Ever seen the movie The Butterfly Effect? The movie depicts the so-called butterfly effect—a hypothetical situation where small initial differences can lead to huge unforeseen consequences over time. It originated from the metaphorical example by Edward Lorenz, where a tornado is influenced by minor perturbations of a distant butterfly flapping its wings some time earlier. Needless to say, it's an intriguing idea that has further inspired many artists, writers, and directors alike.
Recently, one thread on Reddit that investigates the butterfly effect went viral. After one user asked fellow Redditors "What's the craziest butterfly effect that happened to you because of a small decision you made?", hundreds of replies flew in instantly. With almost 70k likes, the thread blew up, and we feel obliged to share some of the most interesting answers from the thread. Scroll down below to read them, vote for the ones that you found the most interesting, and share your answer in the comment section!
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My parents dream was to have a "famous child". When my older sister's figure skating career ended in her early twenties, the spotlight shifted to me. I was a fine oboist, and took private voice lessons with intent to audition for the local music faculty (opera?). In any case, there was a lot of pressure, and while I was successful at school and classical music, it was never enough.
At 17, before senior year began, my sister gifted me a kitten. My parents had given her 2 in her senior year and the implication was that it was my turn. When my sister dropped me off, my parents locked me out, saying that if i wanted my own pet I needed my own place. So I found one - that night. I worked 3 jobs to support myself through senior year and graduated with entrance scholarships to both of the local universities.
I couldnt afford a music degree while living on my own, even with the entrance scholarships. And good thing. Entering the work force showed me how much I love active jobs. 3 years later, I enrolled in college and became an industrial mechanic/millwright, to my parents great shame.
After a few years of this I landed a sweet contract where I work on Saturdays and Sundays but receive a full week's pay. Although I am a living beacon of disappointment, I comfort myself with my 100k a year job, 2 day workweek, and 2 cats.
Being kicked out over a kitten saved me from wasting years chasing an improbable career just to please my parents.
When I was in 8th grade (13 years old) I had a really long bus ride home so would pass the time by reading. One day I faced the very serious situation of nothing to read and a minute to grab something in the library, and for whatever reason I grabbed a book on astronomy. That book was amazing and grabbed me like nothing else had before. I remember being excited to realize every astronomer on Earth was 13 years old once too, and that was a career you could actually do, even if you were from Pittsburgh.
Anyway, today I am a professional astronomer who studies gigantic space explosions for a living. There was a lot of work to get from that moment to this one, but I’m always grateful that I picked up that library book!
That's REALLY cool. But is it just me? Are there really no comments? HELLO???
I had to call my heart surgeon to give him my new insurance #s (I had only just gotten them because the person who had them had the flu and was not getting back to me) as soon as I got my numbers, I called surgeon - the receptionist said, "oh, hey, we just had a cancelation for this Friday, do you want it?" Of course I wanted to get it over and not wait another month. decided to take the open heart surgery cancelation appointment (a month before my actual appointment), and well, surgeon said that thank goodness I did because once he got a look inside, he realized I would not have survived to the original appointment date.
So, if the insurance lady didn't have the flu, I would have gotten those numbers a lot sooner, and never gotten the offer to have the surgery when I did.
Someone else's flu saved my life.
So a few years back, I lived in Nice (South of France) for a while. As a musician I would make a bit of extra cash busking, and one day, I figured I'd go and busk at the promenade 'd'anglais by the sea. It's usually packed, and it just a generally pleasant place to be. I set up, played a couple of songs and was doing pretty well and making a decent amount of money. Then suddenly not one, but two of my guitar strings snapped (I even remember I was playing 'The Scientist' at the time).
I was massively gutted and decided to cut my losses early. I stormed off home (by the station) in a bit of a sulk at having to re-string my guitar and cutting short what was essentially one of my most productive days of busking since moving there. Literally one hour later, my phone starts to blow the [hell] up with family and friends freaking out and asking if I was at the promenade.
