SPEAKER_00 0:00

If you're old enough to remember when phones had cords and the only thing that went viral was a cold, then you're in the right place. Welcome to the Big Six O with Kaylee Harris and Guy Rolliston. Because who better to discuss life's second act than two people who still think mature is a type of cheese?

SPEAKER_01 0:26

Welcome to the Big Six O podcast, everybody, and thank you for joining me, Kayleigh Harris, and my co-host on this speeding train through the twilight years. Guy Rolson, hello.

SPEAKER_03 0:37

Woohoo! Is that is that still appropriate now? Do kids of a certain age. But you still do it. Do you still do that with kids and say, oh, what train what train noise is it? And you do the steam loco? No? No. Okay. Thank you. Should I leave?

SPEAKER_01 0:55

As you know, like we haven't been afraid to touch on the scary subjects previously. We've covered funerals and death. We've even delved into sex after 60. And this week we're going into chilling territory. It's regrets.

SPEAKER_03 1:11

Now not the old cult either.

SPEAKER_01 1:14

No.

SPEAKER_03 1:16

She had regrets, apparently. I don't know. Sorry. I'll be quiet there.

SPEAKER_01 1:21

Very good. Very very good. I like your link there. Um now look, regretting anything, uh, when you think about it, has a negative connotation, doesn't it? It's something people don't tend to want to have. And I think I think there are two main types of regrets, like regretting something you didn't do, or worse, regretting something you did do, and maybe need to apologize for.

SPEAKER_03 1:46

Yeah, it's it's learning from it. That's probably the benefit in hindsight of a lot of these things. Um, and yeah, look, we all have regrets. We all have done things or haven't done things that we look back on. And they're decisions that we do with that hundred, hundred sort of 50-50, you know, hindsight sort of thing as well. And you do make those decisions, and that's how you learn and and you grow, isn't it? Or is it?

SPEAKER_01 2:15

Yeah, and there's a you know, there's the saying people say, um, don't, you know, don't have regrets, don't think of, don't worry, you know, I have no regrets. But I mean, we all have regrets for various things, and and I I think it it comes from a place of wishing that you could change a previous outcome, um, and makes you think, what if I hadn't have done that? What if I had done this instead? And um, you know, there's there's little things and there's really big things that you might you might regret. But I think over-regretting is harmful. Do you think? But it's it's a natural emotion.

SPEAKER_03 2:50

Yeah, and there's that question too that uh do you have different regrets if you do something or you don't do something? Um those life choices, you you think, oh, well, if I had done this, this would have happened, but if I didn't do this, would I have that regret? Um so I don't know. I understand that there are some decisions that we make or we don't make, uh, but they always lead to some other form of regret, I I imagine.

SPEAKER_01 3:19

Yeah, exactly. And like I have um I don't have many regrets. I don't I don't have many things I wish I hadn't done, but there are things I wonder about. Like I wonder about should I have taken 12 months off when I was 18 and gone backpacking through Europe like a lot of my friends did? Um I didn't, I stayed and worked, I my I was in a good place in my career and just wasn't in that hit space of going backpacking around Europe for 12 months. So I don't I think it was the right decision for me at the time, I think.

SPEAKER_03 3:51

Yeah, I I didn't do it either. I mean, I tended to think that it's a modern day thing primarily. Everyone has that gap year, which I think in my mind is just an excuse. I think I had two weeks off after I finished school and started work. Um yeah, so and that was our decision. Do we regret not taking time off? Um I probably don't. Did I have the money to go and travel the world? And no, I didn't have the money to do it anyway. I had enough money.

SPEAKER_01 4:23

They just, you know, go and work in pubs and stuff like that overseas or whatever. And you ever have the money, you know, it's just it was just like a rite of passage for a lot of um people our age when you left school to go, you know, backpacking for 12 months.

SPEAKER_03 4:38

Yeah, but so you don't don't have a regret not doing that?

SPEAKER_01 4:41

I wonder where I would whether I I'd be in a different place today had I done that. I mean, I could be had I gone off to London, you know, to Europe, could I have married a POM and still be there? You know, you you just don't know, and you'll never know. And that's why I don't regret it, because I I'm happy where I am now.

