Here Are The 30 Craziest "Butterfly Effect" Stories From People On Reddit

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

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.

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.