It was Bastille Day, 2016. The truck drove into the same crowd I was playing to, killing 86 people, including my at-the-time gf's uncle. I had two other friends who were amongst the 458 injured. I moved home the next month because it was too much, and haven't been back since.
It's hard to explain, sometimes I think I was super lucky, sometimes I just kind of cry and wonder why I was lucky and others weren't. It's surreal, and despite what people think... it's a truly horrible feeling.
4 years ago a kid I barely knew from school invited me to a six flags. I was a bit of a loner at the time and I heard rumors about this kid being weird, so I intended to not go.
On the day he wanted me to go, I was feeling extra bored and decided on a whim “why not?”. So I went and met this kid and two of his friends I’ve never met at a six flags.
4 years later and that kid is my best friend, and I have 3 other very close friends I met through him. Not only that, but I also met my first girlfriend because of the connections some of my new friends had. It transformed my high school years from being alone to having an amazing group of friends I could do almost anything with.
I intended to ask my best friend to be my best man one day, and I don’t intend on ever getting out of touch with any of them. I’m home from college now, and we are going to have a lot of fun together. Best decision I’ve ever made.
Watched ‘who wants to be a millionaire’ and got so annoyed at the candidates not knowing a simple question about Katy Perry, that I applied. Got in. Got to play. Won a lot of money. Booked a holiday to a dream destination with that money. Met my husband there. We now have a 1 year old son :)
I procrastinated one day in high school by watching a foreign musical on youtube. I ended up trying to learn the lyrics and eventually the language. That led me to discovering the field of linguistics, which I'm now majoring in. I don't know what I'd be doing now had I actually started doing my homework that day instead.
Made a last minute decision to go to a friend's divorce party and met my wife.
wait you married his ex or you've met a different person there and git married.
In Afghanistan, wasnt done with my coffee, so I passed on a trip from one base to another (there was another convoy a few hours later). Most everyone died who took the 1st convoy. My 2nd cup of coffee wasnt even cold when I found out.
My existence.
When my dad was about 20, he needed a phone number so he called the operator from a pay phone, she gave him the number, he hung up, and she accidentally refunded the money back to the pay phone. She called the pay phone back and asked him if he could put the money back in, which he did and hung up again. She accidentally refunded the money again and had to call back again to ask him to put the money back in; he did and hung up again. She was so flustered, she refunded the money again and called back again and my father got to chatting with her and got her number. They set up a date (which she stood him up for), then she forgot his name when he called her again, then they actually got coffee and four years later were married. This coming August it'll be 50 years for them.
If my dad didn't need that phone number, I wouldn't be here.
Similar-ish story- my dad's cat that his ex girlfriend had dumped on him after she broke up with him needed some cat litter, and on the cat litter aisle, he ran into an old college friend- my mom. You can probably guess the rest, but long story short, here I am :)
I was always super flirty with the girl from HR, but we were always seeing other people / don't date at work so when she left the company I was bummed. A year or two later a coworker asked me to search my email archives (that was a thing back then) for something he needed. I ended up stumbling across the "farewell to my work-friends" email from HR girl and she sent it from her personal email address. I reached out to her, we had coffee, then a date, then many dates, then I love yous and I put a ring on it ASAP.
12 years later, extremely happily married, 2 goofy kids, 2 evil cats, and she still puts up with my [crap].
I had to renew the sticker on my license plate a couple of years ago and really didn't feel like sitting in the waiting room by myself forever so I told my mom I'd take her out to dinner after if she came with me.. The guy working at the counter turned out to be my moms long lost biological brother. If she hadn't come with me I would have never known
I was walking to school and got distracted by a hedgehog that ran in a bush next to me then a big ass tree branch fell infront of me, would've crushed me if I didn't get distracted by a spikey little mouse scurrying in the bushes. I gave him a dead cricket the next day, he took it and ran off. God speed spikey mouse.
