Two things. (1) I agree. It never passed me by, but I never put the effort into it I really should have. I was a solid 5.10 climber at 19, but I let it slip away from me. (2) Rock climbers climb rocks. There are no rocks in gyms. Go outside.
Cooking. I wish I could throw stuff into the pot like my mom does, without even thinking, and still have it come out right. It's not so much that I can't learn now, but she won't cook anymore and I missed the chance to learn to do it 'like mom.' Also anything to do with farming/livestock. I met a 12-year-old girl in Australia who could drive cattle better than a lot of the men. I have always wanted to work on a ranch, but having not grown up in the saddle like the people born to it, I doubt I'd get hired.
Computers. I am usually the youngest person in the office at work, or at least in my position. Thusly, everyone calls me with their computer problems and expects me to fix them because I am young and they assume I have those capabilities. I don't. Just because I can type fast, plug things into a usb port, and attach files to a well-written e-mail (yes, I do hear those questions), doesn't mean I can figure out how to get a virus off your computer, write a program, or tell you what is wrong/how to do something with Microsoft Whatever. Unfortunately, I am now in a position where I have to write, design, critique, troubleshoot, and publish various internal and front-of-the-house materials to stakeholders. Horray for having to learn this shit on the fly! Good news is, when I screw up, at least there are very few people who notice it and/or can figure out how to correct it other than me. Right now, I'd give anything to be able to code even a basic program, because we are getting ready to need someone who can do it and we aren't hiring. I feel ashamed, because everyone my age was essentially born with these computer abilities, and for whatever reason (probably my focus on just writing), they passed me bye.
Hockey. I played baseball and basketball growing up, but was a fan of just about every sport. When I was 9 years old, my mom was working on a project with a guy she worked with. Since he was a coach for a selects youth hockey club and loved sports, they'd bring their work to my Little League games--since she never missed any of my games, and he loved sports and would rather be working there than in an office. After two weeks of watching me play first base, he was begging my mom to buy me a pair of skates and a set of goalie equipment. He had seen me react to ground balls and pick throws out of the dirt for just that long, and was convinced that if he took some time and taught me the position, I was a natural goalie. Like "I've coached 30 years of hockey at every level from youth to college, and you could be in the NHL someday" good. He continued to beg my mom. She told me about this. She also told me this: hockey was expensive, and we couldn't afford to pay for both hockey and baseball. I could pick one. She advised me to talk with the coach (which is where he said the above quote), and decide. In the end, I loved playing baseball too much to quit, and turned into a good-but-not-great high school player. But I've always wondered about that. It's not very often an expert in something tells you that you easily have the natural abilities to reach the highest level in something, and I was always a kick-ass goalie in pick-up soccer games and gym class soccer and floor hockey. I've wanted to learn the guitar for years now. Always wanted to do it, never actually had the time.
Boxing I started when I was 12 because I watched the Rocky movies (I'm not kidding). I was a lazy, chubby and unmotivated little bastard who didn't put the hard yards in and just tossed the sport aside after 7 months. Now I'm trying to soak up all of the stuff I passed on when I was 12 and then some, if I had kept on Boxing for a few years I would of had an awesome foundation for Mixed-Martial Arts and Muay Thai. Someone really needs to get on building a time machine or something...
It really didn't pass me by, as I played football when I was younger, but I quit when I was 12 to focus on wrestling, and I've always regretted it. Not that I would have played D-1 or anything crazy like half of you are trying to claim, but I was good. On the 7th grade team I got the Defensive player of the year award. And I was small then, probably about 5' and 90 lbs. In high school I filled out a bit, grew some muscles, and focused strictly on wrestling. Now I did end up taking 5th (though if not for 1 point in the semi's I could have been placed second or even first) in D-1 states in Ohio (one of the top 3 wrestling states in the country), and consequently got offers to go wrestle at many colleges, something I'll forever be proud of. But it really wasn't that much fun. Football was fun as hell, and I had the talent and drive to certainly be one of the standouts on the highschool team. Mainly it's just that I loved playing football, but quit something I was good at to focus on something I was great at. I didn't have the sense then that I have now, that shit should be about how much fun you have doing it, not what kind of medals and local fame you can achieve.
