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.
Moments of vanity, carelessness and unkindness.
The Q&A, The Guardian, 17 January 2026 source ↗
I could have done without being sexually assaulted, or having an eating disorder, or pushing myself to breaking point, but every chapter of my life brought me here.
The respelling of my name to Joseph.
I’d edit out all the awful men I managed to find who confirmed my worst suspicions about my body and my character.
Nothing, really, because it was all interesting.
Being too thin-skinned.
That I am not wise.
I become very anxious if I think I’ve hurt someone.
Surprise. Smiles. Courage. Safety.
Scrappy, quixotic, curious.
On X, I am regularly called a traitor, a fraud, a grifter, a weakling, a narcissist, a coward and a child molester.
Krishnan Guru-Murthy, Rosa Parks, Desmond Tutu, Gloria Steinem, John Simpson, Bill Clinton
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