Erin O'Connor: 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 Erin O'Connor said elsewhere, not written here

The bits that consumed me with guilt.

The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 1 March 2008 source ↗

Others on this question

Joan Jett American singer, songwriter and guitarist

I don’t think I’d change anything: the bad forms you more than the good.

Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 14 November 2020 source ↗

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.

Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 18 January 2025 source ↗

Edwina Currie Former British politician, broadcaster and writer

I would be richer, I’d have beaten Mrs Thatcher’s ban on women in the cabinet, and I would be a dame.

Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 17 June 2017 source ↗

Nothing. Tony Benn, one of my favourite politicians, said, “I don’t care where you’ve been, I care where you’re going.”

Recorded The Q&A, The Guardian, 6 December 2025 source ↗