What was the changing point in your life?

[dats82]

If I had to pick one experience in my life that has formed who I am and what makes me tick now, it would have to be when I was 8 yrs old, and my father lost his job. Even though I was young, I was still perceptive enough to understand that my family was struggling. I started doing any type of labor job for which people would pay. I raked leaves, mowed yards, washed cars, etc. This time was hard, but I would not trade the lessons I learned for all the riches in the world.

From the time I was 8, I have always worked and had some type of job. Given my current school situation, a job is not really feasible at the moment. However, I still hold firm to the adage that anything worth having is worth working for. I have gotten to where I am in life by working hard and not giving up.

On the other hand, I cannot say there is a defining point where I decided what I wanted as a career. I have always been interested in science, though I do not know why. My family is full of engineers of various capacities, but I decided to go toward life sciences. Life has always been more intriguing to me than some type of machine, and I can honestly say after experiencing gross anatomy of both humans and animals, it is my firm opinion that we are all marvels of engineering devised by a supreme being.

[Timestepper]

First, my dad was and is my biggest influence and, even though he passed away in April of '01, I continue to try to live my life in such a way as to be the kind of man he would have been proud to call "friend."

As to changing points in my life, there have been several. One came when I realized that I wasn't good (read passionate) enough at riding bareback broncs to make a living at it. After that, I had to do it for fun and that made me a better rider. And also a better person.

Another came when I realized in my twenties that I was neither immortal nor invincible and that sometimes all it takes to get dead is a momentary lapse in concentration, and it doesn't matter if it's yours or someone else's.

Yet another came when I began my current " professional career" as a long-haul truck driver; When I was growing up, Denver, Colorado was 400 miles away and might as well have been on the dark side of the moon. When I started driving truck, I learned that 400 miles equates to considerably less than one day's drive. It made my world smaller and my dreams bigger. Now, after more than 2 1/2 million miles my dreams are still intact and exceeded in size only by the ongoing love affair I have with America.

The summer I took a hiatus from trucking and spent making a living as a docent portraying a Civilian Army Scout during the Western Indian wars was also life changing; it helped me to realize what an amazing man my great grandfather (who WAS a Civilian Army Scout during that time) must have been. Indeed, it gave me a new appreciation for ALL of the people who left everything they knew behind to "head West" in search of their dreams; They were the very foundation blocks upon which this amazing nation we live in was built.

Maybe not last, and certainly not least, came the point when I began to have articles and short stories published and I realized that I was living my father's dream of becoming a published author. Dad was a great writer and some of his poetry would stand with that of Robert W. Service, Wadsworth or perhaps even Poe, but I think he never quite found the right audience and so never had the success that his youngest son started realizing less than a year after he passed away. Everything I have written and will write has my father's hand in it because without his inspiration, advice and encouragement I would have written nothing.

I think those were changing points in my life. They feel like it. Each one was a crucial, if minor, step in molding the person I have become and without them I would not be the me that I am. I am sure that there have been others that I am simply too tired to elucidate and I am equally sure that there will be more to come. And all I can say is that while my joints may be stiffer in the mornings than they used to be, the rest of me is still malleable and awaiting the hand of the master potter.

OH, and one of the VERY BIGGEST life changing points came nearly 5 years ago when I tossed everything I'd ever known over my shoulder and moved from Western Kansas to East Tennessee (felt like I'd moved from Bedrock to Hooterville) and married the love of my life. (Shoulda' put this in last night, but like I said, I was exhausted.)

Edited December 30, 2011 by Timestepper

[MiddTennTaco]

My life changer was very recent.

A year or two ago, at the age of 20 with little life experience, I applied to and was hired by a major police department. Little did I know that I would be changed completely by this new career choice. I spent some 7 months (some 1300 hrs of training vs the 400 hrs TN standard) in the police academy working my ass off.

I felt like I was tried and tested probably more than any other recruit in the academy history. Not only was I the youngest recruit in my class (and the youngest employee of a US major city police department), but also the son of a former assistant chief of police. I honestly wished I had changed my last name and lied about my age on the first day of the academy.

