Life’s Little Ripples: The Butterfly Effect Stories You Won’t Believe

Fate Takes the Wheel

The summer before my final year of college, I went on a last-minute lunch meet-up with my mom to go see her friend in Beverly Hills. We almost didn’t make it because Los Angeles traffic really deserves its terrible reputation. Anyways, we made it and had lunch and then my mom and I walked around all of these high-end luxury stores. It was during this walk that I fully realized something that I had put on the back burner: I was most likely never going to make much money being a writer (which is basically what I was studying for in college). I was then struck with the idea of becoming a lawyer – it was a little random for such a walk but the thought stuck to me like gorilla glue even when I flew back home later that summer. After several weeks of stewing on this idea, I decided to unravel my plans of becoming a writer and instead become a lawyer. I only had a couple of months to study for the LSAT during my last year of college, but I miraculously got the score I needed to get into every law school to which I later applied. I made a vow to myself that I’d one day return to Beverly Hills after I make it as a lawyer (with the hope that I’d be able to actually afford things this time). Today, I am less than a year away from graduating with my J.D. and none of this would have happened if I hadn’t randomly gone to Beverly Hills that one summer.

Love Lost, Career Found

In 2001 I was working a retail job and about to move across the country to another town where my fiancé (at the time) already lived. I found out I could transfer my retail job to the new city, so I talked to my HR rep, who said she just needed to know which store location was closest to where I would be living. So I called my girlfriend and asked her, as I didn’t know the town well enough to know (2001, no google maps, smartphones, etc.). She said, “Um… I think the one by such-and-such shopping center”. I didn’t have any reason to doubt her, so I just went with it. As it turned out when I actually moved there, that store was TWICE as far away as the other option. Had she looked at a map it would have been very easy to tell that it was closer.

BUT… that relationship fell apart quickly after I moved (and not just because of her poor geography skills), and I eventually met my wife at the store, and several connections that led to my career. I have two kids and just celebrated 15 years in business in that career. Every once in a while I wonder how different my life might be if she or I had just looked at a map to make that one small (big) decision. Eerie.

From Joke to Nightmare

I made an offhand remark to my friend about how I like scrolling through Instagram and saying I’m better than everyone I see as a joke. This apparently deeply affected them to the point they got an insanely popular artist to dm me saying my art is bad, I’m too cocky, they are amazed I’m not 12 based on my art quality, and that I’m dumb. Keep in mind this guy had like 7000 followers and I had 100, I was also a minor at that time so it really affected me. I got really upset and then one of the popular artists’ fans doxxed my full name. Then my friend said they wanted to stop being friends with me and the popular artist told me to “apologize”. They only apologized when I went public with the DMS and their apology was as backhanded as it could be.

They said they were just defending their friend and that they don’t actually make fun of beginner artists and my anatomy is not actually that bad! It just needs some work! What funny thing about that beginner artists crap? I’m 18 now and I’ve been drawing consistently since I was little, I just have hand tremors that I attend physical therapy for. I said I accepted their apology and that everything was all good but I really should have just told that b*tch and his dumb friend to go f*ck themselves. the ONE time I felt good about my art and some popular DMs me to say I’m too cocky over a f*cking joke.

An Unwanted Guest

When I was 14, nearly midnight, me and my mom were alone at home, my mom was in the kitchen and I am in the living room, suddenly I heard someone at the door, I got to the door and looked through the peephole, then I saw a woman that almost looked like my auntie, I was about to open the door then I realized that I didn’t contact her for a few months, then I got embarrassed and ashamed to open the door myself, so I went to the kitchen and told my mom that my auntie is at the door, we went back to the door and she looked through the peephole and said: “WHO ARE YOU?” then the woman asked: “Is that john’s house?” my mom said: “No it’s not, Who are you?” the woman responded: “Ok but is that Mike’s house?” Then my mom yelled: “NO, GO AWAY BEFORE I CALL THE POLICE!” then the woman kicked the door as strong as she can a few times then she ran away, my mom called the cops saying that there is a woman trying to break into the house, the cops came and told us there’s like a gang of women around the neighborhood that goes to people’s house and act like they know the person inside and guessing names until they open the door when you open the door, they either kidnap you or kill you then steal the house and run, til this day I can’t imagine what would happen if I wasn’t too embarrassed to open the door for that woman.

