The question
What lesson has mattered most in your life?Originally asked
The Guardian, to a different person each week, The Q&A
Verbatim recurring item in The Guardian Q&A; two fully readable publisher-hosted respondent pages establish institutional recurrence.
You answer as yourself. Nobody on FLAPSS answers as anybody else.
Try not to take yourself too seriously.
The Q&A, The Guardian, 9 May 2026 source ↗
We are not here for long – try not to take everything too seriously.
Everything’s temporary, and how to make aioli.
Living life to the full, not having regrets and not trying to plan your future too much. Just enjoy every minute.
I think the only life experience that I have to offer out of this is something we all know in the abstract but don't experience in practice very much. That is that you can survive an awful lot of bad stuff, so long as your mind is intact. I'm afraid that's the only life experience I have to offer.
Tenacious, romantic, organised.
I’d swap out a few boyfriends.
I bought a house with someone and realised at the housewarming party that it was a mistake.
A perfect cup of coffee – warm, bittersweet, anxiety-inducing and delicious.
Doing a compulsory standup routine in my first week of drama school.
Getting to 39 without having a filling in my teeth.
Oliver Sacks, Richard Coles, Kate Bowler, Robert Carlyle, Paapa Essiedu, Warren Zevon
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