20+ People Talk About the Small Coincidences That Led to Big Changes

Sometimes, a person’s life can totally change because of something very small: a lost ticket, a cup of coffee, an unexpected meeting, or a favorite film. It is almost impossible to predict the effect of these little events, and you often can’t estimate how much they’ve changed your life until many years later.

We at Bright Side love finding pieces of evidence that support the fact that any insignificant turn of events may change your life for the better and we want to share the most amazing examples of these situations with you.

• In 2016, a woman I knew broke her phone and was looking for a place to fix it. I, like a true man, decided to show off and told her I was a phone fixing pro. So, she gave me her phone and I had no idea how to do it. I spent 2 days working on it with a manual. Thanks to me boasting, I found myself, and now I’m one of the best experts in town. I fixed her phone successfully even though I ruined a lot of spare parts. © “Overheard”
• My mom saw a video about the department of medical physics and bioengineering. 10 years later, I’m in a medical lab in Seoul working with cells. © Glesana / Twitter

• When I was about 10, a clearly mentally unstable lady came up to me when I was in town with my parents, grabbed me by the shoulders, looked into my eyes, and said, “Live your life... please travel.” Then ran off. I wanted to cry because she was scary, and hey, I was 10. But those words have stuck with me and every year I save up every penny I can manage to travel or visit somewhere new, those are the few precious moments of the year I look forward to the most, and I wouldn’t have done it if not for her. © ShuffleandTruffle / Reddit

• Around 10 years ago, my grandma (she was 55 years old) called a taxi. She got the wrong number, just one digit was wrong, and a man answered. They started talking and they realized the number was wrong, but my grandma wanted to talk to him. It turned out that the man lived across the street, he was 58. They called each other a couple more times, and then they met and they got married. They still live together, go fishing in the winter, and grow vegetables in the summer. © BoomShakalaca / Pikabu

• 30 years ago, when I was 17, my friend and I went over to a classmate’s house and saw her hug her dad. Up until that moment, I had no conscious knowledge that kids who loved their parents existed. Or that parents could be loving to their children. That moment changed the way I saw the world and always stuck with me when I became a father. There weren’t very many days when I was raising my own daughter that that moment didn’t come to mind. Without witnessing that, my entire adult life would’ve been dramatically different. © stupidlyugly / Reddit

• Watching the credits in a video game. That’s when it hit me that there are people out there who actually make the games I play, and it gave me the motivation to learn how to make one myself. I did some research and got started in the basics of programming. 6 years of programming later, I am a high school intern software engineer at a big company. While my whole life hasn’t been changed (yet), programming is probably what I’ll continue to pursue as a career. All because I stayed for the credits in a video game. © mackinnonbuck / Reddit

• I’m almost 30 years old and I’m not married. Even though I’m one of the managers of a big company, I’m a geek deep down. I have to fly a lot on business and when the plane is taking off, I say the numbers from the TV series Lost: 4, 8, 15, 16, 23, 42. A year ago, when I was saying these numbers on a plane, I heard my seat neighbor mumble, “Adventure time!” I proposed to her 2 days ago... © “Overheard”

• One of my good friends invited me over for a mac & cheese dinner party one night. I was tired from work, but last minute decided I would go. I met my current boyfriend at that hangout, then 4 months later moved across the country with him to live in a camper and travel the west. We just celebrated our 1-year anniversary and made some great mac & cheese to celebrate! © GoHomeRogr / Reddit
• An acquaintance of mine read palms. Although I don’t really believe in this, and I only knew this woman through a friend of mine, several people said that she was really good at reading palms and I decided to give it a go. She told me, “You seem so confused. You are wasting your brains at the job you are doing now, and you can feel it. I guess you are sticking to this job because of your child. I’m so sorry! You feel so lost and confused!” It was true, it was driving me insane. I couldn’t sleep because I hated what I was doing, and couldn’t afford to quit. However, it was the last little nudge I needed. I moved on to a totally different area of work, with lower pay, but that I enjoy and where my voice counts. In a way, she saved my mental health. © Aurea Martin / Quora

• I started playing an online RPG. I got into a great guild right away and it helped me through my depression. The people there also gave a big boost to my confidence and so I dared to go on a date. Not only that, but since I suddenly had friends in England, I dared to go to school there and move away from home, even though I have quite a bit of social anxiety. So I met up with one of the guys from the guild and eventually married him. I had to stop playing when we had our first kid sadly. So yeah, without the game, I wouldn’t have a husband or kids or have lived in London... © ZaMiLoD / Reddit

• In 6th grade, a new kid walked into my math class. He was a wispy little blond dude with an oversized hoodie and glasses. He never used 2 words when one would do. He was pretty smart. One day, he took my pen and hid it behind his back. He didn’t have anything on his desk for me to take, so I grabbed his glasses off his head and put them on. I gasped. Everything became clear. I could read the board for the first time. I could pick out individual leaves on the trees outside. The vague black spot on the roof was a bird. That day changed my life. When I went to the doctor and got my glasses, I became better at my studies and at sports. Even though I had only started to see things as well as other kids, I thought I had a new superpower. © Derek Correy / Quora

• My future wife and I rode the bus together daily. I never noticed her until the day she wore a jacket with my favorite sports team’s logo. I decided to talk to her about the game last night and we hit it off. We’ve been happily married for 15 years now. © Ice_Cream_Man_Cometh / Reddit

• I accidentally walked into the wrong interview 7 years ago and ended up moving to Australia within 4 days. I didn’t think it was that huge at the time. In retrospect, everything that’s happened to me since would have never happened if I hadn’t been such a fool. Being a fool worked out for me. © originalposeur / Reddit

• My friend got sick and couldn’t go to a youth event at a waterpark when I was 16. As a result, I hung out with the girl I’d end up dating for 4 years, getting married to for 2 1/2 years (separated amicably), getting divorced from for 3 years (no contact), remarrying for 6 months, and be currently trying to get divorced from again. Also I wouldn’t have stayed at a local college after high school to stay near her, where out of sheer boredom and feeling trapped by my engineering scholarship, as well as deciding I didn’t have enough discipline, I joined the Marine Corps for 8 years and fought in 2 wars. Thanks a lot, Jacob for getting that cold! © josh0861 / Reddit

• I was going to Moscow from Rome after a language course and we had a late-night connection in Vienna. While we were boarding the plane, we found out that there were 4 extra tickets sold (meaning, there were 4 passengers more than there were seats on the plane). I volunteered to stay — I decided to walk around the city because I’d never been there before. I was shocked when they gave us €400 each and I loved Vienna so much that I decided to move there. I’ve lived in this city for 2 years now. © werhold / Pikabu
• My biggest coincidence was when I was abroad and my flight was the next day. My friend and I walked into a cafe and I fell in love with our waiter. I ended up staying in the country and we’ve been together for 4 years now. © bristlelover / Twitter

• I offered a sad-looking lady a tissue. This led to my partner and I getting our current house and free taiyaki. So, when we first came to Japan we were obviously renting. We stopped at this little park to grab a coffee and just relax, the only other person there was this lady who had obviously been crying and was rather sad looking. Offered her a tissue and we got to talking. It turned out that she had inherited her mother’s house in the area. It was in the red-light district, she couldn’t sell it, but couldn’t afford to keep it. I didn’t care about the red-light aspect, so we bought the house and even paid more than the owner wanted. And her friend, a taiyaki vendor, was so happy for her that he would give us free treats every day that he saw us. © Lazy_Raccoon / Reddit

Have you ever experienced any coincidences in your life that have changed everything? Tell us about them!