SPEAKER_03 5:00

And and and that's the thing, you you could have gone over to England, met a POM, and your life would have changed. And it's that sliding door moment. I know we had an episode about sliding door moments. Yeah. Uh and that could have led to something else that then led to something else. Um and then you're going down the wormhole, aren't you?

SPEAKER_01 5:19

Yeah, then I go oh, I wouldn't have met my partner, wouldn't have had the kids, blah, blah, blah. And you can just, yeah, that's why I think it's important not to sort of dwell on that stuff. But things like, I wonder, um, should I have stayed on and done year 12? Because I left in year 10, you know, what would have happened had I gone to university? Because the thinking at the time was I was an academic, um, and like you, it was year 10, I wasn't really committed at school, and my spoke to my parents and they felt it's better I get out in the workforce and did that at 16, and and off I went, and you know, career went went pretty well, that kind of went okay, but I wonder had I stayed and done something at uni, you know, should I have done that? Do I I guess it's a bit of me that still has regret about I'm a bit embarrassed to say I didn't go to year twelve or uni.

SPEAKER_03 6:06

No, I I would immediately say two things. Firstly, the world wouldn't have had the pleasure of you on the airways every morning for gosh knows how many years. And so you're depriving the greater population and uh I love the way you're posing this.

SPEAKER_01 6:23

This is great.

SPEAKER_03 6:25

But equally I went to year 12, um and then I had the option after that of do I take up my uni options? And one of them wasn't the career I was going into. I I had a couple of other careers that I was going to go into and I couldn't go into it for one reason or another. Um, and then I was going to become uh a PE teacher of all things. I was enrolled to do that, but um I went into journalism because I got a cadet ship halfway through year twelve. Um uh but year ten to me was yeah, just cruise for four years and enjoy school life, then snuckle down for two years and hope for the best.

SPEAKER_01 7:02

See, I was terrified of that, those last two years. I was absolutely terrified.

SPEAKER_03 7:07

Well, we had some we had some people that after two weeks of year 12 that this isn't for me and and left. Um but if I had have left in year ten and done something I've and back in the day, if 40% of kids went on to year 12 and 60% went and did a trade or actually got some sort of employment that set them up very well and put them probably two years ahead of me getting my Datson 180 B and thinking I was the coolest kid on the block. But what about things like something I was only talking about to someone the other day? Um I really regret not speaking to my parents, grandparents, and older relatives more about their stories.

SPEAKER_01 7:53

Oh, absolutely.

SPEAKER_03 7:55

Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 7:56

Absolutely, particularly the grandparents. Um and you don't sort of develop an interest in in your heritage, I think, until you get much older, and now there's no one there to tell you what happened.

SPEAKER_03 8:07

Yeah, we dug up a well we didn't get up, we found it. It was a diary that my my mum had written that I didn't know existed. We just discovered it in a box of things probably about 12 months ago, and that she was journaling a whole lot of things about her childhood and her growing up. And if I had known about that or known about some of her growing up, and she was a little bit embarrassed about her growing up, I would have asked so many more questions. Whether she gave me the answers or not's another thing. Um and a great aunt as well, um, before she started to um uh have to endure, you know, uh Alzheimer's and just just the stories to ask her because she was one of seven um to to ask about her sisters, my grandmother, what did they do growing up, you know, in Australia in the you know, in the in the twenties? What was life like? Um I I do regret not having all those stories and asking the questions.

SPEAKER_01 9:07

I regret that as well. I've got one surviving uncle now, and um, and he's got Alzheimer's, unfortunately, and can't um really recall a lot of a lot of those things enough to be able to tell me about it anyway. But it's and you just but when you're a kid, you're not interested in your grandparents' lives, right? There's that we've talked about this as well. They're like they're old, old. And you you can't imagine them even as young people.

SPEAKER_03 9:32

Yeah, living history books, and that's just an old voice speaking now. Um I I I'm lucky I've got four grandkids, and the eldest who's only just turned six, he is older in his mind than I give him credit for because he will ask questions and say the very basic, what was it like in the old fashioned days, Papa?

SPEAKER_01 9:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 9:55

Um and he would he will get the stories whether he remembers them or not. But he he asks questions. Now, I don't know whether that where that's come from. Maybe his mum has said, make sure you ask Papa about this or that. Um, and some of the stories don't seem interesting.