Focus: Football. Growing up, my first priority was always playing hockey during the fall and winter months. I always wanted to play football, but managing both sports was simply a no-go. During high school our football program was pretty good - At least by Canadian standards. I'm fairly tall, fairly thick (without being fat) and the coach always asked me tryout, but I never took him up on the offer. Years later, when I moved to the Prairies, I started playing touch football in a local men's league. Year one was rough, because I had little to no actual knowledge of how to play football the 'right way' but the next two years were awesome. I'd say I've averaged six-seven catches per game playing as a tight-end. Defensively I still struggle a little bit, but I'm mainly used on offense. Don't get me wrong, hockey provided me with a ton of fun and stories growing up, but high-school football was something I definitely missed out on, and I regret it big time.
Why does it seem that everyone mentioning sport sounds like Uncle Rico from Napoleon Dynamite. Man as soon as you guys get that time machine things will be different.
Mine wouldn't need a time machine to fix. I'm, sadly, extremely asthmatic (I was a case study for how bad asthma could actually get) - the only thing that helped was a LONG treatment (+- 2 years) of cortisone. Goodbye thin kid, hello Michelin Man. Just to emphasise how bad my asthma was, I would frequently have attacks with ANY physical activity, sometimes even just walking. So, yeah, I was fucked out of playing any sport, except cricket, which I was not very good at. My asthma is still completely fucked, but at least I'm alive, right? So, in short, I would have loved to have played any sport at least decently well, but poor health fucked me over. Sailing looks like fun, but I'm one of those people who gets violently seasick at the mention of water, so I'm still not playing anything.
Cunnilingus. What? You don't think I'd get any better if I had started younger? Well shit, I'm fucked. Focus: Piano My mom taught lessons when I was a kid but I never really got into it and she didn't force it on me, but now I really wish she had. I can still play a tiny bit from little things I gleaned over the years, but if I could go back I would throw myself into it. Luckily I haven't completely wasted the musical ability that runs in the family because I can play guitar, but I can't even do that as well as I'd like because I don't ever have time to practice. Bleh. As for all you sports guys, I cannot sympathize. I mean, if I could play piano now I could still play whenever and I'd be able to do it well into old age (assuming no arthritis). Sports though, even if you did well I haven't seen anyone say they think they'd have been able to go pro, and there's only so much hockey you can play when you're 30 and working a job. Although I'm sure the response is that the experience and memories would be worth it in and of itself, I guess that's just not how I think. To each their own.
To all the people with musical instruments who say they don't have time to practice: There's a pretty small chance that's true. Even if you just play for half an hour, 15 minutes, anything, every day (or at least most days), you can learn to play it. It's just something that comes over time with constant practice, you don't need to spend 4 hours a day learning an instrument as a hobby. Now if you wanted to get good, not just competent, that's a whole 'nother ballgame.
Martial arts. I'm female and small and I think it'd be funny to have the power to throw and dominate anyone, when I don't look intimidating at all. More reasonably I'd like to feel safer walking home alone at night, which I end up doing a lot. I started taking this combined Jiu Jitsu/self-defense class, and I feel like I'm catching on all right due to my background in dance (good muscle memory and being observant are thanks to that), but if I'd started this stuff when I was little, I'd be able to kick ass like right fucking now. Languages. I believe there's a critical period for secondary language acquisition and I missed the boat on that one, mostly. I learned Hungarian when I was little but my parents stopped speaking it to me and it's not commonly spoken where I live at all, so I forgot it all by the time I was six. I learned French in school but I started at the age of eight, I know if I got immersed now I could become fluent, but it would have required much less effort to have learned several languages as a toddler than attempting to do that now. I'll still try, though.
Dancing. As gay as it may sound, it would have been great to have been enrolled into some dance classes (ballroom, salsa, doesn't matter). Took a intro dance class Senior year of college, basically to meet girls, and it was fantastic. Not only do you meet tons of chicks, but part of our "homework" was to go out dancing with people from the class. AKA, we were basically FORCED to go on dates with girls. As long as you're not creepy about it, dancing can seriously increase your chances of getting laid. There was this short, awkward looking Asian guy in the class. This guy probably was a 5 on the looks scale and had probably a 3 inch vertical, but he was incredible on the dance floor. He was quiet, but rumor was that he consistently nailed about half of the intro level class girls due to his stellar dancing abilities...
I want to pick up the Tango. I just think its a great quality to be able to ball room, because if I have to dance to "Tik Tok" one more time I might lose it. Focus: Journalism and Soccer. I've always had a knack for being able to write well, getting good grades in schools for essays that I just wrote and printed. Soccer, meanwhile, because I love the sport now and I think I have a good body-type for it (tall, skinny). Otherwise, I just wish I worked out more in high school so I would have been tougher in hockey. So goes life.