Why is it, that it seems most of life's biggest consequences are birthed from the tiniest of actions, often without intention? So many of us fight, struggle, plot and methodically plan for certain outcomes for many things in life but to no avail. Then suddenly like a Julia Roberts movie you turn a corner and BOOM.... everything changes. Heck, it makes you nervous to go outside, but then maybe staying in will lead to the biggest BOOM. Oof, I can't decide. It's all a coin toss.
Redditor u/Homelss_Emperor wanted to hear from people who are still trying to decipher how they unintentionally played a part in some major dramas by asking.... Butterfly effect. what is that trivial thing you did that caused a serious chaos later on?It was a whole thing.
shocked oh no GIFGiphyBroke a glass and spilled juice all over the floor when I was 8. We we are at our uncle's house. It got under of a quite heavy cabinet. It was sticky and my father move the cabinet a little so my uncle's wife can clean it. Behind the cabinet, there was a small box and inside that small box, a cellphone. So that's how my uncle's wife found out he had a second phone and was cheating for a long time. It was a whole thing. They ended up getting a divorce.
Fill the hole...
Kinda a long story so I'll sum it up. When i was in high school I had to dig up a dead tree in our yard. I lazily didn't fill in the hole like my dad requested because I was exhausted after moving everything left it for a couple days and my mom ended up breaking her ankle after taking a nasty fall from that same hole. She went to the hospital where they did surgery on her ankle and she caught gangrene.
No big deal it was treatable at first they did some minor amputations and gave antibiotics. Nothing they gave her did anything but slow it down. So when they finally found one that worked well for her what they didn't realize is that in a weeks time she would have several heart failures a day because of it and eventually it got to the point we had to let her go.
The Help Desk.
Not exactly chaos, but it had a big impact. After I graduated college, before I could land a full time job, I was doing temp work. I'd just finished a weeklong temp assignment as a receptionist at an office. It was Friday, but they called me and asked if I could come back for one more day since their receptionist was still out.
I did, thinking nothing of it.
Turns out that my husband was starting his first day at the company working Help Desk, and his first ticket was to install a new printer at the receptionist desk. If I hadn't agreed to one more day of work, I never would have met him.
Second Life....
In 2007, I played an online game called Second Life. My avatar bumped into another and because of lag, I moved him. We joked about it and somehow that night I said to him "yes, but I'm not taking your name in marriage." We've been married for 12 years. A lot has happened.
One More Minute....
Not a bad kind of chaos, but showing up for a final exam at the wrong time lead to a shitload of cascading events that result in me meeting my wife and having a successful life.
i was on academic probation my junior year of college because i liked partying more than studying, and refused to learn my lesson. I pulled all-nighters for my final exams, and needed a 2.0 or better to stay in school.... part of being sleep deprived meant that i mixed up the times of my last exam.
It was at noon, but i thought it was 5pm. So I show up to a now-darkened building, freaking out. I was scrolling through my contacts hoping to call anyone i knew from the class when i bumped into my professor, knocking the stuff out of his bands. He was packing up the last load of his things, as he was heading back home to Canada for the winter break, and had me marked as a 0. I needed a 75% or better on his final to stay in school.
He gave me 20 minutes to take this test, which i was able to get a B on, which let me stay in school, graduate, get a professional job (after a year of min wage bullshit), move to a city with my friend where i met my wife... If i was literally one minute later rounding that corner in that lecture hall 9 years ago I wouldn't have had the life i have now.
The Riot Starter
A few years ago I brought yellow slime crystals to school, I left them under a desk because I didn't want them anymore. I was in a pretty bad school so all the teachers assumed it was a form of cocaine. Which led to a whole drug search of the school, which turned up all sorts of knives, drugs, cigarettes, alcohol, and stolen goods. Next thing I know 100 kids were suspended/expelled. Now, I was the culprit who accidentally started this.
When all the kids got back, people were getting jumped left and right of being suspected of the drug search. They were all looking for me, and only my closest friend knew that it was me. The security tightened around the school, but kids were even getting jumped at their homes, because of all the contraband. So yeah. I basically started a riot because of yellow slime crystals. :/
Me + 6....