SPEAKER_01 10:10

Um, how far back do you go when you talk about the old-fashioned days?

SPEAKER_03 10:13

You just go back to the nineties or I talk about how we used to have horse and carts, of course. Um but even the simple things like today when he talks about um watching something on television, and I will show him something that's in black and white, and he's gobsmacked that oh, well, why is it why is there no colour on the television, Papa? Um so little things that you take for granted, um they think are amazing. That's why why? Um it's a massive reality check and and little things like uh did you talk to your did you talk to your papa, you know, uh uh uh you know on the phone. Well, yeah, we did, but sometimes you had to wait until after six o'clock at night because the charges, you know, were more expensive for an S D D call, or we didn't have a computer, you you used to write a letter. Uh all those little things which seem very old to a s you know, someone who's six, yeah um, and those same stories that the grandparents or great-grandparents um could possibly recall when we were young, they probably didn't put any credence in them either because that was just life.

SPEAKER_01 11:25

Well, your grandkids will probably be having this conversation when they're in their you know 30s, 40s and 50s saying, I wish I'd spoken to Papa more.

SPEAKER_03 11:35

Or I don't know. But it's look, I think today they're taking videos, they're they're taking all those things because of technology. Um they've got the phones. Do you have to quickly take a photograph or record those things? Whereas we may have had the Super 8 video if we were lucky.

SPEAKER_01 11:53

Uh yeah, we need to have that, no.

SPEAKER_03 11:56

No, um, but even just looking back at photographs, the kids love looking at the old black and white photographs that came from the Polaroids. Um, they think that's ancient.

SPEAKER_01 12:05

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 12:06

So yeah. Um, what about what about you with things like school growing up? Um any things that sort of come to mind apart from not going to year 12?

SPEAKER_01 12:16

Um no, I don't have I was a very awkward teenage kid, so I don't um I wish I kind of I wish I I regret not speaking out more when I was a teenager, and and but you just I just didn't have the confidence like a lot of teenagers don't. But it wasn't till I you know so you get to um later in life and think about you know, should I have married the person that I did? And that's a question different for you than for me, because you've you know been happily married for many years to the lovely Kath, and um I've been on a different journey, my my marriage didn't work out, and by saying the trouble is by saying no, I shouldn't have married that person, does that make the children I had with him unvalidated? As that opens up a whole can of worms then, and of course I don't regret having my children, and and so I've tried to turn it around to say no, I don't regret marrying him because it was the right decision, I thought, at the time. Um and my three beautiful children are testimony to that.

SPEAKER_03 13:23

Yeah, and your kids are wonderful, they they they are seriously wonderful human beings. Oh, thank you for such a um their mother, however, um but it but it's true, you've brought these these wonderful humans into the world, and you think about the times you're having now. Yes, um, and that is all a part of your life story. Um and you can't really regret that life story uh because they are they they are just good faith.

SPEAKER_01 13:55

And going back to before marriage, you were talking about before about in the younger years, I I and I'm gonna be brutally honest here, I regret some of the choices I made with sexual partners. And I say sexual partners rather than relationships because I wouldn't describe some of those people as having a relationship with me. You can't regret these things, otherwise, you'd spend your whole life beating yourself up over it, you know?

SPEAKER_03 14:21

Yeah, and that that leads to the question to about um not just choices but letting go of ego and all those sort of things as well, which is something I regret. Um you didn't let go of ego. I always had to be right. Well, not always, but I felt as though I needed to be right. And um not being kinder in moments when I probably should have been, and appreciating that there is someone else in the room other than me. Uh and I don't know whether that comes with age, whether it comes with the fact that you learn slowly that okay, I I shouldn't have done that. Um the consequences that arise from it. Um, yeah, I don't know. It's it's it's one of those things, I guess. Um not apologizing sooner for things. Um a whole lot of those sort of things come along with uh and if I think about it too hard, yeah, maybe I do have some regrets. So I know in a in an earlier podcast you said I was very a very judgy person, and I tend to be a little bit judgy still, um, but I'm becoming not that person because I understand that I had been too quick to judge uh people's behaviour without knowing what you know they were carrying.