Despite these things and AFTER seven months of learning law, use of force, paperwork, physical and mental training and hardening, learning how to REALLY drive, learning to shoot for the first time , tactics, hand to hand combat, being pepper sprayed, being tasered, and literal blood sweat and tears, I finally became a fully sworn police officer on the road.

However, during my probationary period and after a couple months on the road, I came to the conclusion that I wasn't ready for a career in law enforcement. I then proceeded to resign from my $55k/yr job to become a nice and poor Tennessean college student.

I plan on going back to law enforcement after I finish my Criminal Justice degree. Now, here I am living in Tennessee with my fiance' and studying at MTSU. I figure I'm plenty young.

To think I could have retired at the age of 45.

Edited December 30, 2011 by w0lfattack

[Guest colombianito1021]

I like this thread.

I think the most influential person in my life has been my dad. My mom and dad are both Colombian immigrants living in NYC. My dad is a taxi driver and since I can remember he use to say "it is better to live comfortable then to be rich by illegal means and always looking over your shoulder." Since I can remember I always stayed on the right side of the law and I attribute this to him.

Since little, I have always wanted to play soldier. So at the age of 17, after graduating High School with Honors, I enlisted in the US Army. I am pretty good at what I do, but after 6.5 years I have come to the conclusion that I needed more to life then to be just an infantry soldier for 20 years.

I have always procrastinated going to school while in the Army but about a year ago in Afghanistan I realized that I needed a diploma in order to feel better with myself. I have been going to APSU online and at nights and currently about 45% done with my BS in Criminal Justice. All of this has been payed for by the Army tuition assistance and my GI Bill is still 100% in tact to be used for my masters.

About 6 months ago I started applying to local PD's, Sheriffs and even federal agencies due to my ETS being early 2012. I am in the middle of all of them and am on the last step in becoming a FLEO with USBP.

A couple of days ago before christmas I received notification that I have been accepted to become a US Army CID Special Agent. I am now canceling all of my applications and staying in the Army to do something more with my life.

We will see how much I enjoy the life of a criminal investigator and hopefully I will do this for a long time.

So far, still on par to retire at 37

[UncleJak]

I think it is awesome how many dads influenced their sons. My dad turned out to be a loser. I think that motivates me to be a better dad to my two kids. Having kids should be a life changing experience for every man, but I have seen some who are unaffected. Sad...

[Worriedman]

Personally, I feel that Life is like all the TV channels in the world are on a box that someone else has the remote for. They get to pick what is playing, and we must adjust to what is on the screen when we wake up each day. So many outside influences that the individual can not control effect our lives. Sickness, of ourselves or those who depend on us can crop up and change the metric instantly. Market forces which drive our livelihoods can change and the best laid plans...

My father (and his father) affected me most in the way I approach existence, neither had an education past the 8th grade, and struggled mightily for the legal tender to take care of their families. They taught me that there is a vast difference in being educated and intelligent, of course both pushed me to get educated to the highest level that I could, as they did my siblings. (one is a DR., another a lawyer with a sprinkling of teachers and real estate agents), I chose to remain in the field that paid for all that, even though I got my BS in Education, (taught Chemistry and Physics for a few years, did not like being inside, and parents and kids are turds) I prefer to work in the construction field, at least there one can deal with a prick in front of other men. Being raised in the family concrete business, I learned to hustle in the summer and develope patience in the winter, and always get it correct the first time, or you tear it out and lose you hinney to make it so, as you only get paid if it is right.

They also taught me to do my best, so that at the end of the day, I suffer not from regret about what might have been, and, they taught me to treat others as I would like them to treat me, and to never steal and tell the truth.

With all that being said, I approach every venture like I am killing snakes, and as result, I sleep well at night, knowing I have done my best.

When I get up tomorrow, some one will have changed the channel, and I will have to deal with that new reality.

Edited January 2, 2012 by Worriedman

[willis68]

My Father,

He told me to find something that I like to do and do it to my best ability and that the money would follow. He sure was right!

[TN-popo]

The US Air Force.

Before that, I didn't really try to excel at anything but sports.

The USAF showed me that if I did well at something, I would be rewarded. They also showed me that if I didn't do well at something, I would also be "rewarded." I ended up making E-4 in 20 months...which is pretty good for the USAF.