The other day I was driving home from work, traffic was light and I was behind a car with a numberplate that started "KFD". Decided to duck through KFC drive thru for chippies with extra salt as a little treat to myself.
They took forever to bring them out and by the time they finally did (all told about 10 minutes later), traffic has slowed to a complete halt.
I need to get over a bridge that's normally six lanes which has now been reduced to one. Turns out it's due to a massive collision involving several cars. When I finally get to the point where I'm driving past, I notice the numberplate on one of the cars, that same KFD numberplate.
If I hadn't stopped to get hot chips I'm fairly sure I'd have been in a major collision.
The first day I ever signed up for internet back in 1999, I installed mIRC (because it was on the starter disk my ISP gave me) and joined a random chat room. Over the course of the next year the “regulars” in that room became like family to me. We would talk about everything. All that practice made me a fast typist and WAY better communicator than I was before that. They would even help me when I had trouble understanding something in my college classes. I also met my husband in that room, and we’ve been happily married for 18 years. Others from our little IRC family are married, too, and we still keep in touch. All because I randomly chose THAT chat room that day.
At a university career fair and just has a long day taking to companies and heading out when I see a Honda booth. Designing cars would be awesome but there is a huge line, it has been a long day, and what are the chances? But wait! They are giving away hats and shirts and model cars! So I talk to them. A day later I get a callback for an online assessment. I fill that out and don’t hear anything back for a month or so, the I get a call one night saying I was an alternate and someone cancelled last minute so they want to fly me up for on-site interviews. I go and end up getting and accepting an offer. After graduation I move about 1000 miles away from home for my new job where a few years after I meet my now wife and we have 2 kids. I never would have crossed paths with her otherwise. So the entire course of my life was shifted because Honda gave away good swag at their career fair booth.
About 10 years ago, There were no pc games to play so I tried using windows XP's movie maker out of boredom. I didn't know that I'm going to enjoy it and take it seriously.
Now, I'm currently working on a tv/film production as a video editor.
My desire for pizza set off a chain reaction that destroyed my family.
One day got home from school and really wanted pizza. family was poor so spontaneous food trips weren't always in the cards. Really worked my pouty face to my mom and begged to go to the local pizza place for dinner. She said alright. While chilling there I saw my uncle walk by, and I was like "da [hell], uncle X is that you?". Now you might say well he wanted pizza what's the big deal? well he lived several states away so to arbitrarily be in town and not tell anyone was strange.
Turned out he was having an affair with his sister in law my aunt on the other side of the family. She was basically a money-grubbing [witch] and the family protested. One thing led to another and everyone hates each other now and we haven't had contact in like 20 years.
I just wanted some pizza :(
I'm alive because my aunt was born.
My grandfather was conscripted into the Romanian army as a medic, and his unit was one of the many acting as a defensive barrier, covering the Nazi supply lines to Stalingrad. She was born, and he was called back to Bucharest from the front. While he was on leave, the Russians launched Operation Uranus, which decimated the axis forces. He recieved word that his unit had been completely destroyed. He was never reassigned, and in 1948, my mother was born.
I'm also alive because a bunch of Romanian cows got sick. My other grandfather was a pharmacist, back when that meant actually making medicines, he was also a Jew. The town he lived in was largely agrarian, and their cow herds came down with some illness that was killing them. He whipped something up that cured them. The townspeople were very grateful to him. So grateful that when the chief of police heard that the Nazis were coming to town to take inventory of who lived there, he came to my grandfather's house with some train tickets for him and his wife. They escaped the Nazis, and never got caught. My father was born at the end of 1945.
I guess this is the opposite of the butterfly effect, really. Rather than one small action blowing up into a much more important chain of events, two hugely improbable events are eventually lead to my birth(and obviously my extended family as well)... and now, I run ads on the internet.