SPEAKER_01 15:49

Exactly, and yeah, I'm exactly the same. I think we in in order to particularly, you know, it's in school teenage years and in your 20s, you just want to fit in with the group, and you get that pack mentality where you do judge other people, you and your friends might judge somebody else, you know, and it's um it's something I'm very happy has uh left me in my older years that I just live and let live now, which which is good.

SPEAKER_03 16:16

What about working? What about your working life?

SPEAKER_01 16:19

Um I regret some of the things a couple of things I said on air when in my radio career, I said a couple of things um that I really that I do regret uh and that were said, I'm not gonna repeat them, but were said in a place of um one was said for a place of naivety, one was and one was said because I was trying to get a laugh. Both of them fell very flat. The problem was that half a million people heard them. So that's the thing about being on the radio and being on live radio is that you know, ever once you say something, um because not all radio stations operate in delay. And once you say something, it's out there, and back then we didn't have sensors like some of the radio shows do today that that can push that button for you. We was just, you know, say whatever you want, pretty much. And I do have regrets about a couple of things I said on air um that I wish I could take back, but I can't. So I'm not gonna lose sleep over it. I can't lose sleep over it now. And and I just hope that nobody else remembers it.

SPEAKER_03 17:28

Well, I remember no, I don't. I don't. But what about working hard? I I I'm gonna gender this as far as saying most fathers are men. Um I guess that's because there's still that convention 40 or 50 years ago that if you had children or lucky enough to have children or chose to have children, that mum probably stayed at home. That that that that that option of being a stay-at-home dad was uh a a a later invention for want of a better term. But so many dads that oh I have to work late and they you know they may have been there for bedtime and they feel like they missed out. It's that whole cats in the cradle sort of thing.

SPEAKER_01 18:10

Yeah, I think there's a lot of that for blokes.

SPEAKER_03 18:12

Yeah, what about about you? Because I know you you worked really hard and tried to be there and present for your kids. Um did you have any of that at all?

SPEAKER_01 18:22

I uh absolutely um at the time I worried about it. Um I regretted not some of the things about motherhood, you know, not breastfeeding longer because it just wasn't possible with work, uh stuff like that. But and I worried that with me working when the kids were little that it would affect my relationship with them long term. As it as it turns out, it hasn't. Um I'm truly blessed for that. That it I you know that helps me deal with the regret of working those younger years. But um, yeah, it's when it comes to kids, you could open up a whole count of worms of regrets, can't you? That things you wish you'd done or not done with them or but I think I I agree with you, I think it's worse for dads because our generation, you know, the dad went out to work and often the mums, and certainly our parents' generation, that's the way it was.

SPEAKER_03 19:11

I don't ever remember my dad not being there for sport, but I don't necessarily remember him missing out on too much. But it was always mum at the you know, the school open days, and I felt compelled to make sure I could be at as many school open days or sports carnivals uh as I possibly could. So that was something that I thought I'd learnt, um, and hopefully don't have too many regrets. But you if you were there with them 24-7, then do you regret not being able to give them the monetary things? I I don't know. It's all too hard.

SPEAKER_01 19:46

I mean it's a it's a cash 22, isn't it? I think there are things the other things that about regret is thinking about um what if I'd done the work? What if I had made different financial decisions? And should I have, well, I had the chance 20 years ago, bought an investment property or or things like or health choices, you know. I'm 62 now, should I have been doing more exercise? Do I regret not exercising more? Yeah, I do. Um, but and I I can always change that. I mean, you can always make things a bit better, but I do regret not doing more exercise.

SPEAKER_03 20:25

Look, just remember that one of the stats that has sat with me for a long time is more people have had heart attacks on a squash court than in a pub. So on the surface, you would say do not engage in squash, do go to a pub.

SPEAKER_00 20:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 20:42

What if what about friendships, maintaining friendships, uh, those sort of things? Have you regretted or is it just the way of the world that sometimes people come into and out of your life for a reason and you follow that intro?