My pre-military vs post-military college GPA is night and day different.

The military is what I needed at that point in my life.

[Guest Sgt. Joe]

I guess what started the biggest change in my life was arriving in this town in the state in which I was born but had left at 5 days old and had never lived. I was on my way from TX going to SC to work on the shrimp boats again. I got here with a car in desperate need of some repairs and had the goal of finding work for a few weeks or months to repair the car or buy another and continue on back to SC.

Something told me as I drove down one of the main roads here on the way to my first job interview that this was a special sort of town for me. I did not however really think that I would stay here. I got that job the second day that I was here and worked until the man got slow on work and laid off a few of us. When I took his job it was supposed to only be for a two week project that he was working on. When he asked me to stay on with him I told him that I would if he would promise to keep me busy through the winter. It is hard for construction folks to stay busy in the winter and I did not want to be stuck here in a cold climate for the winter.

Everything was fine working for him for several months until sure enough he ran slow on work and laid me off right before Thanksgiving of that year.

It was a good thing that I had saved some bucks because it took all of them to make it through that winter. By then my car was toast and I had been depending on the work truck that the man provided for me. I was just as I did not want to be stuck because I did not want to leave by way of thumb in the winter.

Once spring came upon us I was packed and ready to leave by thumb when a friend talked me into staying for one more weekend with him and a friend of his that I had also met but did not know very well. It was that weekend that I met another person and ended up working for his dad for several years. I rented a room with the friend that we had stayed the weekend with and that person ended up being my business partner for 7 years.

If I had not stayed that one more weekend and taken that job I would not have met my second wife. Meeting her and starting my second family at nearly 40 years of age is what changed my life the most. It is now nearly 20 years later, I am still here with a wife and three kids. My youngest boy is less than a year older than my oldest Gran-daughter from my first marriage.

I am one of those who believes that we as individuals do not have much choice in how things turn out for us in this life. Sure we can chose some things such as to be a good person or a thug and simple things such as whether to carry a weapon or not, but in the overall plan I dont think that we really get to make all the choices.

If one would have bet me 20 years ago that I would still be here I would have bet the farm against it, just like I would have bet against ever getting married again. Heck just a few years ago I would have bet the farm against the idea that I would be carrying a gun everyday. Things happen that we dont expect and we react to them.

As someone else said "Life is what happens while we are making other plans". I feel that our lives are just a series of reactions to things that happen to us. We can make all the plans that we like but chances are high that life will change them a bit for us.

As for influences... my Gran-dad, my father's dad, was the biggest in my life until I lost him when I was 12. When I was 13 I met a man that was 24 and a friend of one of my High School friends. "Sonny" ended up being a friend first but also a father and big brother figure to me and was by far the biggest influence on my life.

A TN boy no less, Sonny was born and raised in Morristown. Although I was always on the move we remained close until I lost him in 2007, we had been talking on the phone everyday or no less than every other day for years. He was fine on Saturday and left me a message to call him. On Sunday morning my phone rang and it was his number but rather than him on the other end it was his son telling me that he had gone in his sleep, he was but 61 but did have a lot of medical issues going on with him.

I wish that I could say that my own dad was a big influence on me but he simply wasnt. We did not get along for most of my life. I respect everything that he was and the way that he lived his life. We simply could not get along because he wanted so much for me to be just like him and could not understand why I wasnt. He even refused to attend my graduation from basic training or infantry school because I did not join the Air Force like he had. My dad spent 22 years in the AF and then another 20 with the Postal Service. He was rarely around and when he was he was way too tired to spend any time influencing me.

I did later in life start to understand why he was the way that he was but me as a little boy sure did not. I am very grateful that we did end up patching things up 5 or 6 years ago and had also been talking regular on the phone. He had moved to Bama and I was able to go and see him several times and even ended up working on a job or two with him which is something else that I would have bet would never happen. I was a Foreman for my BIL and my dad worked part-time for him as a carpenter, I was in effect his boss for a few months. I would have bet everyone's farm against that ever happening.

