failure

What has been your biggest disappointment?

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.

One of 24 questions in The Q&A here.

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On the record

Public figures who have answered a question like this elsewhere. Quoted from the source shown, not written for FLAPSS.

Read by field Everyone Arts and letters 46 Politics and public life 5 Sport 1

Read by age Any age In their thirties 5 In their forties 11 In their fifties 14 In their sixties 12 Seventy and beyond 10

Barack Obama 44th President of the United States, 2009–2017; United States Senator from Illinois 2005–2008

If you ask me where has been the one area where I feel that I've been most frustrated and most stymied it is the fact that the United States of America is the one advanced nation on earth in which we do not have sufficient common-sense, gun-safety laws. Even in the face of repeated mass killings. … And for us not to be able to resolve that issue has been something that is distressing. But it is not something that I intend to stop working on in the remaining 18 months.

Recorded Jon Sopel, BBC News interview, the White House, 24 July 2015 source ↗

Kiell Smith-Bynoe

Realising what adulthood is after waiting so long to get here.

Recorded The Q&A, The Guardian, 12 August 2023 source ↗

Kerry Godliman

This country’s enchantment with privately educated, self-serving liars.

Recorded The Q&A, The Guardian, 9 September 2023 source ↗

PP Arnold

It has been in myself, for allowing individuals who I relied on to make important decisions in my life that left me alone to pick up the pieces.

Recorded The Q&A, The Guardian, 7 October 2023 source ↗

Lemn Sissay

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.

Recorded The Q&A, The Guardian, 14 October 2023 source ↗

Rebecca Ferguson

Without naming names, some people I’ve put a lot of faith and trust and love into.

Recorded The Q&A, The Guardian, 9 December 2023 source ↗

Siobhán McSweeney

Politics. And casting directors.

Recorded The Q&A, The Guardian, 30 December 2023 source ↗

Monica Dolan

Not marrying the person I wanted to marry, but now I think it’s probably good that I didn’t.

Recorded The Q&A, The Guardian, 6 January 2024 source ↗

Jason Donovan

I got seduced by being a pop star, and why wouldn’t I? I think I could have made a few more career moves with films. But I was nervous. How do you move forward as an actor creatively if you are just appealing to teenage girls?

Recorded The Q&A, The Guardian, 13 January 2024 source ↗

Tony Christie