Show HN: I built a directory about big life decisions/regrets

https://www.didyouregretit.com/

by thsnyder • 2 years ago

121 54 2 years ago

didyouregretit.com

thsnyder12• 2 years ago

Hi,

A question others often ask me when I'm struggling with a decision is "will you regret it?"

And that simple paradigm can make the answer clear.

But sometimes, I'm not sure. Sometimes, it seems like the options are equivalent – 6 one, half a dozen the other.

That got me curious about what other decisions people have made and whether they regret those decisions and why.

So, I made Did You Regret It – a directory of big life decisions and whether people regretted them, including their reasoning.

It might not actually help you make a huge life decision, but it's interesting to hear other people's stories in little bite-sized pieces.

cipheredStones• 2 years ago

Interesting concept, but a point on the design: it's quite unclear whether the "reasoning" part is supposed to be "why you did it", "why you do/don't regret it", or both.

thsnyder12• 2 years ago

Ah, great point! I may rename that field so it’s more clear. Thanks!

nuancebydefault• 2 years ago

I like it! As soon as the database has a bit more meat to it, above some critical mass offset, I think this service can prove useful. The comments/stories/rationales will be probably more valuable than the metrics, just like with HN comments!

jnnnthnn• 2 years ago

Interesting! You should consider making the email field optional: it’s unclear why it’s required, and maybe folks will be more comfortable sharing if it is optional.

thsnyder12• 2 years ago

Good point. I’ve gone back and forth. I don’t want comfortable sharing to turn into spammming.

falseprofit• 2 years ago

You could make it optional to grow users and then require it later

purple-leafy• 2 years ago

Went in expecting something different. Would be great if it wasn’t simple yes no

AndrewDucker• 2 years ago

Click on it and you'll get the various reasons.

raylad• 2 years ago

You need the inverse of all of the decisions:

"I decided NOT to invest in the stock market", etc.

mseepgood• 2 years ago

At least make it consistent. Why is it “I decided to quit smoking” instead of “I decided to start smoking”? The default is to be a non-smoker.

klyrs• 2 years ago

I think the only sensible consistency is to have both, not one or the other. To a smoker, the default is the status quo.

thsnyder12• 2 years ago

Yup! I’ll get on it!

musicale• 2 years ago

As Kierkegaard noted, you will regret it either way.

jemmyw• 2 years ago

This misses a lot of nuance. The decisions are yes/no on regret and an extremely short reason. These aren't going to help others make reasoned decisions about things. You can't really help with that anyway, because you're just setting someone up to write in the future "I wanted X but I read about someone else who regretted it. But now I regret not doing it because I'm not them."

For example, I once quit my salaried job to work as a contractor for a start-up, making up the money shortfall with other contract work. I regretted it quite quickly because my calculations on making up that money were off the mark, and my wife started to get pissed off about it. But it led through an interesting experience and cumulated in finding a job that has been so good to me and has paid so much more. So I think it was the best path I could have taken, and I shouldn't regret it at all, it has changed our family life. However, I still have regret because my wife doesn't see the causal relationship between my mistake and 9 months later having that opportunity, so it was a source of tension between us for much longer.

I could write similar stories about many things, like going to uni, having kids, moving country. The experience, the aftermath, and the effects much further down the line.

muzani• 2 years ago

I think this is fine. It's kind of like Twitter; the lack of nuance is a feature. You add yours if it's something like 80% don't regret or regret.

temp30003• 2 years ago

The “Jagged Little Pill” song springs to mind.

cheschire• 2 years ago

People suck at understanding their reasons for or consequences of their life decisions.

Keep it short. Leave out the misguided attempts at self analysis.

thsnyder12• 2 years ago

Everyone’s experience of life is different, so there’s almost no universal advice to begin with. Buuut it is interesting to read about people’s reasoning, experiences, and their own thought process.

ITB2• 2 years ago

The causal relationship is that you’re willing to explore more options before you go into full exploit mode, and that allowed you to find a better local maxima. It’s not that hard to follow. But if you frame it as an obviously bad decision having a good eventual outcome, it’s easier to call BS on it.

dangus• 2 years ago

I see some dupes in the list like “change my career.”

thsnyder12• 2 years ago

Not dupes. One decision is changing to a career in teaching, the other is getting out of teaching (this one is actually mine!)

wruza2• 2 years ago

I'd add inverse options. E.g. I decided to not buy a house and now I'm regretting it. The reason is rent was cheap in my area. Now it's ~3x the past bank interest. I was creditworthy at all times but chose to avoid unnecessary expenses, lol.

temp30003• 2 years ago

I don’t regret buying a house but I assumed I would. The great house price crash was waiting for me to buy, so I thought… still it is a shallow win to see others suffering with rent prices.

wruza2• 2 years ago

I was avoiding living on the edge all my life, so it doesn’t hit that hard, but yeah, all housing markets are insane atm. I feel for those who only start living nowadays.

