I would be less naive.
If you could edit your past, what would you change?
Question
When were you happiest?
Time & hindsight
Question
Who most deserves an apology from you, and why?
Failure & regret
Question
Which living person do you most admire, and why?
Values & belief
Question
What is the worst job you have done?
Craft & work
Question
What does love feel like?
Relationships
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.
I would have behaved better to my first wife, and the girl I lived with afterwards. I was always away.
The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 3 December 2016 source ↗
Others on this question
View all 203 →
Anita Rani
British broadcaster and journalist
I am who I am because of that messed-up childhood.
Guy Pearce
Australian actor
I wish I could go back and not be the anxious child that I was. I spent the first 25 years of my life just trying to survive human interaction.
Carlos Acosta
Cuban ballet dancer
The time I told my father I hated him, causing him a lot of pain. He passed away six years ago, and my mother eight years ago.
More from John Simpson
View profile →Recently, when I got out of hospital and into my own bed with my wife and 10-year-old son; we watched some crap television and life had never seemed better.
I’d like to say sorry to my mother. I had to choose between my parents, and I chose my father because he didn’t have any other kids. (My mother was a war widow and had two children from her first marriage.) I thought, in a childish way, that one had to be fair. It was very difficult for my mother and me, and we never really got over it.
The problem with my job is that you meet people you admire and then you don’t admire them so much. The only one I carried on admiring was Nelson Mandela.
Reading the news. It’s a dull job.
Comfort, warmth and security.
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