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[Jackrabbit]

So I recently learned something interesting. Had it not been for a very, very last minute change of plans, I would have spent the first three (or more) years of my life in Bahrain, in an expat compound. It'd be very Empire of the Sun (sans the invasion), certainly, but I'd have some significant ties to the Middle East. It's a weird thought. Furthermore, because of a flu bug and landline troubles, my family moved to yonder instead of thereabouts which lead to me coming to Australia, which lead to me finding an article in a news agency about DF which lead me here which meant I'd learn how to not be a dick before experiencing the rest of the internet and has, sad as this is, greatly influenced me as a person.

So what I'm saying is, although our life is a constant progression of decisions and consequences, there's two points in my life at least which could have gone either way and the outcome hugely affected who I am as a person. I'm not unique in this I'm sure and I'm interested in whether or not you can identify points in your life where, given two or more paths, going down another path would have meant you, essentially, wouldn't be you, now.

[Taricus]

When I was around four, my dad was going to take my brother and I back to perth. it didn't happen due to me thinking there were tigers out there.

[Jackrabbit]

Wait, he didn't move because a four year old was afraid of tigers?

Whaaaa

[Taricus]

No, we just didn't go because I kept whinging about it.

[Tarran]

When I was young (can't really remember how young. I think it was somewhere in Preschool), my father offered to me if I wanted to become a homeschooler. I chose yes. I have no doubt that if I had stayed in school I'd be wildly different today.

Another is signing up to this forum. If I didn't I would've continued lurking, not signing up, and generally been shy for a lot longer than if I didn't sign up.

[Max White]

Sometimes, you can never be sure what will happen when a butterfly beats it's wings.

[Megaman]

My uncle won the green-card lottery. If it weren't for him, I would never have a comp or be American.

[Realmfighter]

I don't really understand this thought experiment, because sure if you back in time and change something, As long as you are a completely Excised Observer You meaning the one who was still in time wouldn't be you. But if you change nothing, then he Still isn't you. So many things could have happened causing your life to change. They didn't. They couldn't have, because as a moment in the past they are unchangeable outside of Fictional and Ill-Defined Time Travel.

[Tarran]

I don't really understand this thought experiment, because sure if you back in time and change something, As long as you are a completely Excised Observer You meaning the one who was still in time wouldn't be you. But if you change nothing, then he Still isn't you. So many things could have happened causing your life to change. They didn't. They couldn't have, because as a moment in the past they are unchangeable outside of Fictional and Ill-Defined Time Travel.

...Your question confuses me. And as much as I tried, I couldn't really come up with a response...

Look, all he's asking for is moments in your life that, if you went A or B, you would've been a much different person. As in, WAY different. Not just slightly different, but MUCH more different.

[ToonyMan]

I had a decision of going to public schools as well and I chose yes which has definitely made me a completely different person.  I would say for the better even, seeing as I wouldn't have much of a social life if I didn't.

[Heliman]

I don't have many life changing choices, but I do have Changes.

It seems as if I’ve been arguing with others since I could speak. (The majority of my argument back then consisted of a grumpy “No!”)  As far back as I remember, I’ve always been debating with everyone I know, much to the exasperation of my parents, who are almost as stubborn as I am.
While my parents may have sparked my love for debate, what really fueled it was the internet.
When I was 10, I started playing a game called Runescape. I liked it a lot, but I found the conversations I had with the people in it a little bland. I decided I should try joining a forum to talk to people more freely. Considering my age at the time, my reason for looking for a forum was probably regarding something less studious, but that’s how I’d like to remember it.
This was when I found, via a Google search, a site called Free Games Forums, my launching point into online chatting. I stuck with the gossamer forum and it’s inhabitants for about 7 years.
Initially, I stumbled through online chat, bright and bleary eyed. I fell constantly, my posts lacked proper spelling and grammar, sometimes rendering myself incomprehensible. Worse yet, I was very easily set into a rage. I graduated that forum the day I beat an esteemed intellectual TazG in an argument, although he probably wouldn’t admit it. It was lovely, because several days later I was banned from the forum altogether, for being indignant to the same admin. I was so proud of me.
   Because of my ban, my chatting was able to fully migrate a second time into the open pastures of online games, this time with World of Warcraft. Here, I was introduced to Ventrillo and, more importantly, live chat.
I found difficulty in live chat at the beginning, as I am not an extremely fast typist, so anyone, given the skill, could potentially rack on insults to easily to deface my arguments. Regardless, I had many a winning bout in that circle, the victor usually being decided by who gets ignored first. Once I convinced a person that they were a textbook psychopath (Mind, he really DID act like a psychopath, I went through the checklist and everything.) I found it invigorating.
   One fateful day, I was browsing through Penny Arcade, and found a post regarding Dwarf Fortress in Tycho’s newsletter, eager to try out this new, needlessly complicated freeware; I jumped right into the fray, and failed initially, totally confused by the ascii graphics. However, after downloading a texture pack and reading a good tutorial on the subject, I was ready to take another shot at the game. I was successful, but still, dwarf fortress being dwarf fortress, and I found many questions that needed answering. That’s when I found this forum, filled with intellectuals, all but devoid of trolls, and frequented regularly. I hope my experiences here last a good while.

