Skip to content
Failure & regret

What disappointment has stayed with you longest?

367 answers answered between 1995 and 2026 one of 25 in The Q&A

Originally asked

The Guardian, to a different person each week, The Q&A

This exact question recurs in The Guardian's institutional Q&A pool.

You answer as yourself. Nobody on FLAPSS answers as anybody else.

Claim your address

On the record

Public figures who have answered a question like this elsewhere. Quoted from the source shown, not written for FLAPSS.

Read by field Everyone Science and medicine 2 Arts and letters 309 Politics and public life 26 Business and finance 10 Sport 19
Read by age Any age Before thirty 16 In their thirties 58 In their forties 82 In their fifties 81 In their sixties 73 Seventy and beyond 55
Order Earliest first Most recent Surprise me
Shaun White American snowboarder and skateboarder
The first video game I was in. I was 13 and video games were the world for me, and my character was awful. He had this terrible orange 'fro, his voice was a man's and he was slow and didn't turn well – nothing like me.
Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 13 March 2010 source ↗
Jonnie Peacock British athlete
I try not to have disappointments, because a lot of the bad things that happen in life teach you things.
Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 27 January 2018 source ↗

1 answer from members

Not being able to start my own company

More on failure & regret