The Mona Lisa – I preferred the frame.
What has been your biggest disappointment?
Question
Which moment embarrassed you most?
Failure & regret
Question
What is your greatest fear?
Identity & self
Question
What is the worst thing anyone has said to you?
Failure & regret
Question
What is the most important lesson life has taught you?
Time & hindsight
Question
Who most deserves an apology from you, and why?
Failure & regret
Question
How close have you come to death?
Death & what remains
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.
I spent my life searching for family. I travelled around the world to look each one of them in the eye. Unfortunately, but understandably, for most of them, I am their biggest disappointment.
The Q&A, The Guardian, 14 October 2023 source ↗
Others on this question
View all 366 →
Louis Smith
English artistic gymnast
Not taking more time out from work for holidays.
Reece Shearsmith
British actor, comedian and writer
That I grew old.
Richard Hawley
English musician
That my dad didn't live to let me share my present success with him – we just ran out of time, Pop.
More from Lemn Sissay
View profile →Also my most triumphant: 2017 at the Royal Court. Julie Hesmondhalgh reads my psychologist’s report over two hours. Every excruciating intimate word of it. Extreme verbatim theatre. One night only.
That I can’t write.
When I was a child, a member of staff at Wood End Assessment Centre [a former children’s home in Wigan] bellowed: “He copies them poems off of Bob Marley records.”
Life is not worth living if there is no one you would die for.
The Prince and Princess of Wales for not knowing when to leave their home.
I made a suicide attempt at 12 or 13 years old.
More on failure & regret
- Who most deserves an apology from you, and why? 209 answers
- If you could edit your past, what would you change? 203 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? 63 answers
- What is the hardest thing that has happened to you, and what did you carry out of it? 36 answers
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