I made an impulsive decision to drop an Administrative Law class with a world-renown professor to take an advanced Constitutional Law seminar that had been added during the summer break after our Law Faculty had poached an up-and-coming professor from another university.
I was having second thoughts on law as a career and figured I might as well take a class I like as opposed to a class people said I needed. There were only 6 other people registered in the seminar, including the man I ended up marrying. He was a foreign student that semester and I'd never have met him otherwise.
Ended up with a career in administrative law, of all things, too.
Shirt Off. Guns Out.
oh my god spn GIFGiphyDrunk too much one night. Seen myself shirtless. The next day decided to hit the gym for the first time in my life. 2 years on, currently studying Exercise science & nutrition. Got my own studio in the city. Steady job. Couldn't be happier. My drunk mind tends to see things from a new perspective. Sober OP may have been complacent but drunk OP may have been like "what the hell is this crap?"
127 Jobs...
I've been waiting on this question for a long time!
I missed the train to work one day by one minute about 6 years ago I'm a head chef so this sh!t matters, because I was an hour late my team screwed up a table that was a critic and her family they had strict dietary restrictions that my team didn't take into account without me.
The review came out it was really freaking bad, so bad that people stopped coming to our place and the company went under. I firmly believe that if I didn't get stuck in traffic that day I would have saved over 127 jobs. It still keeps me up at night!
Teenage Dream....
steve urkel oops GIFGiphyIn high school I had a crush on girl A and my friends figured it out. Embarrassed, I claimed they were wrong, I couldn't like girl A because I like girl B. They all chime in, then go for it! She'd totally date you.
Turns out girl B was wonderful, it lasted 4 years and it was one of the best relationships I ever had. We eventually had to break up but we are still on good terms.
I was such a dumb high schooler.
The Infected
Best I can think of is in senior year of high school, I went to school and had a slight stomach ache and I was like it's nothing probably just hunger or something I ate, and next morning full blown stomach bug in which I spent the whole day throwing up. I recovered by evening and I was able to return to school the next day, which the school had one of the lowest attendance rates where it almost reached the level in which school would've been forced to shut down because too few people showed up. One day I infected almost 60-70% of everyone at the school with the stomach bug.
in the woods.....
chris pine any moment GIFGiphyI was at a hotel on a family vacation, sneaked outside to smoke a joint late at night, I must have left the door to the hallway ajar or something, later on a full blown community of raccoons come charging into the joint, man did they run wild.
EDIT : it was a mountain resort hotel. ( in the woods ).
Simba Forever....
When I was seven, two friends and I walked to a dumpster to retrieve my Simba plush. Their asshole neighbors stole it from me and threw it in there.
Five minutes after we got my Simba back, the dumpster suddenly caught on fire and five of the buttheads went to the hospital with serious burns.
Whenever I tell this story, I always start with,"Hey, my friends and I set a dumpster on fire when we were seven."
Life Moves Forward
Was talking about a cute boy that walked into the restaurant my best friend and I were at. He was wearing headphones but not listening to anything. We get to talking, exchange phone numbers, etc. I was stuck in a >2 year LDR with an abusive fool (though I didn't realize it at the time). Fell in love with boy from the restaurant, realized how crappy my situation was, tried to get out. (Now ex) BF at the time went ballistic, cut my name into his arm and sent me pictures, harassed me and my friends, threatened to kill himself if I left.
I left, he checked himself into a mental hospital after continued abuse over the phone. Now I live with the boy from the restaurant, we have three cats, and we're currently brainstorming ideas for our wedding (not engaged yet... but he's horrible at surprises so I know it'll be soon). It's a good feeling to love and be loved. I'm realizing now that this story may not be entirely relevant but I'm on mobile and already typed this out.
To the Border....
Well, while not chaotic, this does remind me of when my mom decided to run away with me and my siblings, (she didn't and still does not have custody) she wanted to cross the border into Mexico. I complained and she was somehow convinced to hide out in the deserts in California.
