How did the tipping point in your life manifest itself?

Getting my own apartment and a divorce changed my life for the better. Lost lots of so called friends but that’s ok. Well worth it.

I went to an astronomy club meeting at the top of a mountain.

^^Ah, yes. A change in perspective. I had one of those in Greece with the ancient buildings on the Acropolis looking down on me.. The change in me was to recognize how insignificant I was in terms of my time on earth. At the same moment I realized that my time on earth, insignificant as it was, it was all I had. There was not much I could control except in my own personal life. How I dealt with it, however, was up to me.

@Sunny2 Actually, it wasn’t really a change of perspective for me. It was a recognition that I could do it as a hobby. Now, 15 years later, I’m an astrophotographer.

I tried marijuana.

@Rarebear You had a change of perspective in terms of what you could do. Mine was a change from being myself, considering myself alone, to considering myself as being part of others more than just myself.

@Sunny2 Was not that more like an epiphany? Unless you were in a crap situation before that experience showed you now to do better with what you had but not that you had to drastically change it because it wasn’t working.

@Blondesjon What was going so wrong that a fat blunt cured, or made straight? Or was it the tipping point that made a shaky life hit the skids?

@Sunny2 Ah, then yes. I agree.

My father died, I turned 40, I gave up on music as a career choice, I got married, and I left Texas, all in the same year.

@Hypocrisy_Central It certainly may have been an epiphany. I just know it changed my perspective, what ever you want to call it. I was not in a bad situation of any kind at the time except free to roam for as long as I wanted to. After 3 months, I wanted to be home.

@Hypocrisy_Central . . . I grew up in the ‘Just Say No’ eighties and had it pounded in to my head that marijuana was a dangerous, deadly gateway drug.

I tried it and found out it was no such thing. This lead me to begin questioning everything else I had taken as fact just because an ‘authority’ told me it was so.

@Blondesjon I had a similar experience in 1968. I found out that the only gateway marijuana provided was a gateway to the black market.

My mother beat me up, and I reported the assault, resulting in her arrest.

As a result, I was ostracized by my church – my church, not my mother’s. I had broken a commandment in a publicly reported way.

That spurred the self study into my religion that ultimately led to my atheism, which believe me literally changed my entire life.

Yep, leaving a 22 year marriage to a raging narcissist. When I finally realized the nature of the beast I was dealing with. It was the most joyful and liberating shift to date. I went on to create the most amazing life for myself, sadly, this economy has burned me at the stake, but the last 10 years were a precious time of peace, prosperity and growth.

@Hypocrisy_Central It’s interesting that your question assumes some unfair or unbearable situation in the past. And in your responses to other users, you said, “Unless you were in a crap situation before that… you had to drastically change” and “what was going so wrong… or was it the tipping point that made a shaky life hit the skids?” Why is the premise that everything is/was going wrong?

That premise is so foreign to me that this question made me do a double take. I’ve been through some strange and difficult times, but never to the point where my whole life needed changing. Are you in the middle of a bad situation that’s making you feel negative/ resentful?

Personally, my tipping point was a coincidence. I met someone on a train late at night, and ended up having my first sip of wine with them a few weeks later. With that sip, there was this instant lightening bolt of recognition. Wine, if it’s a good one, appeals to several senses at once, and layers of aroma and flavor come at you in subtle and intriguing ways. So I was left thinking, ”???” but feeling incredibly curious and engaged; I had to know more. For the next few years I learned everything I could and tried lots and lots of different wines, and now it’s my career. If I hadn’t met this person, my wine experiences might have started and stopped at boxed wine and white zinfandel; the other stuff wouldn’t have even been on my radar.

Things were going pretty well beforehand, and I lost touch with the person since then, but that encounter definitely changed the course of my life.

One of the major tipping points in my life came when I realised my Christian faith did not answer some BIG questions I had, the questions were enormous, the answers too small, I abandoned the faith I had followed for 18 years.

I’ve had several tipping points in my life, issues with both parents being alcoholics, abusive men who take advantage, living a thug life & getting out, mom’s cancer, husbands seizures, etc… It’s been a wild ride but I’m still hanging on & staying positive.

Any time I’m not strong enough to stand and fight on my own anymore, I lean on God who is my refuge and peace, it works for me.

A conversation with a friend in late 2009, in which I spilled my heart, sobbing, about my gender issues. He asked me whether I was contemplating suicide and I couln’t truthfully answer “No”. That’s when I realised I had to do something about it.

@Haleth Why is the premise that everything is/was going wrong?
It doesn’t always revolve around something negative. From a personal aspect, that is, with private people I have observed it usually brought about positive change. A tipping point could be the precursor of some negative event. If a person opens a restaurant but is barely pulling a profit a near by factory or large business closing or relocating could be the tipping point to if the business survives; especially if enough workers of that business ate there to keep the business in the black.

@Adagio So sorry to hear that.

@Hypocrisy_Central “so sorry to hear that” … Why? Don’t be sorry, I’m certainly not : ^)

Twice. Once, when I accepted Christ as my savior, and the second time when I stopped allowing people to abuse me and took responsibility for my own life.