No comment, theres something i wanna say about this but i cant get the right words for it... just thats really cool and then the ads line, it seems funny to me but also i dont wanna be rude... oh well im probably over-thinking this anyways
I have one for another person.
In 2014, I was coaching my twins' (M/F) rec flag football team. My oldest player has a younger sister who came to watch a practice - we will call her Grace. She saw my daughter on the team, told her dad "There's a girl on that team!" and the next week, she was on my roster. Her and my daughter became fast friends. While the flag football season was wrapping up, I was putting together my roster for the upcoming rec volleyball team. At the end of one of my practices, my daughter invited Grace to play on the volleyball team together. Grace had played the previous season and not cared for it too much. Grace agreed and played from rec to club then to high school with my daughter. My daughter (graduated last year) and I watched Grace, as captain, lead her team to a state championship and she has a D-1 scholarship for volleyball next fall.
My wife got an email from her old colleagues the day we returned home from our honeymoon, asking if she wanted to star in a short film they were doing for fun. She said sure, and asked if I could come along, as she knew I had an interest in movies, but at the time I worked in life insurance and was miserable.
It was more than an interest- I had always wanted to make films, but never made the right connections with people and didn’t know where to start.
I made friends with the producer of that short film my wife was in, and 11 years later filmmaking and video production is my career. I’ve shot feature films, short films, video for tv and web, and all over the world because of that one email to my wife. Changed our lives!
Oh, and that original short film never got finished lol
My dad and grandfather were in a movie together, but only as background characters... In a part where the background was blurred.
High school, I didnt get into the AP history class wanted. Changed up my schedule, including a different gym class, without everyone I knew. I was heartbroken. I really wanted to teach, and without an AP class senior year, I was screwed.
Made a new friend in gym class, who was wearing a volunteer firefighter shirt. He had just joined. Seemed interesting, and he invited me to check it out.
They paid for me to get my EMT. Fell in love with healthcare.
Fast forward quite a while, and I'm an ER Nurse and 'precept' students and new nurses, teaching them how to survive in the ER. I also do public outreach and injury prevention. And I love it. Glad I missed out on my class.
Pregnant cousin usually takes the bus at around 5:10pm after work. She was about to hop inside the bus but she needed to pee really badly and the commute is about an hour long so she decided to go to the restroom instead and just catch the next bus. That 5:10 bus ended up falling from a cliff.
My husband- He found out after 18 years that his moms side of the family was Spanish, not Mexican. He found this interesting and changed his country to “Spain” on MySpace instead the US where he really was. Meanwhile in Australia, I was helping my friend find Spanish people to add as a friend as she was learning the language. I came across my now husband and decided to send him a friend request as well. We got along really well and met in person after 3 years. Have been together 11 years, married for 7. If he didn’t change his country to Spain (and only for a day or so) we’d never know each other existed.
Just going to comment on something good because of the negative comments below: It's really cool that you guys got married later because of that tiny change
The older I get, the more I am constantly cognizant of the vast cascade of seemingly insignificant decisions and actions that led me to where I am. For example, a decision 25 years ago to change a refrigerator light bulb before going out resulted in my being at the "wrong" time and place so as to get mugged, which resulted in my decision to move out of the city I had been living in, which resulted in my meeting my wife, and from there to having all my kids and the whole shebang. I would have had a different whole shebang had I not changed that lightbulb that afternoon, but the path to the present leads through that (and a thousand other) similarly trivial decisions...
I chose to rearrange the sequence of classes slightly before starting my education. By doing this, I had to commute to a different branch of the school in a different town than the one I was originally signed up for. On my first day there, I helped a girl who had managed to break both of her arms in a drunken shopping cart accident, I learned later. This girl, whom I would absolutely never have met had I not changed my classes around, is my wife through 14 years.
Was going to carpool with my aunt to a family gathering. At the last minute I decided to go by myself so I could leave early if I wanted. It was a ways out of town and I didn’t want to be stuck there. On the way there she drove off the road into a ditch. She was ok but the passenger side of her car was totally smashed in.
