What Would You Do Differently?

That's the question Gabrielle asks on her blog. While I normally a) try hard not to regret things and b) prefer to think about FUN things, like "what kind of coffee would I be", I decided to give this question some thought. Also, like Gabrielle said about her list, some of the items on my list will be shallow because for one thing I am shallow in some ways (what can I say...it's true!), but more importantly because the biggest things I would do differently are too personal to be shared in this public a forum. But here are a few I'll share:

1. I'm going to start in a similar place as Gabrielle did: I would learn better eating and exercise habits at a young age so that I never gained so much weight in the first place and wouldn't have such a struggle to keep it in bounds now. I wish I didn't crave sugar so much. I wish I thought exercise --- any exercise! --- was fun and something I looked forward to rather than being a chore I need to accomplish. In all the years I've tried, I've never yet managed that shift in my thinking.
2. I would start using both sunscreen and moisturizer earlier and more often.
3. I would have tried harder in school, particularly in college. School was always easy for me, and I got good grades without trying very hard, so I didn't...try very hard, that is. I skated by on the minimum I needed to get A's and B's and didn't push myself to do more. If I were doing it again now, I would make the profs give me every single bit of info on the topic that was in their heads and then dig for more. I would LEARN the topics instead of being such a lazy smartass and just bullshitting my way to the score on the test and the GPA on my record.
4. I would have said yes when D.S. asked me out in high school. It's not like I think he would have been the love of my life or anything, but I bet it would have been fun. In fact, I wish that in my teens and early 20's I hadn't been so hung up in general on who was and wasn't "my type" and would've given more people a chance, both in terms of dating and friendships. I look back on those years and I feel like I was very guarded and closed off emotionally.
5. Related to that, I just wish I would have taken more risks in non-stupid areas when I was younger. When I look back on my 20's I remember taking a lot of stupid, "nothing bad could ever happen to me" types of chances. (I must've had a team of guardian angels putting in overtime.) But in a lot of areas, I just see missed opportunities from those years --- things I didn't try because I was afraid of failure, or success, or not being liked, or not being right, or perfect. I want to go back and see my younger self and slap myself in the face and say "Snap out of it! Stop being such a wuss! The world won't end if you don't do everything perfectly!" It took me way too many years to learn that.
6. I would've bought the electric blue leather jacket. :-)