbourne and Sydney's universities into taking Tasmanian high school students as locals (instead of preferencing people from their own state). I got in there in spite of the harsher requirements from being from a different state, and got in a year early too, but could not get in later. The result of this was the difference between doing a subject that I was good enough to go all the way to PhD level in versus not being good enough even to finish a degree in it, and then having to start my career as someone without a degree at all as compared to starting it with what could have been dual PhDs in mathematics and statistics. While I guess I can't guarantee that I would have definitely done that well, I was doing that well up to the end of high school, and if things continued the way they were going then that was looking very likely, and my whole career started really slowly because of it. It basically delayed my career for 30 years until 2022 when I was finally allowed to do the degree I had got into in 1991, then as a post-graduate. I got a scholarship for it and got into a special course where I could do it in 6 months, which was great, but it was still 30 years later than I wanted, and it was still just a basic degree. This was a pretty big regret. And I can't blame anyone else either, as I knew that Tasmania's high school system was fighting with Melbourne's and Sydney's. Other people in my grade went to Melbourne high school and did Year 13, or even transferred there to do Year 12. There were many ways around it. But I didn't try any of them. I just assumed that it'd work out. And then it didn't.
The second one was also work-related, as I progressed rather quickly once I got into the workforce, and by 2004 I reached what would be my highest-ever level job, which I kept until 2005. I was impressing all of the senior members of staff and was looking like going up and up and up, meaning effectively that not going to the university degree I wanted to do didn't matter, only then I had an argument with someone I worked with, and, instead of trying to work it out, I panicked and quit, and as a result I lost all of my references and basically had to start over. It took me 14 years to get back up to anything approaching the same level. If I had just stayed put and made them try to fire me if they were going to instead of just quitting before it got to that stage (and then sued them if they dared to fire me etc) then things probably would have worked out, and I would have been at a much higher-level now, most likely. Even if I had quit, I should have done it in the right way, getting references and making sure to do it with another job to go to. I just quit suddenly and lost everything. I had no idea that the corporate world was so cruel and punished you that much for quitting like that, but it is like that. Lesson learned, but it cost me a lot.
The third one is something that a lot of people don't know about me. I was pretty good at triple jump. I got into the National Under Age Athletics championship 6 times, but never actually went into it, because my parents never had enough money to send me, and because my club didn't want to spend money on sending me. A lot of people don't realise this, but if you are not living in a big city you have to pay to go for things like this. While my club sent a few people, they were people that were a lot better than just sneaking into the national qualifiers. I stopped when I was 13 and started again when I was 15, and when I was 17 I got the best results for the year nationwide, and, as underage finishes at 16, I was to go to the open championships, but again my club didn't want to send me and I didn't have enough money. I didn't have a choice about that because it was a money thing. But after the national championships were held, I was a bit surprised that the Australian Olympic Committee called me and asked me to try out for them in a special try out in Canberra, ahead of the Brisbane Commonwealth Games the next year. They were going to pay for the trip and accommodation, and all I had to do was to take some time off university (doing my computing degree, as my replacement for the mathematics and statistics degrees I wanted to do) but I was doing so badly that I was worried that if I took a few weeks off then I might fail. Bad move! I should have just gone! So what if I failed? If I knew now what a big deal that was, I would have gone. Sure, there was no guarantee that they would have accepted me, but if I'd done my best then they would have. I thought that since I hadn't trained for a few months that I might not be good enough, but considering that I haven't trained in 32 years now and I can still get close to what I could do then, I think that I probably would have been okay. If I had gone in the Commonwealth Games and done my best, I would have gotten 17th. It might not sound like much, as it's not even the Olympics, but getting to mix with real international athletes would have been a big deal for me. And money wasn't the issue as the Australian Olympic Committee were going to pay for it all for me. I was so stupid!
The fourth one might not sound like a big deal, but I had always prided myself on how kind I was, and in Grade 8 I was going out with this girl who I really liked, and I liked her family, but then when I got to meet her friends I hated them. And then they were just hanging around everywhere with us. Now, if that was me now I'd just ask if we could just hang out without her friends, and if I just couldn't stand them and she insisted that they hang out then I might say that it's either me or them, or something like that, and maybe we might have broken up over it but at least she'd know. But I got some really bad advice from a friend, and he told me to just stop talking to her. So for 3 months I said nothing to her, and then she asked me what the deal was and I told her that I had broken up with her. I was really cruel. I am not that person. It was my friend telling me what to say. I really hurt that girl and no amount of apologies can make up for it. I tried to apologise to her later and she said it was okay but I don't know if it really was. It was really mean of me.
The fifth one was due to that same friend giving me bad advice, with a different girl. This was a really pretty girl and I was worried that I was "out of my league" with her, and so I asked him what to do, and he told me to be mean to her, so I told her she had to cut her hair. That might not sound like much but I was just really controlling. She even cut her hair how I asked and coloured it and styled it exactly how I said, and wore the clothes I told her to wear, then she just got sick of it and dumped me, and I deserved that. We got back together a few more times but then it didn't work out overall, and maybe it never was going to, but I definitely hurt her, quite unnecessarily. Maybe I should put this down to having a friend who gave really bad advice! And me being a fool and listening to him! But this was the same friend that set us up so he wasn't all bad. And it was my choice to listen to him, so I have to take responsibility.
