Adults of reddit, what are your biggest regrets regarding your teen years?

Besides not committing to fitness earlier...

Taking high school too seriously and putting too much faith in my teachers/counselors knowing what was good for me. I did very well in high school, academically, and took all the high level math and science courses I could. In my senior year, I took biology, AP biology, chemistry, physics, pre-calculus, calculus, the government required English course, and AP English.

I did great, even got some university credits. But you know what? I hated it. It was tons of work all done in the name of getting into a good university so I could get a good job in the sciences after I graduated. I did this because it was what family, teachers, and school counselors told me was the good thing to do. I ended up going to university on their advice, and burned out within two years after realizing my job prospects weren't very good in the field I had chosen, especially since I sucked at "networking".

I'm now in the process of getting a job I could have applied for straight out of high school without taking on loads of debt (I would have even been in a better position to get it if I had applied then). It's what I actually wanted to do after graduating high school. And if I had committed to that instead of doing what I thought society and those around me would approve of, I could have taken the courses I wanted to in high school (and even one which would have been relevant to the job I'm looking at now.). If I could go back, I would still take some of the math and science course, but I also would have followed my passions, like history, language, and music. I probably would have been less of an uptight, asocial nerd as well.

tl;dr: I regret following the standard "good student life script". I didn't want to go to university, and I wanted to take classes in high school that were relevant to my interests, not what is considered responsible.

/r/AskReddit Thread