2 years ago I was in a hospital for a week due to acne and was extremely bored (the Wi-Fi was slow), so I asked my mom to bring me a sketchbook and pencils so I could draw.
I am now starting a career as an artist/animator.
At the end of 6th grade, my class took a field trip on a whale watch. That night, I saw a commercial for a documentary TV series on whales. Ever since that day, I wanted to grow up and protect whales from being hunted. Today I work in the military specializing in Marine Preservation.
I was given two start dates for an entry level job in a large organisation.
The date I choose to start led to working in a small but high profile team so I got lots of exposure with senior management and I became the can-do-guy who'd fix a million tiny problems. That recognition led to promotions, a fantastic career, further professional qualifications and working overseas for several years. I also met my best friend and my partner.
If I'd chosen the other date I'd have been sent to a data processing pool and been fairly anonymous.
Cool that you got a fantastic career. Your life has been very good to you
I was going out to grab pizza and a case of beer for me and my roommate but he texted me that he had a stomach thing so I walked to a restaurant and ordered dinner at the bar and met a girl there and now we are married and have two kids because my roommate had diarrhea
At 15 I decided to stay home to play a soccer match rather than go babysit for my aunt and uncle. As a result my uncle went out alone, took a shortcut home, fell in to a river and drowned.
I sent a friend from secondary school (who I had a huge crush on) a message saying happy birthday a couple years after we left school. Did the whole 'we'll have to catch up soon!' thing, not expecting much. He replied with 'how about Monday?'. I saw him that Monday for a coffee. Next month will be our 6th anniversary. Best thing that ever happened to me.
My friends joke I'm 'queen of escaping the friendzone'.
In high school I read House of Leaves and one day was trying to explain the concept of the book to a friend. My drama teacher overheard, said it sounded a bit like Pale Fire by Vladimir Nobakov. On his recommendation I read that book which sparked an interest in Russian literature, then I branched out from there, always seeking out new reading opportunities. My quest to find more reading led me to major in English and become a teacher myself. Being a teacher at a Title I school has had a huge impact on my political philosophy as well.
So basically I am who I am today because my drama teacher suggested a book to me.
The wife and I were having dinner in Hawaii one night on vacation. As we were getting up to leave, I noticed she hadn’t finished her beer. I told her she should finish the beer since we paid some ridiculous price for it. Fast forward 30 seconds and we leave the restaurant and are walking the 3 blocks back to the hotel. About 50 feet in front of us as we’re walking (were walking down the sidewalk on the left side of the road), a car comes flying out of a side street from the right and crosses through the street, hops the sidewalk in front of us, and smashes into a wall. If she didn’t finish her beer, we would have been smoked by the car and most likely squished between the car and the wall. We always finish our beer now.
Received an incredibly high paying job offer to run our biggest competitor’s team. Told my boss, even though I loved my job, but it was more than double what I was making.
Boss agreed to a reasonable raise, still not near the offer. I decided to stay because I genuinely loved my team/coworkers, and the money wasn’t enough to leave that happy place. In exchange, I had to take up another account that meant a business trip I didn’t have in the plans.
Went on that trip and met my future husband. Couple of years later, we went on our honeymoon at a new resort in St. Lucia. Ran into someone I knew from home/work. Turns out, the team that I’d been given the job offer for had made so much money that they had booked the same resort to celebrate.
I sat there and went WOW. Life is nuts! Would’ve ended up there, either way.
Out of university, looking for a job and exhausting all the online resources. On a whim, I looked in the career section in a print newspaper that was lying around in the house. (We never subscribed to that paper, I dont know why it was even there).
Got the job in a different city, met someone who is now one of my best friends, who introduced me to their friends, who introduced me to their friends and so on, until I was eventually introduced to my wife. If I'd found a job where I actually planned on working, there is absolutely no way I would have crossed paths with any of these people.