SPEAKER_01 20:55

Yeah, that's the way I look at it. I I think people come in and out of your life for a reason, and that's okay. I don't regret um anything. I mean, I did have a misunderstanding with a girl I went to school with, and uh that it all things all sort of fell apart in our late 20s. I regret not sorting that out with her and sitting down going, look, this is what happened. Uh you know, I don't want to lose the friendship. I do regret that, but it's and too much time has passed now, I think. That um I don't know whether she would want to open that wound, but so things like that, yeah, you do regret in that sense some of the things that you did or or said. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 21:36

Yeah. It it's a long time. Do we do we mellow and I mean it'd have to be fairly serious. I don't know that particular circumstance. I I've been fortunate. I've got a a wider group of sporting sort I know, I'm an old man, sport. What do you that's possibly going to the pub? I don't know. Um But I've got a wider group of sporting friends, um, people that I played football. They soccer with that we've known each other for 20, 25 years, and it's just like yesterday, and there's that bond because we've gone through those sort of things. The same but also school. I I've got probably uh 10, a dozen friends from school, um blokey friends, that it's just like picking up the conversation from yesterday. That's not necessarily always a good thing. Um you know, you you you can't always be 16 in your life. Uh but I feel very privileged to have those guys in my world, and they're still they're still there, even after 45, 50 years, which you know, which is incredible, I would imagine. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 22:46

I don't think a lot of people can say that. What about what about ethical regrets? Were there times that you should have stood up and said something and didn't?

SPEAKER_03 22:55

Uh probably in my younger days, and it was one of those things that you know it wasn't even accepted. I mean, the whole, you know, if you see someone being treated badly or you should have done I I I don't there's no one single event that I can recall that I should have done something and I didn't. Yeah. Um, but also, you know, whether it was the 80s, um, I'm sure there were racial slurs, sexual slurs that looking back now, uh, you would say, no, that's just not on, mate. You you can't say that, you can't do that. And it's still out there, and I think for the most part people will actually call people out. Uh, but I can't I can't recall when I can't recall anything specific either, but I know that they were there.

SPEAKER_01 23:48

There were times when I should have said something either to protect myself or somebody else.

SPEAKER_03 23:53

And that was a thing, wasn't it? Even at school, you would be there, you came number one. You needed to protect yourself if there was some kid that had been ostracized, or it was always I don't want to be that kid. Um and I don't want to be pious. I now I think about it, there was a kid during our years in primary school that I shouldn't say I felt sorry for them, but I wanted them to be included in the group.

SPEAKER_01 24:20

Um and I think I love who you're talking about.

SPEAKER_03 24:23

I I sh no, it wasn't it you wasn't you. No, I'm sorry. But but there was someone I just wanted to be included in the group, and so um I wasn't the cool kid, but I mean you played sport, so that sort of made you sort of next level on from the bottom of the rung. Um but that I felt good about that. It wasn't a feel-good thing, but I just felt that you know it wasn't fair that they weren't involved with things. But I'm burned a bit pious. Anyway, there you go. I what and uh you mentioned playing things safe financially, emotionally, um creatively, all those sort of things. Is is that something that you've got to do?

SPEAKER_01 24:58

Yeah, I do have regrets around that being I um I'm I'm fairly Straty 180, I think, particularly professionally, that I wish sometimes I had been strong enough to go out on a limb and say or do things, but me maybe that's not who I am, you know. There's a reason for that because it's not who I am. This is who I am.

SPEAKER_03 25:20

Yeah, the Straty 180 who should have been on delay but wasn't.

SPEAKER_01 25:24

That's it. Yes.

SPEAKER_03 25:25

Yeah, I'm rehashing way too much. Do you think um, and you made career choices? Um, were there any career choices you made that you say, oh, if only I'd done this or moved there? Because I know I've got a couple. Um yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 25:39

I wonder what had happened if I had got jobs that I didn't get. You know, one of the big ones for me was um when before I sort of things took off on the on-air side of the radio career, I applied for a job as a flight attendant with Qantas because I thought that was my dream job. And I was so convinced I was going to get it that I resigned from my job even before I got it.

SPEAKER_03 26:04

Oh wow.

SPEAKER_01 26:05

And got to the fourth interview, the final interview, and didn't get the job. Then I had to go back to work cap in hand and say, Can I have my job back? And that employed somebody else and I couldn't. But I wondered, I I've often wondered where my life would have taken me had I had I got that job at Qantas as a flight attendant all those years ago in the late 80s, you know. Would I still be flying? Would I have married a pilot? Would I have still been living in Australia even, you know?