If had I not complained, things would have been different. My mom would still try to illegally cross the border with us and either we would gave been caught and I would not have spent 6 months in what was effectively prison, or I would be an illegal immigrant in Mexico.
The Rando Love
GiphyTook my car to the shop and ended up needing a ride to my running club. A random guy offered. Our 6th anniversary is in October and we have a house and 3 dogs together.
Frat-tastic jungle juice....
I lived in Miami in my early 20's. This was the height of my party days. Even though I rolled with a big group of high-achieving recent college grads, we were young enough to treat every weekend like Spring Break.
I had this "bit" where I'd dump a bunch of of 5-hour energy's into the jungle juice we made to pe-game every Friday night. It was a well-known thing in my circle of friends.
I did it yet again this one Friday night. But that same night, this guy who had just started casually dating a girl in our group decided to come out and party with us. He drank a bunch of the jungle juice. Nobody thought to warn him that it was essentially a vat of bootleg 4-Loko.
An hour or two into the night, he starts freaking out b/c his heart is beating so fast. I realize why, I tell him he's just stupid caffeinated, and my friend/his sweet, very drunk kinda-gf takes him home early. They have a fun, if drunken and messy, hook up that night.
A month later she's pregnant. Soon enough, my gal pal is a new mom. A year after that, they're married. Now they've got a multiple kids together and live in a border town in TX b/c he's in the military. My dumb butt, frat-tastic jungle juice started a freakin' family. But it seems to be a happy one, so... meh.
I'm Sorry
Soooooo.... One time on a night out many, many years ago. A guy I knew said he had a friends mums phone number as his friend had lost their phone and was using their mums. He said, "Shall I text her pretending I'm a guy that's in love with her" or something like that. I laughed and said yeah, not thinking too much about it.
Anyways, years later I find out that this friend's dad had seen the message and attempted to kill himself in his garage. I felt awful! I still do.
A Long Story
My wife and I were almost adopted siblings. Not what I did, but when my Mom got pregnant in High School, she confided in a high school friend.
THAT high school friend spoke to her next door neighbor about potentially adopting me since she had just found out she wouldn't be able to have more kids after giving birth to a daughter.
She decided against adopting me, the unborn baby.
Well anyways, Mom had me and kept me and 18 years later I dated and later married that woman's daughter. So, by deciding not to adopt me, she set in motion a series of events that led to me marrying her daughter.
A Quick 5....
crash fail GIFGiphyLeaving five minutes earlier than I should had which caused us to be in the right spot at the right time to get T-boned. Now, we are piecing our Jeep back together after three weeks of insurance stuff.
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Experiencing death is a fascinating and frightening idea.
Who doesn't want to know what is waiting for us on the other side?
But so many of us want to know and then come back and live a little longer.
It would be so great to be sure there is something else.
But the whole dying part is not that great, so we'll have to rely on other people's accounts.
Redditor AlaskaStiletto wanted to hear from everyone who has returned to life, so they asked:
"Redditors who have 'died' and come back to life, what did you see?"
Sensations
Happy Good Vibes GIF by Major League SoccerGiphy"My dad's heart stopped when he had a heart attack and he had to be brought back to life. He kept the paper copy of the heart monitor which shows he flatlined. He said he felt an overwhelming sensation of peace, like nothing he had felt before."
PeachesnPain
Recovery
"I had surgical complications in 2010 that caused a great deal of blood loss. As a result, I had extremely low blood pressure and could barely stay awake. I remember feeling like I was surrounded by loved ones who had passed. They were in a circle around me and I knew they were there to guide me onwards. I told them I was not ready to go because my kids needed me and I came back."
"My nurse later said she was afraid she’d find me dead every time she came into the room."
"It took months, and blood transfusions, but I recovered."
good_golly99
Take Me Back
"Overwhelming peace and happiness. A bright airy and floating feeling. I live a very stressful life. Imagine finding out the person you have had a crush on reveals they have the same feelings for you and then you win the lotto later that day - that was the feeling I had."
