Have you had a truly defining event in your life and how did it shape your character?

Question

In retrospect are you grateful for it or would you have rather it never happened?

Who am I to judge these?

It is up for vote.

Answer 1

When I got saved at 12 (22 now)

ever since,I been fired up for God.

Answer 2

Honestly....first time I was taken to the ER with an out-of-control heart....My shirt was literally ripped off and all the electrodes attached, the ER staff was amazed and kept coming to look at the monitor and I distinctly heard 3 "Wow!"s. I really thought that was it. Before that some part of me never really understood that I could die. I think everyone is like that until, as you say, a defining moment. After that, I now realize every day is precious, and almost every morning I wake up and think "Whew...one more day". Really makes you think about your life on a day to day basis. The down side is however I find I can't plan anything more than a week in advance....I have no savings, no retirement plans, no long term career goals, nothing. I find I can't work towards something when today is right here and there are pleasures to be had now. Why not wear my most expensive perfume today instead of saving it for the future? Why not eat that piece of cheesecake as it may be my last? So, if I do make it a few more decades, I'll continue to take each day as it comes. And that's what defines me.

As for being grateful or bitter about it, I would say neither. It is what it is. So I just get on with it (though of course I do have my moments of anger over my sudden forced lifestyle change, but I'm human).

Answer 3

What could it advise to have unfastened will? There could could desire to be some 2nd the place the worldwide ought to bypass 2 techniques, and how it is going is: (a million) no longer random, (2) no longer desperate, (3) an expression of the choosers will. So, one freely willed agent in this occasion makes a call, yet another freely willed agent interior the comparable concern makes a various decision. Why? Why, in a manner that's no longer desperate via something, and isn't random, yet is the authentic expression of the choosers will? consistent with threat it is a effect of their character or their want? yet why have they have been on condition that character or want, and why is the different agent diverse? you won't be able to assert they pick to be as they're, that way lies limitless regression and no answer. you won't be able to respond to they have been made that way, you basically sell the question to the maker as a reason. you won't be able to assert that it is basically the way they're, reducing freedom to randomness on the commencing placed up. that's an old problem, with fairly 2 techniques: (a million) Magic, unfastened will is a extraordinary element, outdoors the worldwide of logical reason and effect. (2) Predestination, we are no longer unfastened, (and there are certainly some very nuanced and sympathetic variations of this). each and every from time to time you quite'll hear a third answer stated, the quantum suggestions fashions of Penrose and Hameroff, yet while pushed they say: "In each and each adventure the call of state is chosen, non-computably, to replicate some effect it is neither random nor thoroughly deterministic, yet by hidden propensities embedded in needed area-time" (reference under). To my suggestions seeing unfastened will as a bent of area-time to bias quantum activities is basically randomness limited via the residences of area-time, and doubtless no longer unfastened. certainly this concept of complicated determinism is fantastically well-known decrease than the call of Metaphysical Naturalism, (initiate analyzing in wikipedia). And it has massive implications, yet which would be yet another question: what are the effect of being without unfastened will?

Answer 4

I had never had any real failures in my life until I went to college. I started as a Mechanical Engineering major and during the first semester of my sophomore year, five weeks in, was failing both Calculus and FORTRAN - not from lack of studying either I studied all the time .

I got to the point where I went back to my dorm room, pulled my suitcases out and started flinging clothes into them from across the room, all the while tears were running down my face. So, after awhile of sitting in the room with a huge mess around me, I began to realize that yeah I failed but I had two options - tuck tail and run or pick myself up and start over doing something else. So I went to the Dean of Business and switched my major.

I am actually very grateful for that because one it happened in a semi-safe environment that gave me an easy way to see that failure usually isn't the end but a different door to go through to something else.

Answer 5

A Buddhist asked me some questions. Not much of an experience, right? But it was the beginning of a snowball effect. I was once a fundamentalist Christian, and now I'm agnostic. I am not only more logical, not only more open to other perspectives, not only able to understand more, but a better person. BIG change for the better.

Answer 6

I do and I wish it had never happened.

It shaped me in negative ways. Made me hate myself and push away those that loved me. I lived on alcohol and hate for too many years.

I live without the alcohol now and the hate for the world has diminished to just plain grief for a life wasted.

Answer 7

I lost someone very close to me recently, in a very tragic accident. It made me realize that life is really a lot shorter than we expect it to be and that when our purpose in this world is over, we're gone. The amazing thing about it is that his ex wife was pregnant with her new husbands baby, and the baby was born the same day that he died. The circle of life continues, no matter what.

Answer 8

When I lost everything and I was desolate ,desperate,hungry,and homeless. That was my defining event. It was then I realized that talking to myself (prayer) was the most pointless thing ever. It was that event that made me realize what I had only suspected before. There is no god, all that rubbish about heaven and hell and the bible was all fairy tales. I am glad it happened to me. Now I am the strongest I have ever been both physically and mentally. I was a nice guy before. I used to be the guy everyone liked and I would do anything for anyone. Not now. I have learned the hard way to rely on ONLY myself. I also learned with the exception of my family and a few friends, I will look after no one and share nothing. F*** it all. So I guess it turned me into an A$Shole.

Answer 9

Well, there was that one time I was forced to go to church. I then realized it made me hot and stuffy, and that everyone was full of crap. Oh, and the time that I realized that there was something just a *little* different about me (*cough*bisexual*cough*). I was about... seven years old? Oh, and yes, I'm grateful for both of those moments. :-)