SPEAKER_03 26:34

It is so much those sliding door moments. Um I remember going for a job at the ATP, the Association of Tennis Professionals, and I was down to the last three, and they had I don't know what they call those tests where they they used to give you weird questions. And I remember the question they gave me was something about how many red pillar boxes there are in London.

SPEAKER_01 26:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 26:57

And you're supposed to give some some very, you know, insightful answer. It's supposed to be something creative or that's right, you know, and you'd say, you know, something bizarre like, you know, well, it depends on how many stamps get licked in any period of time and how much saliva is on the tongues of people living in Brighton or something. Um, but I'd got down to the last three, but also I thought this is a great job. I'm gonna be travelling the world with the, you know, as as someone involved in media with, you know, the likes of um at the time, you know, the the John McEnrose and Yeah, so you'd be looking after, you know, the Australian Open. But it had also came at a cost. Uh originally we talked about it, and I was going to be away from home for 12 weeks of the year. And we looked at that and thought, that's fine. By the time I'd got to the end of the whole thing, it was it was almost double that. And I thought the decision is I want to be with my kids at Christmas. I don't want to be that dad that said, Oh, yeah, sorry, I didn't get to spend Christmas because that was the height of the tennis season in Singapore. So did you get the job and turned it down or I I sabotaged the interview. I when I found when I found out that it was something like 26 weeks of the year I was away from home and I I wasn't there for a birthday, I wasn't there for Christmas, I wasn't there for whatever it was. Uh, as a couple, uh, we made that decision that I was basically just going to sabotage that interview and I I may not have got it, uh, but I I didn't I didn't want to be in my fifties and say, Oh, remember that Christmas we did?

SPEAKER_01 28:30

Our dad wasn't there, but it was more important and then say to them, sorry, I don't want it, you know, after everything you'd gone through.

SPEAKER_03 28:38

Yeah. Uh I look, I may not have got it.

SPEAKER_01 28:40

Um, because a lot of a lot of not just blokes, but a lot of people would have, you know, taken that dream job. I can imagine you in a job like that as your dream job, but and and taken it and who knows where you would be now, you know.

SPEAKER_03 28:55

And that's the thing. I I don't look at back with that with any regret. I I sometimes wonder what would have happened.

SPEAKER_00 29:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 29:03

I ended up working for a tennis magazine not long after that, um, which was very short-lived, um, after they promised me that you're going to be doing an interview with Ivan Lendell, for those who remember the great Ivan Lendell. Um, and I thought, fantastic. Uh, have you lined this up? Yes, we've lined it up at a particular golf course in Sydney. Great. Turned out no, it was an ambush. They actually hired me a carton they knew he was playing on the day, and they just wanted me to sort of ramshackle my way. Yeah, I thought, no, this this is this isn't a married to Yvonne Gulagong. Well, you once again, is that a regret? I don't know. It could have been, you know, anyway, there you go. So look, I'll I'll I'll finish up with this. If you could go back and give, say, 20-something year old Kaylee a piece of blunt advice on all this, what would it be?

SPEAKER_01 30:03

You are good enough. You are enough. That's it.

SPEAKER_03 30:08

Yeah, that's would she have absorbed any of that advice and taken it on, or would she have just kept doing it?

SPEAKER_01 30:15

We only get that advice on older shoulders, you know. You only you only finally understand that when you have older shoulders.

SPEAKER_03 30:21

Yep, older shoulders we've both got, we've got to go.

SPEAKER_01 30:24

All right.

SPEAKER_03 30:24

I'll speak to you later.

SPEAKER_01 30:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 30:26

Bye. The views and opinions expressed on the Big 6-0 are personal and reflect those of the hosts and guests. They do not represent the views or positions of any affiliated organizations or companies. This podcast is intended for informational and entertainment purposes only and should not be construed as professional advice. Please consult with a qualified professional for guidance on any personal matters.

SPEAKER_03 30:52

Oh, and before we go, let's give credit where credit is due. Kayleigh Harris and I came up with all the genius content for this week's episode. Our producer, Nick Abood. Well, he keeps the lights on and makes sure we don't accidentally upload a cat video instead of a podcast. So thanks for keeping us on track, Nick. Nick. Nick!