I made a dumb Facebook post because I was bored ("like for a tbh.") A girl liked the post and I sent her a message. 8 years later, we are now married.
I was parking my car on the street and was about to shut it off but I noticed my car got pretty dirty last time I parked under that tree, usually I don't care but I drove forward another space. The next day I came outside and my car's rear suspension was damaged and tires were bent. Someone had smashed into it and took 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.
Responded to a cute girl's message on okcupid while I was in my senior year of college. We hit it off but then finals started and I didn't have the time and brainspace to message her for a couple of weeks so she thought I ghosted her. Finally am able to get back online and thankfully she's still there, so we picked right back up where we left off. We have a LDR for a little while then a full time job opens up where she works, which is my dream field. I apply, get the job, and move in with her. Job pays for me to get my Masters degree in the field, accomplishing another lifelong dream of mine. Now we're still together 10 years, a house, and 2.5 pets later.
EDIT: I said 2.5 pets because we have two dogs (boxer and pug) and a cat, not that the cat is lesser in my eyes, in fact she’s probably my favorite of the three. She’s simply smaller, though she takes no [crap] when our boxer tries to play with her.
Also, I’m a lesbian and ok cupid was THE place to meet other lesbians when I was in college, especially since it was a small Southern town.
there was this rainy day that flooded a small piece on the street on the way to my now ex gf house. she had to stay over the night.
now I'm someones father.
The fact that you think that that was okay to post shows how responsible you are. Wow.
Got arrested for growing weed, moved back home. Got first job I could at Ikea. After working there for over a year, randomly decided to check Craigslist for jobs and saw an opening at a cafe and they were hiring right then, so instinctively went for it.
The cafe was connected and owned by one of the most popular brewpubs/beer gardens in the area. They hired me to host there, quickly worked my way up the ranks to eventually bar manager. Met girl of my dreams, we are now married with 2 amazing kids. Opened two more restaurants with them and currently assistant director of operations, overseeing three restaurants @ 3, 5, and 8 million a year in sales!
Love my job, love my family, love my life. No idea what I'd be doing if I never got arrested, or never applied for the cafe job.
Almost everything that has happened in my life for the past eight years is a direct result of me literally flipping a coin to decide between two colleges. I play the sport I do, have the friends I do, am dating the person I am, and very nearly every other aspect of my life, is because a nickel landed on heads.
I sent a message to a girl in high school just asking if she was alright, which led to dating her for almost 3 years, during which time she convinced me to try the drama club she went to, which convinced me to take drama class the following year, which made me take it the next year, where I met my next girlfriend, who introduced me to the friends I have today, and if I hadn't met them, I wouldn't still feel sick from drinking on Saturday night.
Moral of the story, never message a girl. You'll wake up 4 years later with a hangover
About a year ago, I went to a study group with some people in my major. Now i have the closest set of friend I could ever ask for. They helped me when my my car was broken and I couldn't get to and fro from college, when I didn't have enough money to buy myself food. Now, I have a good job, and two of my friends and I are getting an apartment together in a couple of months.
Decided to try weed in high school. Met a dude through weed connections, became roommates. Roommate talks me into trying World of Warcraft. Meet a girl through WoW. Years later date her. Year after that move states, and marry her. Got kids now. My children are a direct result of weed.
That's so cool and lucky! (people please do not take this as an example of why you should smoke weed)
Just wanted to try a cigarette when I was young. Now I'm barely surviving without it.
Been there and I know how hard it is. But quitting IS possible, it just takes a lot of trying and failing over and over again, Keep trying. And there's a good free app for tracking your progress-shows amount of money saved, cigs not smoked, tar not accumulated, etc. Helped me a lot. Good luck comrade! you got this!
Nearly every single friend I have in college is because one day in my gen-ed health class we had to pick a seat that would become our seat for the semester. When I came in there weren’t many seats left, and the people I sat next to ended up becoming my best friends and introduced me to all of my other friends in one way or another.
