Something a bit different!
Let’s change things up a bit today… I know there’s a lot more people reading this blog than commenting (normal, of course) so I thought I’d pose a question to you, today. Let’s see if we can de-lurk some of the visitors, and entice some of the RSS viewers to come by and share, too?
Here’s the question: Can you think of a single moment when a decision you made changed the entire direction of your life? Was it a quick decision, or something that took you a while to figure out? The Matador video
The Butterfly Effect divx I can think of several times in my life when I’ve made some pretty quick decisions that have impacted my life significantly, and will share a couple in comments after I’ve heard from you…A Clockwork Orange full movie Laid to Rest full movie
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Honey, I do this all the time. The biggest one, though, was when I decided not to go to grad school and then got offered a huge fellowship to what ended up being a very crappy programme. I moved across Canada, and then I dropped out after 3 months and impetuously decided to spend 3 months in Mexico. After that, I ended up switching my master’s degree from Latin to an MBA, because I wanted to make some coin (ha!!). During MBA school I met my husband, though, which was honestly the best result of this bizarre chain of events.
De-lurking from my RSS feed. I really have a hard time making tough decisions, which is a huge character flaw, I know. I often find myself staying in bad situations rather than making a choice and moving on. Its something I am trying to work on. Your question has made me stop and reflect on a couple of those times in my life where I’ve had to choose this or that and ponder what has transpired since. I feel a blog post coming on.
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Biggest decision probably would be the one I made to move out here. Was it made quickly? I think A big change was a long time coming but THE decision for that change to be a move to Vancouver specifically came pretty quickly. But, even that change catalyzed other changes and those changes will catalyze further changes … life, at least mine, seems to be a constant process of change and growth.
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I tend to agonize over tough life decisions, or what I think are life decisions. All I can come up with, for quick decisions which affected my life in a big way, would be the brilliant choices of “why don’t I go ski in that blizzard” and “that treacherous looking mountain looks like a fun hike to do alone”. But really these have affected me only in causing bad injuries or (in the second case) a fear of heights.
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I can think of a couple. The first was the decision to leave my college boyfriend. I went to school in Ontario and he lived there, so I had been planning on staying out there after graduating. So the decision to leave him brought me back to Vancouver. My life would be really different right now if I was with him and living out east still.
The other was the decision to stop focusing on a career in the hospitality industry, which is what I have a degree in, and consciously create a path in marketing instead. That has made me happier, so even though I’m going through a rough time career-wise right now, I know it’s the right decision.
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I don’t tend to be very impulsive I tend to fulminate my thoughts for a while.
My two biggest decisions were to leave a bad relationship and get a divorce, then a few years later take a leap of faith and meet someone I met online. After being friends for a couple of years we met up in Vegas, fell for each other dated and married a couple of years later. Happily married to this day in fact.
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De-lurking (to sound of Star Trek transporter sound effect, or should that be Star Trek decloaking sound effect)….
Single moments that changed the rest of my life:
1. Quick decision after figuring it out over a few months: Pseudo-proposing to my girlfriend at 17; followed through with the real proposal/ring when I was 20, and we were married six months later.
2. Quick decision: One child later, with the last year of my BA to go, turning down a employer/mentor’s offer of work with the federal government to finish my degree (due to student loan debts, I figured I needed to finish what I started – I wanted the loan remission). Probably should have taken the job – would have likely had a completely different career history.
3. Quick decision: With one semester left to the degree, and a need to find employment to support wife and child, applied for a job with major telco’s recently established Internet service helpdesk and took the offer that came; began the big career.
4. Quick decision after trying to figure out what to do: Wanting off the helpdesk, took the offer from another division to help the telco’s recently established Internet portal; theoretically, it meant more career opportunities, and was a great experience, but it was the job I was downsized from due to corporate restructuring after dot com crash.
5. Quick decision once I’d had a few weeks of info after hearing about imminent changes: Because of notice of layoff, got financial package, and on three weeks notice, moved family back to town where spouse and I grew up. Because we moved back when we did, came into the local housing market before it went into the big climb of the last few years.
6. Something that took me a little while to figure out: Deciding to run for local office after spending almost a year reporting on local government. Quick decision: Deciding to run again.
I could probably think of others – much as I wish sometimes I would have gone one direction instead of the other, “it’s definitely been a long strange trip” (to paraphrase the Grateful Dead).
The single most important decision that I made to date, the one that completely changed my life, was moving across the US from suburban Pennsylvania to Seattle, WA. In a way I’m still coming to grips with it, but all in all I’m glad I did it and I wouldn’t change that decision for the world.
By the way: Hi! Thanks for following me on Twitter (@mightyhunter).
I’m the epitome of “make a snap decision, then spend forever trying to rationalize it”. Case in point: See Dog. I got her at exactly the wrong time … but fuck it, I love her, and she’s worth all the trouble (and everything ended up working out just fine anyway.)
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I’m not usually that impulsive about huge decisions, and because I’m a classic worry-wart, I’ve usually thought out most worst-case scenarios at some point anyhow (often at the expense of sleep).
That said, one quick decision that drastically changed things was to quit a job I’d just accepted after the first day of work. And with no backup plan. But it was an awful job, going nowhere, and if I hadn’t quit when I did, I wouldn’t have the awesome job I have now.
It also had the unexpected (at least to me) bonus of making me much more risk tolerant. Because it felt like a terrifyingly risky move for me at the time, but the payoff was definitely worth it. And now I’m less frightened of making those kind of calls.
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