A Life-Changing Adventure

In high school, my guidance counselor forgot to submit my application for my dream college, so I was forced to go to my backup school (where I didn’t know anybody.) Then I ended up making friends with a bunch of foreign exchange students who were so awesome and fun. I then decided to go study abroad in their country, which then lead me to live there for the next 4 years. Now I’m fluent in that language, and I had the experience of a lifetime!

All wouldn’t have happened if my guidance counselor actually did her job.

Bad Luck Turns into a Payday

I was parking my car on the street and was about to shut it off but I noticed my car got pretty dirty the last time I parked under that tree, usually, I don’t care but I drove forward to another space. The next day I came outside and my car’s rear suspension was damaged and the tires were bent. Someone had smashed into it and taken off. I went on to spend about $500 in repairs and my insurance couldn’t cover it unless I found out who did it. I was very upset I couldn’t go to work and the tow truck driver pointed out that a neighbor had cameras up. I went as a last resort to ask those neighbors if they caught anything. The next day they emailed me footage of a vehicle that hit my car and parked a few houses up, they found the vehicle and took pictures of the damages too. I ended up getting $4000 from their insurance company.

The T-Shirt Chain Reaction

Ordered some shirts off the Internet, but the company sent a size too small. Emailed them and they sent the correct size and let me keep the other ones too.

My grandpa’s house was being redone, noticed one of the workers liked a band I did and gave him the shirts that didn’t fit. Years later working and having a smoke break, a guy overhears me and a friend discussing a concert we were going to, asked about it and said he had some old shirts I could have. Met up with him after work to hang out. They were my shirts from a couple of years before.

We start hanging out and he is dating this girl, she says she has a friend that she thinks would be perfect for me. We hook up. Been married for almost 10 years with 2 kids. All for a few shirts that the company sent me the wrong size for.

One Bottle of Sambuca

One I caused with great regret. Before I married my (now ex-)husband, back when we weren’t even dating yet, we were friends with B, I bought him a bottle of Sambuca(40% alcohol) for his 23rd birthday because it was his favorite drink. He was so happy with it, he went home to stash it to keep it safe, later that evening he went clubbing and partying.

Normally afterwards he would just go home and sleep off his drunk, but this was a special occasion since it was his birthday, so when he got home, he went looking for the bottle he stashed, found it and took it back to a friend’s house for an afterparty. He drank the entire bottle himself (took him a few hours though).

Fast forward to about 8 am-ish in the morning, where he either sat on or leaned too close to a balcony railing… and fell down from the 4th floor. He lay there mostly unconscious for about 30 minutes before someone found him and called an ambulance. After the ambulance rushed him to the hospital, the hospital made arrangements to move him across borders for specialised care, since he apparently had broken his back in multiple places.

One night of fun and drinking turned into weeks of antagonising pain and suffering, Especially when he got the news he would never walk again; he was paralyzed from the waist down. It took him a few months to revalidate(?) and learn to get around in a wheelchair. He never got feeling in his legs back, it’s been almost 12 years now, and I still feel guilty for getting him that f*cking bottle.

Last-Minute Decision

In 2001 my wife and I took a 10-day vacation to Paris. In the end, we didn’t fit everything in we wanted, so we reserved a new flight home 2 days later to have some more time.

At the last minute, we decided changing the tickets was going to cost too much, and the connection home through New Jersey was just gonna mean a long, tiring day of travel so we cancelled the change and took our original flight home.

On September 9th.

The flight we almost changed to was hijacked.

ultralame

Saying Yes to a Trial Lesson

My life dramatically changed because I agreed to take a trial lesson (was a freelance English teacher at the time) with someone during a time frame the person who connected me with students already knew I didn’t want to do trial lessons. I said no and hung up and 3 min later called back and said “Fine but don’t ask me this again.”

Turns out it wasn’t a real trial lesson at all but someone scouting for a private English teacher for one of the biggest celebrities in Japan. I hit it off with her very well and ended up becoming her manager. I traveled the world with her in first class (more than 40 countries and many repeats) for 5 years, rode in limousines, 5-star hotels and restaurants, went to movie premieres, Elton John’s Academy Awards party, met/ate dinner with/hung out with lots of extremely well-known people including Snoop Dogg, Al Gore, Nicole Kidman, Usher, Leo DiCaprio, Adrian Brody, Mario Testino, Jackie Chan, Stan Lee, Jeff Goldblum, to name a few. The list of things that we did and experiences we had is too long to write out. It also sounds fake and yet it is not.