Not really a small decision, but a few years back I had the opportunity to do a research internship at a university in Liverpool, decided not to do it and a few months later I got an internship in Chicago. My supervisor/mentor there was the best I’d ever worked with and she now got me into a PhD program where I’ll be working with her again :)
Years ago I picked up a hitchhiker who turned out to be a pretty philosophical kind of guy. One thing he said that resonated with me was "why would somebody want to do the same thing every day?". 15 years later I still think about that guy every day as I'm commuting to the office again.
5 years ago my father burned our house down in an attempt to murder my mother (and myself by proxy). His attempt obviously failed. One of the firemen who helped us out of the house told me that my father had told the firefighters that nobody else was in the house when they came to the door. Two days later I told my mother what that firefighter had told me, and we realized what dad had been trying to do. Mental health professionals took him from the hotel room later the next day, and found a gun on him. If that firefighter hadn't said anything, neither my mother nor I would be here today.
It's stories like these that make the trite interview question "Where do you see yourself in 5 years?" so obnoxiously meaningless. If anyone could actually *see* where they'd be in 5 years, they would dismiss it as badly-written fantasy.
Reminds me of how everyone got the 5 years question wrong in 2015
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It seems like Bored Panda spends a lot of time on Buzzfeed. Buzzfeed posted this article last week and had the same entries. Not criticizing at all, love both sites, I just never noticed this before!
I have one. Back in 1996 I hated being in my dorm, I had really Biotches for dormmates so would often spend my nights at the computer lab where after I finished my assignments I would get on telnet chats. I had one particular one I loved getting on called The Castle and was on there for a couple of hours. Was getting ready to go back to my dorm when something told me to check out Street Dreams another one I got on occasionally. Well I was chatting with one of the people I knew on there when a newbie logged in by the name Dancemaster. I got a private message saying "I like your profile" Talked to him for a couple of hours that night. Now we are 24 years later Married for 21 years with a 12 year old and are still friends with another couple who met on the same chat. If it hadn't been for the chat we never would have met. He was in Michigan I was in NY and there is 10 years difference in our ages.
Mine's not really a butterfly effect so much as a crazy coincidence that means I'm actually here. I have relatives on my dad's side that have served in the Revolutionary War, The War of 1812, the Civil War(Union) World War 1, World War 2, and the Cold war. If any of these relatives had died in battle I would not be alive, but I'm here. Six people had to survive battle for the chance that I could end up on this planet, which is pretty darn cool.
On the day I adopted my dog, I had two options - Pets In Need or Humane Society. The dog at Humane Society seemed perfect and I would have adopted him, but as a last minute decision I decided to go to Pets In Need. There I found my baby boy Nimbus (who’s my profile picture) and it’s been 2 years of love ❤️
True story. My cuz (who is gay) and his BF went to Florida to finally meet his BF's mom. Later that evening, they met some other gays at a pizza joint and told them about a club called Pulse. My cuz thought that it sounded cool, and they pooled their money together to get a cab. On the way there, my cuz started to get a headache and his heart was pounding super fast. His BF and their new friends made the cabby pull over, and when he didn't feel any better his BF told him that they would get a cab and just go back to his house. They got back and his headache slowly got better and later on they went to bed. Next morning on the 13th of June, they both heard about the shooting. Luck? Or Fate?
The butterfly effect did NOT start with a movie. It started with the short story, "A Sound of Thunder."
http://www.astro.sunysb.edu/fwalter/AST389/ASoundofThunder.pdf
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My grandparent moved over from ireland, and the guy that replaced my granddads position in his group was murdered, a couple of months after they left. I asked my dad if he thinks he would have been different had he stayed living in Ireland would he be different: he was very honest he said yes absolutely, he would have been suckered into the angry movements happening at the time, it would probably have altered his whole character, let alone the fact my sis and I wouldnt be born. Extra note: my mum's dad and my dad's dad were on the same Antarctic expedition when my parents were both under ten years old. Life is random
Some of those were astounding but the vast majority were "I met a girl on a website and married her". Wow, the chances of that happing must be all the way into double figures to 1 chances.
