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 Samuel West said elsewhere, not written here
I’d have done everything earlier and with more style.

The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 24 October 2020 source ↗

Others on this question

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Warren Buffett Chairman and chief executive of Berkshire Hathaway, 1970–2025
In particular, my decision to sell McDonald's was a very big mistake. Overall, you would have been better off last year if I had regularly snuck off to the movies during market hours.
Recorded His letter to Berkshire Hathaway shareholders in the 1998 annual report, Berkshire Hathaway Inc., February 1999 source ↗
Anita Rani British broadcaster and journalist
I am who I am because of that messed-up childhood.
Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 10 July 2021 source ↗
The public mistakes I’ve made. Most recently, I tried to light an e-cigarette on an aeroplane and was told to put it out. I completely forgot I was on a plane. I’d had, like, three drinks, but it only takes three. I stopped as soon as I got off and I got straight back into my programme, because that’s what I do.
Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 4 August 2018 source ↗
Bill Bryson American-British author
Nothing. It’s too risky. What if you eliminated a misjudged situation from your life and it turned out that one of your children wasn’t born, or you failed to meet your partner?
Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 20 February 2016 source ↗

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