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

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.

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