SPINOFF: Personal destiny stories
 

Spinoff of FAX's fascinating thread. Let's take it from the abstract to the concrete.What are the seemingly small subtle events that have directed your "destiny"?

1. Learning the back stroke. I used to get sick to my stomach thinking about swimming lessons. I feared them all day. My folks arranged some private lessons and I have been at home in the water ever since. I not only overcame my discomfort in the water, but overcame the fear of my swimming teacher. Very big confidence builder.

2. My dad encouraging me to stand up to another kid that was picking on me. We were on a hike during our conversation. This kid was an issue in my life at the time. Standing up to him was a real confidence builder.

3. My 7th grade math teacher uttering the words "Between you, me and the gate post, I know you can do better than this." I was in the bottom 4 students in my math class at the time. For some reason, those words got under my skin. I raised my grade from an F to a C in two weeks, was best in my 8th grade math class, and was in accelerated math classes by 9th grade.

4. My dad encouraging me to confront a Jr High teacher about an unfair punishment. I was supposed to write sentences for an infraction that I did not commit. I confronted the teacher and he relented on the punishment. I am master of my own universe.

5. Al Gore invents the internet, leading to me wasting untold hours on Chiefsplanet.

6. I lock eyes with a girl at a party/dance club as a freshman in college. Favorite song gets played. I ask her to dance. Leads to my first date, and future wife.

7. Recession of '82-83 coinciding with my graduation from college. No jobs to be had, but I need an income so I can get married. I read a description of a research position that I think I can do, even though it would require a slight change of discipline. I decide to go to grad school.

8. On the day I defend my MS thesis, my advisor tells me I should really consider going for a PhD. I go to work in the real world, but these words gnaw at me. I relent and go for my PhD 2-1/2 years later under the same adivisor. He later moves and recruits me as a faculty member at my current university.

9. I am introduced to a new colleague. Our skills are complimentary, and we get along. By working with him, I revitalize my research career. Good things happen in my career, including meeting my best graduate student ever who is now a very good friend as well.

1. I had my first beer

2. The End

Good lord, you want me to reflect back on my life? I don't think I can even start on this right now. Of course, now my mind will be racing as I go to bed. There's been so many good and bad things. Bad things that lead to better things. Things I thought were good that practically tore me apart.

It's all brought me to where I'm at today. My life isn't perfect. It's not even what I thought it would be. Everyone's got things they wish were different, but, overall, I really can't complain.

I tend to focus on the positive. I've been very fortunate and I owe a lot to other people. I'm at a point in my career where I can start paying that forward to the next generation, which is extremely rewarding. Family life has posed many challenges, but I seldom share that stuff here.

Age 7 - My dad's friend Larry asks to come to our house to see a football game involving his favorite team, the Kansas City Chiefs. I'd seen a little football before, but with company over, I watched the game seriously and thought, "Wow. The Chiefs."

Age 11 - My friend Mark shows me a new type of game, "Kriegspiel". It introduces me to wargames, which become a primary hobby and source of friends all through high school.

Age 18 - The University of Kansas loses the paperwork to my scholarship, leading me to abandon my dream of being a KU student and choosing UMR, which then affects ... everything.

Age 25 - My boss is told to transfer a person to a new project. He tells us it's between me and Gordon. Gordon is a buddy of his, and I'm not. I get sent. My future wife eventually gets assigned to the next cubicle, and the project eventually gets canceled, resulting in my layoff.

Age 27 - I'm about to go to law school, and wander to the building next door for the public affairs program, which I've never heard of. They have a notice up that the Foreign Service Exam is coming up, and I decide I want to work in an embassy. I stop the law school process and go to the public affairs school.

Age 29 - An alumni of my program puts a flyer up at my school for a consulting job in Denver. I see it and think, "Hey, that sounds cool."

Age 32 - We're househunting, and as we're looking at a house, my Realtor says, "Y'know, I'm thinking about selling my house, and it's only two blocks from here." We look at it and think, "Hey, this house is cool". 14 years later, we're still here.

There have been far too many fortuitous events in my life to innumerate, Mr. cdcox. All my life, I've experienced odd, seemingly coincidental situations. It seems as though everything from how I met the beautiful and witty Mrs. FAX to my business to where and how I live have all just either fallen into place or been associated with incalculable odds ... like a series of fortunate accidents that, in retrospect, seem somehow strangely planned or arranged.

FAX

If I hadn't done any one of the dumb stupid things in my life or not gotten involved with any of the whacked out, ****ed up, lunatic women that I did then my 2 kids wouldn't be here in this world. There are no mistakes. It wasn't about me. It was about them. My questions are answered. No regrets.
Posted via Mobile Device

I was driving back from my final (courtesy) interview for a marketing position at DiamondBack bikes. On paper, the ultimate job for me (combined Marketing and cycling). The one-hour drive home down the freeway I kept seeing the WORST billboards ever and thought "I could beat that". I decided to call the company and remove myself from running, and continue my ad school to become a copywriter. The next night class started and I met the girl who would eventually become my wife.

DiamondBack! Successor to Mongoose! That's so 80's, brah! :thumb:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OAkfHShATKY

I had visions of wealth, stardom, greatness

















then I found ChiefsPlanet. :banghead:

I gave in to my youngest son's obsession since he was old enough to talk and bought him a guitar. Then I gave in to the lessons, then the other equipment and then the encouragement and so on and so on.....

Now my family is about to have our lives changed forever.

Yeah, sometimes fate will totally jack you up but then other times, it provides a gift.

In Prescott Arizona (2 hours north of Phoenix) the 4th of July is a big deal. They have the country's? world's? oldest rodeo and a big fair. They also have a city wide water fight. (I think has since been curtailed to just downtown wide water fight but i digress) People line the beds of their trucks and fill em with water. You are told to avoid downtown if you do not want to get wet.

I was 19 and working the front desk of a hotel. The lady owner I worked for was walking down the street towards the hotel. I was standing outside because it was a beautiful day and I was watching her walk towards me. The hotel was on a side street and this lady was pushing 80. Of couse she was coming back from the bar and had a blue wig on but still! Pushing 80. A truck full of kids came careening by, water sloushing over the sides of their truck and just nailed this little old lady with every super soaker they had stuffed in that thing.

She was drenched. I was doubled over laughing.

I moved to Phoenix the next year. Moved into an apartment next to my NOW psycho ex. We were hanging out one night sometime around the 4th of July and he started telling me a story about how he went to Prescott for the first time last year and saw some poor little old lady in a blue wig get drenched by a bunch of hillbillies in a pickup.

I knew then that for whatever reason I was supposed to meet him.

I was going to skip school and go with a couple of guys on a road trip. But I had been caught skipping so much that if I got caught again I would get expelled, so I didn't go with them. During the road trip they got pulled over by a cop and one of the guys pulled a gun on the cop and the cop shot him paralzing the guy. Sadly it didn't even scare me straight. But at least I did survive that period in my life.

amazing thread. Keep it up everyone, hopefully i'll contribute along.

Age 12 or 13...

My Dad taught me that art is about personality and that all great artists had really powerfull personalities. At the time I remember thinking I had no chance of becoming an artist because I was so quiet and withdrawn compared to my art-idols at the time (Van Gogh). Quiet and withdrawn are not the social traits I wish I was blessed with, but 30 years later I make powerfully quiet art.