I talked to my dad on Apr. 15th of this year and planned to spend the week before Easter with him in Bama while I took a 2 day Gun class in Montgomery. As it turned out I got a call from my sister on the 16th that he too had passed away and we laid him to rest in FL beside my mom on Good Friday of this past year. 15 years to the date of her passing. Just like it had been with my Gran-dad and Sonny, he was here today and gone the next with no warning.

So keep making plans folks, sometimes life will let you complete them and if not we all can adapt and adjust pretty easily. But most of all make good choices with the things that you do get to make a choice in because the choices that we make can seldom can be changed once they are made. And whatever you do patch things up with whomever that may need to be done with in your life, there is no guarantee that you will have that chance tomorrow.

[I_Like_Pie]

I was in grade school and figured out that I could make sense of very complicated machines and mathematics. Was a very neat and tidy person even pre-teen

I wanted to be an engineer...kinda of. Figured out that I was very good at logistics, and accounting in high school. Went all the way in college and knew the whole time that all of the things that I have loved since childhood could be found if I weren't too picky.

Now I am the cost accountant at a fortune 500 company doing the cost allocations to the sum of $1.2 billion in annual dollars. Career wise I always knew what I would be good at.

Always wanted a patient wife...check

Always wanted a beautiful son...check (I knew what his name would be before I turned 12)

Everything else hasn't got me worried too much. All I know is that everything I have prayed for will all my heart has happened and I couldn't honestly ask for more.

[1pointofview]

I have had many events that change my direction or outlook but there has nothing that has fundamentally changed me. The scary thing about fundamental change is there is no guarantee the event is going to be good or bad so quite honestly I am not sure if I am egging for it to happen, not sure I am going to push my bad luck

[peejman]

Dad is a retired engineer and Mom is a retired math teacher. I figure I was doomed to be an engineer. Growing up, there never really was anything else. I'm reasonably good at math and understanding mechanical things and I like working with my hands.

While it feeds my family, pays my mortgage, and affords me a modest but comfortable living, I don't leap out of bed every morning with excitement. I certainly wouldn't do it for free. I might be a little more motivated if I felt I was doing anything more than making my numerous bosses richer.

I hope my kids feel more able to pursue their dreams to a greater extent than I did.

If I could do it all again, I might study music, culinary arts, or veterinary medicine. Though, I didn't really find out those things interested me until late in college or afterwards.

[Guest FiddleDog]

I had 3 of those pivotal points:

(1) I was 21 and just about to graduate from MTSU with a degree in Journalism. I remember one day, I was watching TV and asked myself if I could do what the reporters were doing and still consider myself a good man. it was at that point that I realized that I didn't really know what being a good man meant. I decided to start taking philosophy classes to try and figure that out.

(2) I had just gotten my first dog, Pablo, and he taught me how to be depended upon without question, and without fail.

(3) I met my wife and realized that the important things in life usually do not happen between 9am-5pm. What we do during those times are essential to being able to do the important things that occur outside of those times.

[Guest Lester Weevils]

Dad is a retired engineer and Mom is a retired math teacher. I figure I was doomed to be an engineer. Growing up, there never really was anything else. I'm reasonably good at math and understanding mechanical things and I like working with my hands.

While it feeds my family, pays my mortgage, and affords me a modest but comfortable living, I don't leap out of bed every morning with excitement. I certainly wouldn't do it for free. I might be a little more motivated if I felt I was doing anything more than making my numerous bosses richer.

Dad was an engineer too. A farm boy who raised himself by his own bootstraps.

I majored twice (and dropped out twice) on a couple of engineering fields. Couldn't stay interested. Never tried EE at the time. EE might have been more palatable, but then again maybe not at that time. Later on it became interesting and in my current programming work it would really be useful if I'd taken some EE courses for the math concepts (directly applicable to DSP and such), back when it was easier to learn.

One "kiss of death" as a student was visiting a Martin Marietta facility where they had hundreds of engineers and draftsmen in a big hangar like building, each working on tiny aspects of huge systems. Each guy in charge of his own screw or bracket. They looked too much like cogs in a machine. I got the impression that such were the main employment opportunities.

Maybe in the 1960's that really was true, but in subsequent decades there seemed to open up many self-employed or very-small-biz ways for an engineer to make a living. Maybe it would have been easier to stay interested in engineering if I'd known there was a good chance of avoiding being a cog in a huge machine.

