Adam Kay: If you could edit your past, what would you change?

If you could edit 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.

Recorded Adam Kay said elsewhere, not written here

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 Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 3 June 2023 source ↗

Others on this question

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Armistead Maupin American writer

I would have come out earlier.

Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 24 August 2019 source ↗

Julian Clary English actor, comedian, novelist and presenter

My education. Benedictine monks didn’t really prepare me for the life I have lived.

Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 25 June 2022 source ↗

Naga Munchetty

All the times I was mean to someone.

Recorded The Q&A, The Guardian, 12 July 2025 source ↗

Steve Jobs Co-founder and chief executive of Apple; co-founder of NeXT; chief executive of Pixar

But the market was changing. The industry was changing. The scale was changing. And in the end we knew we would be either the last company to make it or the first to not make it. We were right on the edge. We thought we would be the last one that made it, but we were wrong. We were the first one that didn't. We put an end to the companies that tried to do that. We certainly made our fair share of mistakes, but in the end I think we should have taken a bit longer to realize the world was changing and just gone on to be a software company right off the bat.

Recorded Daniel Morrow, Smithsonian Institution Oral and Video Histories, for the Computerworld Smithsonian Awards Program, 20 April 1995 source ↗