So, I just made a TL;DR about changes in my life rather than choices and I currently have a metaphysical unworn glove in my hand that I'm willing to throw down at the first nilly that says I shouldn't have, as is my life.
Engarde~!

[Vector]

When I was six, we moved from the bad part of Los Angeles to Silicon Valley due to my mother's severe depression.  I have no doubt whatsoever that this completely changed my life.  The school system down there is so bad compared to here... also, I finally managed to get out of the courses for deaf kids

The whole dropping-out-of-school saga probably also changed a lot of things.  I don't know what would have happened if I'd stayed.  Leaving may in fact have quadrupled my life span >_>

Meeting Professor Poland completely altered my outlook on life.


Bah, there's so many things that I could add to this.

[ed boy]

A bit more than a year ago, I was deciding which universities to apply for. Given my poor GCSE results, I was not aiming too high, but I had two main choices and two backup choices, so I felt that I had all my bases covered. However, I had the choice to apply for one more university. I figured that I might as well apply to oxford for the hell of it, as there would be no harm in getting rejected by them. With my GCSEs I didn't have a hope of getting in, but I wanted to see how far along the process I would get. It turns out that I got pretty far - I got in.

[Heron TSG]

I'm not sure how it would have changed my life one way or another, but I do have an interesting butterfly effect story.

     My dad graduated from high school in 1983, hoping to become a mechanic and work on cars. He loved cars, and he also loved his sweetheart, who he was to be married to the following summer. They agreed to wait a year before going off to [REDACTED] State University together. They had a wonderful time, and lived a happy and prosperous life. His fiancee was pregnant, and she gave birth to twin boys in the spring of 1984. Everything was going swimmingly. A mere two weeks before their wedding, however, something terrible happened. They were driving home from a day at the beach when their car was hit by a car running a red light. The man driving this car was not drunk, but the man attempting to wrest control of the car certainly was. I don't know the whole situation there, but my dad's first children and his soon-to-be wife died that day. He was completely heartbroken. He became extremely depressed, and decided to put off going to college for a while. How could he go to college alone when he would always be reminded of his lost love? The men of my family don't deal well with sadness. Instead of dealing with the problem, we ignore it by throwing ourselves into projects and work. In my dad's case, he threw himself into working on cars. He worked twelve hours a day, plus a few projects he did at home on the side. One day he was fixing a man's car, and the owner noticed how intently he was working, how absolutely single-minded he was about doing a good job. After some conversation, it turned out this man was the head of the admissions department at the local community college. He was shocked to find out that such a brilliant mechanic had no college education, and eventually coerced my father into going back to school, even going so far as to waive all tuition.
     Once at college, he did as he did before. He worked extremely hard, and with the passage of time the sadness drained slowly but surely. In his second year, he found that he had to take a math class to graduate. He absolutely hated math, but he wanted to finish school. In this class he met my mother, who he became fast friends with due to their mutual love of cars. After graduation, they became roommates. Their friendship slowly morphed into love, and my dad was happy again. They went through rough times, but eventually everything worked out in the end. They were married, and my older sister was born a few years later. The guilt that my dad had about the death of his first children still lingered on, though. He always thought that he could have been more observant, that he could have reacted in time to change the outcome of that fateful collision. Instead, he proposed a different plan. He talked to my mom about it, and they decided to try for twins, so that he could move on fully. They named my brother after my father, but couldn't think of a name for me. I now bear the (unisex) name of my father's first love.

Not really a gigantic change story, but I thought it was an interesting place to get a name.

[Euld]

Sometime around 1900, an ancestor on my mom's side murdered someone and escaped from the eastern US coast to the western US coast, where he settled down, found work as a lumberjack, married, and his descendants (leading up to me) stayed in that area to this day