The best thing though? I had recently begun my transition from male to female and got to be coached in fashion and manner by a supermodel. And since I was a reflection of her she made sure to take me shopping frequently.

I’m a dorky trans girl from Mississippi who likes space, lizards, and video games and I grew up dirt poor. To say this changed my life is an egregious understatement. All because I took a trial lesson I normally wouldn’t have.

Seralyn

The Greatest Matchmaker

My dad died in 2005.

My mom put my brother and I in a grief group. She met a man, whose wife had died and had his kids in the same grief group.

They get married in 2009. He’s now my stepdad. My stepdad introduced me to a guy who works on his job site, in 2007.

I married that man in 2013. We now have 2 kids together.

We also introduced our 2 best friends who are also married and have a kid.

Thanks, Dad.

StephaniGrace

Saved from Tragedy

Not mine but my aunt’s. She was always, always, on time for everywhere. It’s trauma left over from her childhood. She lived in the Bronx and worked in lower Manhattan (that’s like a 45/60 min subway ride) so she usually had to get up pretty early to get to work on time.

One night, the power in her building went out. Zero idea why, to this day she lives in the same building and no one knows why/it was the only building affected. Her digital alarm had reset when the power came back on at dawn so her alarm did not wake her up. She woke up at 7:30 AM, with 30 mins before she should be at work.

Panicking, she got ready and ran to the subway. The subway by her apartment was having maintenance issues and she got stuck for 20 mins three stops away. For the first time in her life (she loves her job) she called into work sick saying she’d be in too late and would work overtime the next day.

She walked back to her apartment and fell asleep. She woke up about 4? hours later when one of my other aunts was pounding on her door. She answered the door, my other aunt was hysterical because she hadn’t been answering her phone.

And that’s how a weird electrical mishap caused my aunt’s alarm clock to reset, making her late, missing her train, and avoiding being in the building next to the World Trade Center on 9/11.

When All Hope Was Lost

I was in my sophomore year of high school when I was diagnosed as blind. Glasses nor any method aware fixed my eyesight, I went two years blind and must’ve been to almost every optometrist in California. Not a single doctor knew why I couldn’t see, there was no indicator of why it was j couldn’t see to any of them. After two long years, I started seeing specialists less and began to give up any hope. One day a long-time best friend asked me if I wanted to go with him to have a drink with his redneck aunt and uncle to celebrate his birthday. I had never really drunk enough before and I had never gone to a party or anything like that before well because I was blind. I wasn’t planning on saying yes but after a while, he convinced me to go with him and reluctantly I went and had a great time. His aunt and uncle were some of the most friendly people I had ever met and it just so happened his aunt was a retired optometrist that suggested to me an old friend of hers. Knowing not a single doctor I had seen could help me I really didn’t think anything of her suggestion. She gave my friend the doctor’s number to give to my parents and I left that night and I haven’t seen those nice people since. After about three months I think it was my sister that found the card in a drawer and brought it back into the conversation and my mom figured out why not and booked an appointment. She didn’t have an opening for another month so eventually I went to see her and she knew what was causing my loss of sight, she had treated one other person with the same thing I had before called pseudo myopia and put me through procedures that gave me my full sight back in two weeks and I have perfect vision and my life’s completely normal now. Half the high school I spent blind, I ended up going to over a hundred and fifty specialized appointments that were all non-productive, and I was cured in two weeks by one doctor and she honestly gave my life back. I’ve never been more thankful for a beer with my best friend.

Icantdoaflip

One Man’s Soccer Match

My dad is 64 in 2 months, he has played soccer since he was young. He went to dinner with his old soccer buddies and they convince him to play a match with them, he hasn’t played in over 10 years.

He runs every day so he decided it was a solid adult decision, 10 min in he gets kicked in the calf and comes off.

1hr later he leaves, passes out in the parking lot (he thought he just tripped and fell) drives home and tells my mom his leg is sore.

30min later he is breathing like someone who has the wind knocked out of him. Late night ER visit they find he has a burst vein in his calf, can’t understand the pain in his chest or bad breathing, run some blood.

HE HAS A CLOT IN HIS LUNG, doc says it was there for a while and had he not come in, he may have just not woken up 1 morning.

