CB
I might speed up a few details, but wouldn’t change anything, other than my dad still being here.
The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 20 May 2017 source ↗
The question
If you could revise one chapter of your past, what would you change?Originally asked
The Guardian, to a different person each week, The Q&A
Repeated verbatim in The Guardian's long-running Saturday Q&A; two publisher-hosted examples establish recurrence.
You answer as yourself. Nobody on FLAPSS answers as anybody else.
Others on this question
View all 203 →
Alison Moyet
English singer
I’d have made more of my education.
Jason Isaacs
English actor
I wouldn’t have spent so much time trying to be a professional skateboarder or snooker player.
Katharine Hamnett
English fashion designer
Boarding school. It was horrible.
Joanne Froggatt
English actress
I’d change my mindset and not be so hard on myself, and impart the knowledge that other people’s intentions aren’t always as well-meaning as my own.
More from Christy Turlington Burns
View profile →To strangers. Living in New York, I see individuals every day who are invisible to so many. I want to say sorry that so many of us think their pain and suffering is not our own.
As someone who didn’t waste a minute.
My father’s death before my marriage and motherhood.
A midwife named Jennie Joseph. She is a tireless activist for women, family health and equal access to quality maternity care.
The fact that at least 300,000 women die every year from pregnancy and childbirth-related issues that are largely preventable.
Before kids, when I was 13 or so, on the back of my horse, running at full speed in an open pasture. Post kids, happiness happens often, but in more subtle ways. I now prefer the word “content”.
More on failure & regret
- What disappointment has stayed with you longest? 367 answers
- Who deserves an apology from you, and for what? 209 answers
- What is the harshest thing anyone has said to you? 122 answers
- When were you most embarrassed? 122 answers
- How has a setback or failure set you up for later success? 69 answers
- What is the hardest thing that has happened to you, and what did you carry out of it? 35 answers
Also answered this
Siri Hustvedt, Emeli Sandé, Mark Gatiss, Tracy-Ann Oberman, Adwoa Aboah, Henry Marsh
Search the directory for somebody in particular.
Explore further
- All failure & regret questions
- The The Q&A questionnaire — 25 questions from the same format
- Explore the archive — by field, age, era, and subject