Number 6 was a bit of a weird one. My dad used to keep a jar of coins in his car for paying the parking meter and there was probably $100 worth of coins in there, so one day I was going to meet this girl and I decided to impress her by buying her a toasted sandwich, which cost $2.30, which was a lot of money for me at the time. The girl talked to me for about 30 seconds then ate the sandwich with another boy. She didn't even go out with me! My regret is not to do with the girl as it was good that I found out that she didn't like me; my regret is that I stole from my dad. It is the only time I stole anything from anyone, and I feel really bad about it. I didn't even tell my dad I did it for 6 years and when I told him he told me just to pay it back. I still think he should have punished me a bit more for it!
The 7th one is the Penguin one, and I will explain why it is so low.
Penguin never gave me a written offer, and, as the saying goes, verbal offers are worth the paper they are written on - in other words, they are useless. They never said to me oh they will definitely publish my work, here is a contract. What they said was that they would consider it. And I never said no either - I told them that I wasn't happy with my book yet. And I wasn't. If I had gone along with publishing it then, when it was still half-baked, I would have regretted it. My fear was that then people would be seeing my great work in a not-so-great state, and thinking that I don't know how to write. Don't forget that Penguin had earlier rejected me with the same book in 1999! And I just thought that if they offered it to me in 2006 that they'd offer it to me again when I finished it in 2018, and realistically they probably would have if not for the ban on publishing fantasy by new authors, which is because of an influx of authors writing Twilight-like novels so much that a lot of Australian publishers have shied away from all fantasy. But it wasn't that big a deal because I had other offers, and I eventually settled on one that I liked in 2021 when I went with Red Cape Publishing, and it's okay. Sure, Red Cape Publishing are UK-based instead of Australian and they don't have the kind of reach that Penguin has, but the book is out there and ultimately I don't think it should really matter who the publisher is long-term. It just changes how long it takes for people to realise that it exists. Plenty of authors have had big sales from small publishers. I just wish that I had explained myself a bit better to Penguin so that they knew that I was actually still wanting to publish with them. I think that they misunderstood me and thought that I wasn't interested.
Number 8 might confuse people because numbers 4 and 5 were about being too mean to girls so why is number 8 about being too nice? Well, number 8 came afterwards, and I think I was a bit too much of a doormat. This girl basically cheated on me right in front of me and I basically just said sure that's fine. A lot of really bad things happened afterwards and in many ways it was because of it. If I had it to do again, I would have maybe yelled at her a bit, maybe sworn at her a bit, and most importantly definitely broken up with her over it. I was just such a doormat. So stupid. It's bad to be too nice to someone who doesn't deserve it just as much as it is bad to be too mean to someone who doesn't deserve that either. I suppose it was an important lesson to learn, but also a big mistake, which I definitely wouldn't make again, and I didn't either. When someone else cheated on me, later on, I dumped them straight-up, and I was a lot happier with doing that.
Number 9, and 10, were both about missing funerals, but number 9 was a bit worse because my grandmother was sick, and instead of flying down straight away, I decided to move there to be with her in her final days. Even with the biggest rush I could possibly make, it took me 3 weeks to move, by which stage she was dead and they had the funeral the day before I got there. I hated them for doing that and not delaying the funeral by a single day. But I hated myself for not just flying down there straight away. I didn't have to move. I could have just flown down, taken a couple of weeks off work, say goodbye to her, go to her funeral, then go back. Sure, it was very expensive to do that, and I didn't have enough money, but I could have taken out a loan or something.
Number 10 is similar to number 9 but a bit different because I lived quite close to my grandfather, but we were arguing when he died suddenly, and so I refused to go to his funeral. It was a stupid thing, as I still could have gone to the funeral of someone I was angry with when they died. I didn't get to go to my other grandmother's funeral and I had no choice about that one, so I only went to the funeral of one of my four grandparents. But this one I easily could have gone to. It was only a short bus trip and I could have gone there on a weekend. I just refused. I should have gone.
I suppose that we all have regrets in our life, and it is good to make peace with them.
Some people tell me that I made other mistakes than that, but I refuse to let people tell me what my mistakes are. A lot of things that some people accuse me of being my mistakes were actually done by someone else, some didn't even happen, and some were things that I don't regret at all.
But these things I do regret. They are all things that, if I had them to do again, I would have done differently, and they all made a big difference to my life.
I made more mistakes than just 10, of course, and maybe I will think of a different order and put some other things in the top 10 and take some things out.
But these were 10 things that I did have a choice about and I most definitely made the wrong choice and by making the wrong choice it made a big negative difference to my life.
I have thought many times about what might have happened differently had I not made these mistakes. I suppose we don't know for sure but it is interesting.
Some people tell me that I shouldn't have written that contrary essay in the 1988 National Essay-Writing Competition, but firstly they explicitly told us that you were allowed to write contrary essays, secondly I offered to change it but they wouldn't let me, and thirdly without that I wouldn't have written Bob the Potato or Hopelessness and I would never have been inspired to write my novel. So no, I don't regret that. I do think that they were stupid to ban me though, but it worked out okay so that's fine.
I wonder what regrets other people have and if they would feel comfortable sharing them.
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