Unfortunately, his man brain just sees his decision to play footy as a life-changing decision and not the stupidity that it was.

When Plans Change

I was traveling abroad with my family and the next day we were supposed to travel to another city. We were road-tripping everywhere.

We took a look at the car itinerary and it showed we should cross a bridge to enter this city and then we would already be very close to our hotel.

On the day of the trip, in the morning, we had a problem with the car rental reservation. We tried to solve it but it didn’t work out. We got very frustrated with the situation and had to go by train instead.

When we were about to reach the city, our train and all the railway system had to be stopped. Within a couple of minutes, we were informed by the PA system that the bridge we were supposed to cross by car collapsed and dozens of people died. We were supposed to be passing there at that exact time.

For the rest of the day, I was feeling very weirded out, very saddened for the people that died and at the same time grateful that we escaped death.

A Half-Baked Essay

I forgot to put my cellphone into silent mode and woke up to a 3 am email notification reminding me that I had an hour to re-upload an admissions essay for a foreign university. I was a high school senior living in a third-world country at the time. The foreign university’s servers had crashed and they requested all essays be re-uploaded. I had decided to go to another university so I never submitted an essay before the server crash and the initial deadline weeks ago.

I couldn’t sleep so I wrote a half-a**ed essay starting at 3:30 am and submitted it with seconds to spare. A week later, I received an unconditional offer of admission with a big fat scholarship.

My entire life as I know it would not exist had I put my cellphone on silent mode that night or choose not to write the essay. I’ve spent the last decade in that foreign country. All the memories, friends, my partner, my experiences, the public projects I worked on, etc… would not exist the way they currently do.

XanderDay

A Stroke of Luck

My family and I were visiting some relatives, and we’d always bring food/snacks up with us – including snacks my parents never bought any other time than when we were visiting these relatives. There was this pastry thing I really wanted, so I got up before everyone else was awake and snuck to the kitchen to eat one. Since I was up, I spent time snuggling with one of their older chihuahuas.

I forgot to latch the tavern door-style gate leading out of the kitchen after I’d snuck my pastry. Because of that, one of the other dogs snuck upstairs and woke up my relative, and was able to alert them that something was wrong – she was nursing puppies and had a clogged milk duct that got infected, and it turned into a nasty fever. They were able to get her to the vet in time to stop the infection from killing her, which the vet said it surely would have.

Later that same afternoon, the older chihuahua I’d been snuggling with that morning died (old age).

Had I not snuck out of bed to steal a pastry, I wouldn’t have been able to say my goodbyes to the old girl, and my relatives would have lost two dogs that day instead of one.

A Chance Conversation

I eavesdropped on a conversation at work and it changed my entire life.

I worked at a sandwich shop, I had just come back from maternity leave and was feeling the pressure to do more with my life now that I had a little one. I was also coming from a very judgmental family that was very not okay with the young, unmarried, and uneducated mom in their family tree.

I heard my manager talk to a lady at the register about taking a phlebotomy course. The lady said she was doing it to get a feel for health care before committing to nursing school. I didn’t think much else about the conversation at the time.

A month later my grandma basically has me in a corner just insisting I do something different with my life. She’s really pressuring me to make some sort of plan for education and I was a weepy hormonal mess still with PPD and finally just pulled out of my a** “I WANT TO GO TO PHLEBOTOMY SCHOOL.”

She asked why, and I quoted what the lady told my manager at the register. My mom was a nurse, so my grandma thought this would especially fit. She said, “Alright let’s pull up classes on the computer, find a school and I’ll pay for them.”

And…three months later I have an interview at a plasma center. I’m out of school, I have the skills to stick folks, but I’m not sure if I love it, but I’m just kind of going with it. I get the job and quit the sandwich shop.

It’s been 3 years and I’m still there. I love my job and it quite literally fell into my lap. I’m now the supervisor and make double what I made as a shift lead at a sandwich shop. I started applying for nursing schools.

My Car, My Rules

I had a rule in my car. If anyone didn’t have a seat belt on, we didn’t go anywhere.

We were running late for a movie. I was driving my girlfriend, her sister, best friend, and cousin. My best friend wouldn’t put her seat belt on. I turned the car (and AC) off. In August. In Florida. With the windows up.

It took about 15 seconds of the other three girls yelling at her (it was a lot hotter than whatever you are thinking) before she decided to put the seat belt on.