OTOH huge machines make very impressive end-products, of which the cogs can be justifiably proud. And if by miracle a company is not ruined by management, it can pay well and offer fabulous retirement. That just didn't look like the way to go, at that time.

[peejman]

D

One "kiss of death" as a student was visiting a Martin Marietta facility where they had hundreds of engineers and draftsmen in a big hangar like building, each working on tiny aspects of huge systems. Each guy in charge of his own screw or bracket. They looked too much like cogs in a machine. I got the impression that such were the main employment opportunities.

Maybe in the 1960's that really was true, but in subsequent decades there seemed to open up many self-employed or very-small-biz ways for an engineer to make a living. Maybe it would have been easier to stay interested in engineering if I'd known there was a good chance of avoiding being a cog in a huge machine.

OTOH huge machines make very impressive end-products, of which the cogs can be justifiably proud. And if by miracle a company is not ruined by management, it can pay well and offer fabulous retirement. That just didn't look like the way to go, at that time.

I might argue that was in the days when and engineer actually got to do engineering. You know, actually having to do math and use formulas and such. I had a job like that once, and loved it. Unfortunately it didn't last long. My current and other prior jobs provided the the opportunity to do "real engineering" rather infrequently.

[Guest Old goat]

I think just one real changing point, I left parent's home and started my own at 19. Everything else has been adjustments to that change, and there have been several adjustments. Both of my parents were very helpful in some of those adjustments, not by directing me on what to do but by at most helping me see my options, and most importantly by saying "you have to make your own decisions" and then leaving me to do just that. A few were not the right decisions but most were not the worst. Either way they were mine, and I can live with that.

[Guest Sgt. Joe]

I have had many events that change my direction or outlook but there has nothing that has fundamentally changed me.

That is one excellent line and I have to say that it is very true for me also.

Obviously my life did not start when I arrived in TN. I had already been through a 14 year marriage, two children, the death of one of them and many other things but through it all I was and am still the same person.

One thing that has always amazed me is that having spent a good part of my life in the military both full and part time, I have had to keep my hair short.

In the times in-between I have not. Now that I am finished with the military for good I have a full beard and a pony tail full of hair.

What is strange is that I have always been able to feel how people would be thinking when they saw or met me. Short hair and I was looked at as a good guy that was worthy of trust and respect, long hair and it was just the opposite, people could not look away fast enough, it is very obvious. Yet I was always the very same person inside.

It just seems sad that so many people will judge a person based on their physical appearance rather than getting to know the person before making a judgment. I have not changed one bit since I came of age at 18 but my appearance has changed many times.

Sorry for the mini-Hi-jack, I just wanted to say that because I have never been one of those people and have never understood it.

[TN-popo]

What is strange is that I have always been able to feel how people would be thinking when they saw or met me. Short hair and I was looked at as a good guy that was worthy of trust and respect, long hair and it was just the opposite, people could not look away fast enough, it is very obvious. Yet I was always the very same person inside.

It just seems sad that so many people will judge a person based on their physical appearance rather than getting to know the person before making a judgment. I have not changed one bit since I came of age at 18 but my appearance has changed many times.

Lol.

My wife and I went to a liquor store to stock our bar for a get-together we were having. We were both looking kind of ratty at the time.

We were aware that the owner was thinking about selling the store. My wife (who already owns her own business) and I toyed with the idea of buying the place. After making the purchase, we brought it up to him.

He completely blew us off.

Then, while helping us carry out the liquor to the car, he took a look at my wife's then new BMW and fell all over himself trying to talk about selling the place.

"Ah, never mind."

[Guest Lester Weevils]

One "kiss of death" as a student was visiting a Martin Marietta facility where they had hundreds of engineers and draftsmen in a big hangar like building, each working on tiny aspects of huge systems. Each guy in charge of his own screw or bracket. They looked too much like cogs in a machine. I got the impression that such were the main employment opportunities.

Maybe in the 1960's that really was true, but in subsequent decades there seemed to open up many self-employed or very-small-biz ways for an engineer to make a living. Maybe it would have been easier to stay interested in engineering if I'd known there was a good chance of avoiding being a cog in a huge machine.

