SP
My A-level results - I got two Cs and an A. I had applied to do philosophy at Cambridge, and thought my life was over.
The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 28 July 2018 source ↗
The question
What disappointment has stayed with you longest?Originally asked
The Guardian, to a different person each week, The Q&A
This exact question recurs in The Guardian's institutional Q&A pool.
You answer as yourself. Nobody on FLAPSS answers as anybody else.
Others on this question
View all 367 →
Bob Hoskins
English actor
Super Mario Brothers.
Abigail Breslin
American actress
When I haven't given my all, like when I'm working and I feel I could have done better.
Emily Watson
English actress
The England football team - they never fail to disappoint.
Losing the 1992 general election.
More from Sara Pascoe
View profile →Nothing – I don’t like music. I want my funeral to be uncomfortably quiet.
Cleaning toilets at McDonald’s when I was 16.
To be looked at.
Ten years ago, I went to visit my dad in Australia. I walked to the edge of a cliff and looked over and tripped. I righted myself but my head was over the edge. No one saw it.
I didn’t learn to be intimate with people until I was in my 20s, so I was a very bad friend in my teens. There was a girl I was best friends with at college; I always used to kiss the boys she liked. I’d like to apologise to her.
I would be a bit nicer to myself.
More on failure & regret
- Who deserves an apology from you, and for what? 209 answers
- If you could revise one chapter of your past, what would you change? 203 answers
- What is the harshest thing anyone has said to you? 122 answers
- When were you most embarrassed? 122 answers
- How has a setback or failure set you up for later success? 69 answers
- What is the hardest thing that has happened to you, and what did you carry out of it? 35 answers
Also answered this
Meera Syal, Jay McInerney, Judith Kerr, Shirley Hughes, Jennifer Egan, Eve Ensler
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