5 years ago my father burned our house down in an attempt to murder my mother (and myself by proxy). His attempt obviously failed. One of the firemen who helped us out of the house told me that my father had told the firefighters that nobody else was in the house when they came to the door. Two days later I told my mother what that firefighter had told me, and we realized what dad had been trying to do. Mental health professionals took him from the hotel room later the next day, and found a gun on him. If that firefighter hadn't said anything, neither my mother nor I would be here today.
It's stories like these that make the trite interview question "Where do you see yourself in 5 years?" so obnoxiously meaningless. If anyone could actually *see* where they'd be in 5 years, they would dismiss it as badly-written fantasy.
Reminds me of how everyone got the 5 years question wrong in 2015
Load More Replies... It seems like Bored Panda spends a lot of time on Buzzfeed. Buzzfeed posted this article last week and had the same entries. Not criticizing at all, love both sites, I just never noticed this before!
I have one. Back in 1996 I hated being in my dorm, I had really Biotches for dormmates so would often spend my nights at the computer lab where after I finished my assignments I would get on telnet chats. I had one particular one I loved getting on called The Castle and was on there for a couple of hours. Was getting ready to go back to my dorm when something told me to check out Street Dreams another one I got on occasionally. Well I was chatting with one of the people I knew on there when a newbie logged in by the name Dancemaster. I got a private message saying "I like your profile" Talked to him for a couple of hours that night. Now we are 24 years later Married for 21 years with a 12 year old and are still friends with another couple who met on the same chat. If it hadn't been for the chat we never would have met. He was in Michigan I was in NY and there is 10 years difference in our ages.
Mine's not really a butterfly effect so much as a crazy coincidence that means I'm actually here. I have relatives on my dad's side that have served in the Revolutionary War, The War of 1812, the Civil War(Union) World War 1, World War 2, and the Cold war. If any of these relatives had died in battle I would not be alive, but I'm here. Six people had to survive battle for the chance that I could end up on this planet, which is pretty darn cool.
On the day I adopted my dog, I had two options - Pets In Need or Humane Society. The dog at Humane Society seemed perfect and I would have adopted him, but as a last minute decision I decided to go to Pets In Need. There I found my baby boy Nimbus (who’s my profile picture) and it’s been 2 years of love ❤️
True story. My cuz (who is gay) and his BF went to Florida to finally meet his BF's mom. Later that evening, they met some other gays at a pizza joint and told them about a club called Pulse. My cuz thought that it sounded cool, and they pooled their money together to get a cab. On the way there, my cuz started to get a headache and his heart was pounding super fast. His BF and their new friends made the cabby pull over, and when he didn't feel any better his BF told him that they would get a cab and just go back to his house. They got back and his headache slowly got better and later on they went to bed. Next morning on the 13th of June, they both heard about the shooting. Luck? Or Fate?
The butterfly effect did NOT start with a movie. It started with the short story, "A Sound of Thunder."
http://www.astro.sunysb.edu/fwalter/AST389/ASoundofThunder.pdf
Load More Replies... My grandparent moved over from ireland, and the guy that replaced my granddads position in his group was murdered, a couple of months after they left. I asked my dad if he thinks he would have been different had he stayed living in Ireland would he be different: he was very honest he said yes absolutely, he would have been suckered into the angry movements happening at the time, it would probably have altered his whole character, let alone the fact my sis and I wouldnt be born. Extra note: my mum's dad and my dad's dad were on the same Antarctic expedition when my parents were both under ten years old. Life is random
Some of those were astounding but the vast majority were "I met a girl on a website and married her". Wow, the chances of that happing must be all the way into double figures to 1 chances.