OTOH huge machines make very impressive end-products, of which the cogs can be justifiably proud. And if by miracle a company is not ruined by management, it can pay well and offer fabulous retirement. That just didn't look like the way to go, at that time.

I might argue that was in the days when and engineer actually got to do engineering. You know, actually having to do math and use formulas and such. I had a job like that once, and loved it. Unfortunately it didn't last long. My current and other prior jobs provided the the opportunity to do "real engineering" rather infrequently.

Thanks peejman

Apologies for the delay responding.

Was thinking about back then that the school taught lots of stuff but I don't recall any formal attempt to educate students what they can really expect to do after graduation. At least in the first few years in school when it is easiest to lose interest and go try something easier and more interesting.

The hard-as-hell stuff seems to hold a person's interest longer out in the real world. Similarly, the initially easy but superficially more-interesting stuff tends to get boring quick out in the real world. Young folk tend to have trouble paying attention to boring difficult stuff, especially if they are given no good reason why they should give a dam, except some abstract promise of good pay many years in the future, if they keep hurting their brain studying crazy stuff with no idea what it will eventually be good for.

Maybe schools nowadays offer freshman or sophomore classes attempting to explain the full spectrum what a guy might be able to do after he gets his degree?

For instance the companies like HP that started with a couple of engineers in a garage? And other folks who didn't necessarily get filthy rich but apparently had a lot of fun doing their gig. Fer instance in EE, Bob Moog managed to avoid sitting in a cubical working for the man. He did OK money-wise but as best I can tell he had a good time basically working on his own terms most of his career.

Robert Moog: Biography from Answers.com

Moog was a relatively small fish in the grand scheme of things. Have met numerous much smaller fish EE's than Bob who are really into it working for themselves and having a heck of a good time. They have their low-sales-volume obscure gadgets developed with love and attention and are so enthusiastic they will talk yer ear off forever if you will listen.

Maybe I was just dumb and should have somehow automatically known about such possibilities back then, but if somebody had a tole me about it, then it might have looked more interesting to stick with it.

Another thing useful, maybe offered nowadays, that I don't recall back then-- Maybe 6 or 12 course hours focused on small and mid-size entrepreneurship. How to start a biz on a shoestring if you are allergic to financing obligations, and if you want to go bigger how to get moderate venture capital without getting skinned alive. Maybe people ought to just naturally know the possibilities, but it would be nice to splain it to young punks too unimaginative to think it up for themselves.

Back then, as far as I can recall, the only engineers FORCED to take any accounting or management courses were IE and Industrial Management (who were "almost engineers"). Just about all the professional majors ought to at least be strongly encouraged to take some accounting and management. Heck, at one time most physicians were self-employed small businessmen, but they didn't have to learn the nearly essential tools of being a small businessman. Nowadays most of the physicians seem to be working for the man. Maybe if some business sense was knocked into them in school they wouldn't end up working for the man?

Edited January 19, 2012 by Lester Weevils

[Volzfan]

Having to begin completely taking care of my parents 2 years ago has really changed my life. Both had/have Alzheimers. Mom passed back in Oct and Dad is in Franklin in an Assisted Living facility under Hospice care.

[Guest NYCrulesU]

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Edited February 12, 2012 by NYCrulesU

[Guest mustangdave]

Nov 1995, divorce.....Octo 1997, retirement from the US NAVY....and now Nov 2011, discharged from INGRAM CONTENT GROUP (discharged the PC way of saying...we're paying you to much, and we've decides to cut back and hire someone for way less...have a nice life.)....and you know what, I'm not bitter about it either. A change was needed

[Guest A10thunderbolt]

I have had many points in my life that I felt, a sudden sense of direction. I was raised extremly religious, no TV, no Radio, Ect. I was very sheltered from life, luckily not from guns:).

When I was 17 my older sister died from diabetes and my parents suddenly decided that they were going to live like normal people. I found out they were only religious from the time my older sister was born. They left me wondering about everything I believed in. So to make a very long story short I live and believe in what I see and what makes horse sense. I believe

life is always trying to beat you but if you go to work every day and do your best, the odds are you will prevail and Yes I know I dont know how to spell. I find Shooting to be some how peaceful.