There is a discussion or /r/Askreddit where people discuss ways how they have thrown their life away. These 2 posts caught my eye:

1

"probably when I decided to be a Good Samaritan and let a girl I didn’t really know move in with me becuase she claimed her mom was abusive. Her mom wasn’t abuisive she just wanted her dead beat daughter to get her GED. I ended up spending a small fortune inadvertently enabling this girl’s lazy behavior and developing a habit of trying to help every one with a sob story I came across. My life went off the rails cause I kept trying to do the “right” thing but wasn’t taking care of myself. If I had just kept to myself and focused on getting into an apprenticeship I turned down so I could focus on these charity cases my life would be completely different."

2

"I met a girl at work just as my life was starting to take off. I was 23. We started dating and I fell in love instantly. After dating for three months she was getting evicted so I offered her to move in with me. Three months later we were married. This then starts a journey of me trying to do all I could to make her happy while she could never hold down a job. In the last two years she didn't work at all. We lost our cars, I had to demote, she had to get an abortion, I fell behind on my credit cards and she cheated on me. For her all of our problems were because of me and she was the victim. She then left me the day after our 4 year anniversary and was with a new guy a month later. I am now in the process of filing for bankruptcy, have no house, no friends because I put all my focus into her, no car, a shitty job, and living in my sister's spare bedroom.

I'm 28 and I have nothing to speak of. Just painful memories of bad choices and depression."