"I never feared death afterward and am relieved when I hear of people dying after suffering from an illness."
rayrayrayray
Free
The Light Minnie GIF by (G)I-DLEGiphy"I had a heart surgery with near-death experience, for me at least (well the possibility that those effects are caused by morphine is also there) I just saw black and nothing else but it was warm and I had such inner peace, its weird as I sometimes still think about it and wish this feeling of being so light and free again."
TooReDTooHigh
This is why I hate surgery.
You just never know.
Shocked
Giphy"More of a near-death experience. I was electrocuted. I felt like I was in a deep hole looking straight up in the sky. My life flashed before me. Felt sad for my family, but I had a deep sense of peace."
Admirable_Buyer6528
The SOB
"Nursing in the ICU, we’ve had people try to die on us many times during the years, some successfully. One guy stood out to me. His heart stopped. We called a code, are working on him, and suddenly he comes to. We hadn’t vented him yet, so he was able to talk, and he started screaming, 'Don’t let them take me, don’t let them take me, they are coming,' he was scared and yelling."
"Then he yelled a little more, as we tried to calm him down, he screamed, 'No, No,' and gestured towards the end of the bed, and died again. We didn’t get him back. It was seriously creepy. We called his son to tell him the news, and the son said basically, 'Good, he was an SOB.'”
1-cupcake-at-a-time
Colors
"My sister died and said it was extremely peaceful. She said it was very loud like a train station and lots of talking and she was stuck in this area that was like a curtain with lots of beautiful colors (colors that you don’t see in real life according to her) a man told her 'He was sorry, but she had to go back as it wasn’t her time.'"
Hannah_LL7
"I had a really similar experience except I was in an endless garden with flowers that were colors I had never seen before. It was quiet and peaceful and a woman in a dress looked at me, shook her head, and just said 'Not yet.' As I was coming back, it was extremely loud, like everyone in the world was trying to talk all at once. It was all very disorienting but it changed my perspective on life!"
huntokarrr
The Fog
"I was in a gray fog with a girl who looked a lot like a young version of my grandmother (who was still alive) but dressed like a pioneer in the 1800s she didn't say anything but kept pulling me towards an opening in the wall. I kept refusing to go because I was so tired."
"I finally got tired of her nagging and went and that's when I came to. I had bled out during a c-section and my heart could not beat without blood. They had to deliver the baby and sew up the bleeders. refill me with blood before they could restart my heart so, like, at least 12 minutes gone."
Fluffy-Hotel-5184
Through the Walls
"My spouse was dead for a couple of minutes one miserable night. She maintains that she saw nothing, but only heard people talking about her like through a wall. The only thing she remembers for absolute certain was begging an ER nurse that she didn't want to die."
"She's quite alive and well today."
Hot-Refrigerator6583
Well let's all be happy to be alive.
It seems to be all we have.
Trying to lose weight is a struggle understood by many people regardless of size.
The goal of reaching a healthy weight may seem unattainable, but with diet and exercise, it can pay off through persistence and discipline.
Seeing the pounds gradually drop off can also be a great motivator and incentivize people to stay the course.
Those who've achieved their respective weight goals shared their experiences when Redditor apprenti8455 asked:
"People who lost a lot of weight, what surprises you the most now?"
Redditors didn't see these coming.
Shiver Me Timbers
"I’m always cold now!"
– Telrom_1
"I had a coworker lose over 130 pounds five or six years ago. I’ve never seen him without a jacket on since."
– r7ndom
"140 lbs lost here starting just before COVID, I feel like that little old lady that's always cold, damn this top comment was on point lmao."
– mr_remy
Drawing Concern
"I lost 100 pounds over a year and a half but since I’m old(70’s) it seems few people comment on it because (I think) they think I’m wasting away from some terminal illness."
– dee-fondy
"Congrats on the weight loss! It’s honestly a real accomplishment 🙂"
"Working in oncology, I can never comment on someone’s weight loss unless I specifically know it was on purpose, regardless of their age. I think it kind of ruffles feathers at times, but like I don’t want to congratulate someone for having cancer or something. It’s a weird place to be in."
