Mo Gilligan
British comedian
I don’t think I would change anything because it might not have got me here.
If you could edit your past, what would you change?
Question
How close have you come to death?
Death & what remains
Question
What do you consider your greatest achievement?
Craft & work
Question
What is your greatest fear?
Identity & self
Question
Who most deserves an apology from you, and why?
Failure & regret
Question
What did you want to be when you were growing up?
Identity & self
Question
What has been your biggest disappointment?
Failure & regret
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.
Since hostile people still call me a former Playboy Bunny, even at 82, I probably shouldn’t have done that in my youth, even to write an exposé. And since a couple of times they’ve also referred to me as a former CIA agent, because I went to two Soviet-era communist youth festivals, I probably shouldn’t have done that, either. Yet if I hadn’t done both, I might have judged other people by such empty symbols, too.
The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 4 March 2017 source ↗
Others on this question
View all 203 →
Oliver Sacks
Neurologist and writer
The peace of the Sabbath, of a stopped world, a time outside time, was palpable, infused everything, and I found myself drenched with a wistfulness, something akin to nostalgia, wondering what if: What if A and B and C had been different? What sort of person might I have been? What sort of a life might I have lived?
I’d give my younger self the lessons I’ve learned over the years, sparing myself the need to figure everything out so publicly.
I would tell myself to stop being such a worrier.
More from Gloria Steinem
View profile →I’ve had cancer three times, but never felt close to death except when I walked between parked cars on my street and a car sped past my nose.
I haven’t done it yet.
Dying just a millisecond before I was about to say something I really wanted the people I love to hear.
I behaved badly with two old lovers. Years later, when I took one to lunch to apologise, it made it worse.
First a horse rancher, then a dancer.
Seeing the future die, from Bobby Kennedy to dear friends.
More on failure & regret
- What has been your biggest disappointment? 218 answers
- Who most deserves an apology from you, and why? 209 answers
- What is the worst thing anyone has said to you? 122 answers
- Which moment embarrassed you most? 122 answers
- How has a failure, or apparent failure, set you up for later success? Do you have a favourite failure? 60 answers
- What is the hardest thing that has happened to you, and what did you carry out of it? 35 answers
Also answered this · A–Z
Adam Clayton, Adam Kay, Adam Lambert, Adele Parks, Adrian Edmondson, Adrian Scarborough
Search the directory for somebody in particular.
Explore further
- All failure & regret questions
- The The Q&A questionnaire — 25 questions from the same format
- Explore the archive — by field, age, era, and subject