I turned 41 and felt like I had wasted a lot of time. I have a good life now, but on my birthday I could not stop thinking about how much more I might have done if I had made different choices.
That feeling led me to six regrets. Some are about health. Some are about the time I spent on dating. One is about believing AI would change everything and then waiting years to use it seriously. I cannot redo my 20s and 30s. You may still be able to avoid the mistakes I made.
1. I relied on ADHD medication for years
I took Vyvanse, Adderall and Adderall XR for about five years in my late 20s and early 30s. At first, I felt incredibly productive. I worked more and made more money. Over time, I felt the cost in my sleep, nutrition and health, and I came to believe the short-term boost had not been worth it for me.
That is my experience, not a reason for you to change a prescription on your own. If you have concerns about a medication you take, talk with the clinician who prescribed it. Ask about the benefits, the side effects you are experiencing and the safest options for you. I wish I had looked at the long-term picture much sooner.
2. I put work ahead of my health
I cut sleep to get more work done. I used medication to stretch the day. I still worked out and ate better than many people, but I did not make my health the first priority I claimed it was.
Looking back, I think that choice hurt my work too. When I feel healthy, I think more clearly and have more energy. I now work out first thing in the morning, before I touch my work. I would rather build my day on that than spend years trying to recover from another stretch of overwork.
If you are always trading sleep and workouts for one more hour at your desk, ask yourself what that bargain is actually producing. I kept making it without looking hard enough at the cost.
3. I treated sleep as optional
This regret is separate from the work itself. I put serious effort into training and nutrition, then cut sleep whenever I got busy. I was taking one of the biggest parts of recovery for granted.
Now I take sleep as seriously as my workouts. I keep my bedroom cool, track my nights with an Oura Ring and plan enough time in bed. The tracker is useful because it makes the pattern visible. It does not replace paying attention to how I feel the next day.
You do not need a ring to start. Pick a bedtime that gives you enough opportunity to sleep and protect it the way you protect a meeting. If work keeps pushing it later, that is the problem to solve. You can also see why eight hours in bed is not eight hours of sleep.
4. I spent too much of my 20s chasing relationships
I spent a huge amount of time on dating apps and relationships when I was young. At 41, I wish I had invested more of that time in my body, skills and work. I believe I would have built the life I have now much sooner.
This is not a claim that you should avoid relationships. It is the trade I see in my own history. I was giving dating a lot of attention while the parts of my life I could control needed more of it. If that sounds familiar, decide how much of your week you want to spend on each one rather than letting an app decide for you.
5. I started improving my appearance too late
I knew working out mattered, but I waited until the past few years to pay attention to things like skincare and grooming. I also only recently increased my training to seven days a week. I wish I had started the small, repeatable habits earlier.
I think appearance affects dating and first impressions more than I admitted to myself in my 20s. The point is to work on what you can control. Get consistent with training, take care of your skin, clean up your grooming and be honest about the habits that are keeping you from getting leaner. If you want a practical starting point, here is a one-minute ab workout you can do at home.
6. I believed in AI but waited to act
I read Ray Kurzweil years before the current AI boom and believed the technology would change everything. I even changed how I invested. But I did not start using AI intensely in my daily work until much later.
That is the part I regret. Believing a change is coming does very little if your routine stays the same. Today I use AI throughout my work, and I estimate it saves me at least ten hours a week. I wish I had started learning by doing as soon as the tools became useful.
Pick one recurring task in your work and use AI on it this week. Keep what actually saves time or improves the result. Then do it again with the next task. That is how I wish I had approached it years ago.
What I would do differently now
I would have had a more careful conversation with my doctor about medication. I would have put health ahead of extra work hours. I would have protected my sleep, spent less time chasing dates, started my grooming and fitness habits earlier, and used AI in my work as soon as I saw its potential.
I also need to keep my regret in perspective. I have six-pack abs, a business I built and a Brazilian jiu-jitsu black belt. I did plenty right. In my next video, I will talk about those choices. This one is about the time I wish I could get back, and the choices you can still make now.
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This is general fitness information, not medical advice. Some images in the video are AI-generated visualizations, and they are labeled.