01HNNWZ0MV43FF• 2 years ago

I do regret it, wish I'd bought a condo. Lawns are bogus and I don't need 4 external walls

thsnyder12• 2 years ago

Great idea! I need to go through my Decisions list and iterate on it.

bachmeier• 2 years ago

Well, I'm not sure I agree that you can draw conclusions like that if you don't take an action. Or maybe more accurately, it may not help others to know that you regret not buying a house. You're writing based on part of the financial side of the decision. Some people don't like the time and money they have to put into maintenance of a house. Taxes, insurance, and maintenance costs are all rising. Some people are surprised how much they like the freedom of doing what they want with their house. You only learn those things by going through the experience.

antman• 2 years ago

Forgot the PhD!

temp30003• 2 years ago

I regret not getting one but then if I got one I’d probably regret getting it!

thsnyder12• 2 years ago

Bahaha! The options are endless. That’s a good point though. Selfishly, I’d be interested to hear what people say since my sister is currently considering a phd.

20after4• 2 years ago

I decided to build a website about big life decisions, and I regret it.

thsnyder12• 2 years ago

:O it me.

sriram_malhar• 2 years ago

I think regrets are somewhat of a pointless exercise (that is, there are exceptions, but much fewer than seems to be the assumption)

One takes a decision considering:

1. the best information available,

2. the sum total of your fears and complexes.

3. sometimes picking a choice without a clear cut set of criteria to make an informed decision.

Years later, what's the point regretting it? It means that you are now perhaps a different person, maybe more secure. Maybe you have information now that wasn't available to you then. Maybe you have grown to be the kind of person that can now make sense of the information that was given then. If the conditions were replicated (including your internal state), you'd likely make the same decisions.

You should of course reflect on it to learn and grow, and in particular, make amends if you wronged someone. But there is little point in dwelling on the past and saying, "if only ..."

thsnyder12• 2 years ago

Great point. So, if you do regret something, just write your feelings down on the website and let it go;)

BKirkpatrick• 2 years ago

you are right. I’m going to copy this for future reference. Thanks

ITB2• 2 years ago

It can be helpful for others. There are certain kinds of regrets everyone comes close to experiencing it. And there’s a systemic reason (cultural, psychological, etc) that pushes us near the edge. Hearing someone else’s recount can be helpful in reconsidering.

rickcarlino• 2 years ago

Neat idea! You might be able to deduplicate the list by converting the decisions to embeddings and running k-means clustering.

thsnyder12• 2 years ago

I like this idea! I could definitely see running an ML algo to cluster the Reasonings by keywords and then hide the shorter ones, with the assumption that the longer explanations are more in-depth.

binary132• 2 years ago

I can't imagine this not suffering from selection bias.

jonplackett• 2 years ago

The problem this data will have is it’ll just be two extreme points of view. Some people regret heavily, some heavily glad. Anyone in between probably not represented because they can’t be bothered to express an opinion.

I saw a sign recently that just read “success is very similar to failure” and I absolutely agree.

The difference in your life and happiness between getting what you want and not is often much smaller than you expect.

cableshaft• 2 years ago

Considering the real value is in the comments, I think that's fine.

Also this reasoning applies just as much to any sort of review feature elsewhere. Yelp, Amazon, Glassdoor, IMDB, etc. Most people who bother to leave a review are those that have strong opinions one way or the other.

gosub100• 2 years ago

It loses a lot of data in nuance, as well. I regret never having an SO halfway through my life. But it's easy to gloss over the fact that not all relationships are helpful and can lead to grief and consequences that exceed the cost of being single. So what I'm really saying is that I regret forgoing a very specific case of having an SO.

anotheraccount9• 2 years ago

Not saving or updating well? Can't find updated result in table.

avgDev• 2 years ago

I normally need to select both as I regret not doing things but also regret doing them after.

Lucent• 2 years ago

Regret-centric advice always follows the implicit model of: had I taken Action, best case I add Good Result to this timeline, worst case I revert to this timeline. No, failure can have a cost that wipes out this timeline completely, leaving you unimaginably worse off.

thsnyder12• 2 years ago

So true. Very good to know which decisions are one-way or two-way doors.

Waterluvian• 2 years ago

The way I’d slightly reframe this is to make it be about “the grass is always greener.”

Instead of discussing regrets, just talk about the things you think more about now that you’ve committed to a choice.

For example, I don’t regret owning a home. But I now think a lot about how an open concept main floor seemed like a great idea, but without walls I don’t have many places to store my furniture.

93po• 2 years ago

lots of the content so far looks like it's LLM generated. lots as in, every one i clicked on

jaredliu233• 2 years ago

This is an interesting concept to gather people's experiences and perspectives on major life decisions. The short, bite-sized format could make it an engaging read. However, the lack of nuance may limit the usefulness for those seeking more in-depth advice.

irisguy• 2 years ago

I like the idea but am unable to add one. I'm guessing they are LLM generated like someone suggested

Show HN: I built a directory about big life decisions/regrets

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