– LizardofDeath
Unleashing Insults
"I remember when I lost the first big chunk of weight (around 50 lbs) it was like it gave some people license to talk sh*t about the 'old' me. Old coworkers, friends, made a lot of not just negative, but harsh comments about what I used to look like. One person I met after the big loss saw a picture of me prior and said, 'Wow, we wouldn’t even be friends!'”
"It wasn’t extremely common, but I was a little alarmed by some of the attention. My weight has been up and down since then, but every time I gain a little it gets me a little down thinking about those things people said."
– alanamablamaspama
Not Everything Goes After Losing Weight
"The loose skin is a bit unexpected."
– KeltarCentauri
"I haven’t experienced it myself, but surgery to remove skin takes a long time to recover. Longer than bariatric surgery and usually isn’t covered by insurance unless you have both."
– KatMagic1977
"It definitely does take a long time to recover. My Dad dropped a little over 200 pounds a few years back and decided to go through with skin removal surgery to deal with the excess. His procedure was extensive, as in he had skin taken from just about every part of his body excluding his head, and he went through hell for weeks in recovery, and he was bedridden for a lot of it."
– Jaew96
These Redditors shared their pleasantly surprising experiences.
Shopping
"I can buy clothes in any store I want."
– WaySavvyD
"When I lost weight I was dying to go find cute, smaller clothes and I really struggled. As someone who had always been restricted to one or two stores that catered to plus-sized clothing, a full mall of shops with items in my size was daunting. Too many options and not enough knowledge of brands that were good vs cheap. I usually went home pretty frustrated."
– ganache98012
No More Symptoms
"Lost about 80 pounds in the past year and a half, biggest thing that I’ve noticed that I haven’t seen mentioned on here yet is my acid reflux and heartburn are basically gone. I used to be popping tums every couple hours and now they just sit in the medicine cabinet collecting dust."
– colleennicole93
Expanding Capabilities
"I'm all for not judging people by their appearance and I recognise that there are unhealthy, unachievable beauty standards, but one thing that is undeniable is that I can just do stuff now. Just stamina and flexibility alone are worth it, appearance is tertiary at best."
– Ramblonius
People Change Their Tune
"How much nicer people are to you."
"My feet weren't 'wide' they were 'fat.'"
– LiZZygsu
"Have to agree. Lost 220 lbs, people make eye contact and hold open doors and stuff"
"And on the foot thing, I also lost a full shoe size numerically and also wear regular width now 😅"
– awholedamngarden
It's gonna take some getting used to.
Bones Everywhere
"Having bones. Collarbones, wrist bones, knee bones, hip bones, ribs. I have so many bones sticking out everywhere and it’s weird as hell."
– Princess-Pancake-97
"I noticed the shadow of my ribs the other day and it threw me, there’s a whole skeleton in here."
– bekastrange
Knee Pillow
"Right?! And they’re so … pointy! Now I get why people sleep with pillows between their legs - the knee bones laying on top of each other (side sleeper here) is weird and jarring."
– snic2030
"I lost only 40 pounds within the last year or so. I’m struggling to relate to most of these comments as I feel like I just 'slimmed down' rather than dropped a ton. But wow, the pillow between the knees at night. YES! I can relate to this. I think a lot of my weight was in my thighs. I never needed to do this up until recently."
– Strongbad23
More Mobility
"I’ve lost 100 lbs since 2020. It’s a collection of little things that surprise me. For at least 10 years I couldn’t put on socks, or tie my shoes. I couldn’t bend over and pick something up. I couldn’t climb a ladder to fix something. Simple things like that I can do now that fascinate me."
"Edit: Some additional little things are sitting in a chair with arms, sitting in a booth in a restaurant, being able to shop in a normal store AND not needing to buy the biggest size there, being able to easily wipe my butt, and looking down and being able to see my penis."
– dma1965
People making significant changes, whether for mental or physical health, can surely find a newfound perspective on life.
But they can also discover different issues they never saw coming.
That being said, overcoming any challenge in life is laudable, especially if it leads to gaining confidence and ditching insecurities.