Lifestyle Past decisions and judgements

[Ashaebi]

Hey fellas, have you at any point in your life made a decision/judgement/choice that seemed incredibly foolish and incomprehensible at the heat of the moment but looking back via present day it was something you knew for certain it was the right thing to do/most optimal choice and that you will do the same thing again if given a second chance?

A couple of years ago I was a cadet pilot in training in my first flight school which also happened to be the second biggest flight school in the nation at the time in terms of total flight operations and total commercial pilot graduates. I flew with them for 30 hours but for some strange reason the instructors refused to let me go solo citing a bunch of explanations I still cannot comprehend to this day including poor situational awareness, sporadic errors LOL and even poor discipline by the chief flight instructor once. I had two choices from here on out; either try to endure and press on or give up and maybe pursue something else in life. I chose the latter because I felt like I couldn't handle the workload almost giving up my career altogether. However, I did notice the same training airport had another 3 more flight schools so I decided to give myself a second chance and just move to the next one. This time I actually went solo in less than 30 hours without the same issues I had with the first one.

Now leaving one of the nation's most prestigious flight school for a smaller one seems incomprehensible at first and throwing away a golden opportunity but coincidentally there were multiple scandals breaking out regarding flight schools around the nation that did one or two things - instructors taking advantage of their cadets by milking as much logbook hours for themselves as possible so that they can reach 1500hr mark which is necessary to get into airlines or the schools themselves promising a certain number of training hours but only delivering 90% or the promised value for example (I don't have the exact ratios). Multiple legal actions were taken against these training schools including my old one although they were extremely lucky to have the dispute settled for an undisclosed amount. One school even had to shut down completely because the scandal got way out of hand.

To this day this is an unfortunate paradox in pretty much every flight training academy. Each instructor needs to grind his logbook hours and training cadets is one way to get it. However why would he train someone just to get hours considering they would likely be competing for the same job in the future?

I have to admit leaving the first school initially seems like throwing away a golden opportunity considering it is not exactly easy to get selected in in the first place but my goodness considering how they are operating their business and the way they operated looked eerlie similar to the scandals that broke out in other schools is definitely a red flag I should have noticed sooner. Oh well better late then never. At least I didn't spend THAT much in terms of tuition and training fees. Could have been worse. MUCH worse.

Definitely a bullet dodged.

 

[bdt2002]

During my junior year of high school, I distinctly remember one field trip our Spanish program went on. They were going on a plane trip over to Europe, and while I was interested in the possibility of traveling outside of the country for the first time, I had this constant, nagging feeling that something was going to go wrong during the trip. At first, I told myself I was being paranoid and brushed it off. The feeling just kept getting stronger and stronger, though, to the point where I even considered bringing up my concerns with my parents and with a few of my high school friends. Generally speaking, they had similar reactions to this that I did at first. Eventually, the time for them to leave had come upon us, and by this point I opted out of the trip entirely, but didn't tell anyone why since I didn't want to possibly ruin the trip for them. It certainly helped that I wouldn't have wanted to go overseas like that with anyone who wasn't family (and even then I still would have been nervous), but I wished them the best nonetheless, scared of why I still had this suspicious feeling throughout the entire process.

Of course, I wouldn't be telling this story if nothing actually happened. So what did end up happening? One of the main attractions, so to speak, they wanted to visit on their trip was the famous Notré Dame cathedral building in Paris, France. Anyone who knows anything about this building could probably tell you what happened that April. When I heard the news break live, I was incredibly worried if those guys on the trip were okay. I would later learn that they had been in the building about an hour before the infamous fire started, and while no one was hurt, they did end up getting what I understand to be some of the last-ever pictures taken of some of the destroyed material. I didn't care about photography in the heat of the moment, though. I know myself extremely well, and I am absolutely certain that if I were there around the time building caught fire, not only would that have ruined the entire trip for me had I went with them, but this likely would have killed any remaining desire I ever had to travel outside of the country for the rest of my life.

To this day I remain convinced that there was something, some unexplainable force that was trying to look out for me and my fears/anxieties at the time. Never before or since have I felt that persistent about not wanting to be somewhere at a certain time.

 

[MrHands]

I failed out of college in 2008 because... I was skipping too much class to play Pokémon. I even became a moderator at Serebii. D/P wifi battles were like a drug to me. Sweet black tar street 6v6 OU no skarmbliss coursing through my veins.

However because I quit college when I did my student aid made me debt free and although I didn't get a degree, my degree would have been useless anyway. I ended up getting a shitty call center job, gained experience, and moved on to a job as a 911 emergency dispatcher. After a bunch of promotions and certifications I make $46 an hour to mostly browse Reddit on my phone and sometimes save lives.

So thank you Pokémon addiction for ruining my life in the best possible way. Or something like that.

 

[Chico the Parakeet]

Wanted to make video games in Japan only to find out that I don’t get computers nor Japanese.

I’ve since gone on to study media and the culinary arts. Still having trouble looking for a job.