On the way home from the movie she didn’t even fight me about it. We got in a head-on collision with the cars going about 10 (me) and 50 (them) mph. Seatbelt saved her life. And my girlfriend’s sister. Sister only wore seatbelts in my car because she knew I wouldn’t budge on my rule. Everyone had bruises from seatbelts and my cousin had a broken collarbone.

Love Finds a Way

My ex-girlfriend one day decided that she wanted to be in a polyamorous relationship and said something along the lines of “I can’t promise I’ll still be with you” if I didn’t do it, so I did. I’ll say my ex’s name in this is Marge. Marge started dating a girl I’ll call Jill, who was in a relationship with a girl I’ll name Jen. Marge and Jill barely lasted a year and Jen and I have been together for about 7 years now. Still going strong. It was a crazy time in my life full of uncertainty but if I didn’t go with Marge wanting to be poly, I wouldn’t have met Jen. I would do it again too.

From Strangers to Family

So I was adopted from birth and I had a pretty rough time at about 7 years of age (was bullied for being adopted). So had always wondered about where I came from and why I was the way I was. My family are amazing but I was always so different to them. Also, my best friend is adopted(which is why I think we were so close growing up) I decided at 28 to find my birth family and started going through social services. They gave me the name of my birth mother and I had to go through a series of interviews before they would give me any more information. In the meantime, I did some secretive work myself and searched for her name on various social media platforms. I found one woman about 20 miles from where I lived. I would drive and sit outside the house to catch a glimpse of her to see if we had any resemblance. But I never saw her coming or going.

Then a few months later I had a job in a house about a mile down the road from her house. Was a little old lady and we started chatting and the subject of adoption came up. I told her I was adopted and said I’m trying to find my birth mother, and I think she doesn’t live too far from here. The lady asked her name and when I said it she went white as a sheet “That’s my daughter” So my birth mom had hidden her pregnancy from her mother (the old woman I had just shocked) so this lady said I must have the wrong person. But as I was leaving the house there was a photo on the wall of some kids. It was my brother and I knew I was right as I could see the resemblance. About a day or two later I get a phone call from my birth mother and we end up meeting During our second meeting she tells me that she put me up for adoption as she was 19 and with two kids already (I had a brother and sister) and our dad walked out on her. She thought it was the best option She told me she thought it was the right decision as her mother had put my birth mom’s brother up for adoption. So she proceeds to tell me that she thinks about her brother being put up for adoption all the time, and his birthday would be tomorrow.

My best friend who was adopted birthday was the next day. I ask her was his name Jeremy by any chance. She looked at me in total disbelief like how did I know. Turns out my best friend is my uncle. All the years of us being friends, and he really was family all along.

Mr_fenda

The Unconventional Love Story

I tried to take Japanese classes in college ten years ago or so to fulfill my language requirement but they were locked to students with more relevant majors.

I ended up taking sign language on a whim and accidentally got fluent in it.

In under three months, I’m accidentally marrying the deaf woman of my dreams. Whoops.

J_wyn

Translating My Way

I was lazy at home every day during that time, one day I randomly decided to go have coffee with a friend, he took me to ‘check something out’ afterwards, it was his friend’s company’s new project, they had a Dutch team on site and no one to translate, I translated on spot and for the rest of the evening, by the end of the night I landed a corporate job which the CEO was adamant about keeping me there, after a few years I am still doing this job.

Tough Love

In high school, I had a friend who claimed to be suicidal. I knew she wasn’t but she had issues with always needing attention and couldn’t stand being alone. She was the kind of friend who came to me when something bad happened, a breakup, fighting with her mom, etc. And I consoled her because it was the right thing to do and then she would disappear until the next bad thing. And generally, I didn’t care.

One day I had just had my own breakup and she comes over crying about something and said she tried to kill herself the night before. I was already in a bad mood and decided I was done with her BS so I told her that she didn’t and it got heated on both ends and we stopped talking to each other.

About a year or so later I saw her modeling in a magazine, she was a small-time model when I knew her, so I decided to look her up to see what was up. After some Facebook stalking, I found out that the same year we had our fight things got better for her. She got in contact with her dad and built a relationship with him, she started doing more modeling, and she seemed to stop pushing people away for the drama. And she ended up married to a guy she started dating at the end of that year.

I don’t know if my lashing out was what pushed her forward but if it was I’m glad it did.

reddituser