Have you ever had a Moment of Destiny?
After I took a tour of Rice University, I walked into Founders’ Court and across the grass that Willy faces. A light breeze blew across my face and I suddenly had the sensation that Rice was the place I belonged. I knelt down and touched the grass and was in awe at how powerful the sensation was.
When I applied to Rice as a Spring transfer, I was wait-listed and not admitted. I took the opportunity to go to Taiwan for 6 months, which was an important experience for me. I reapplied for the Fall and matriculated.
I was seeking a university that would challenge me and Rice fits the bill. I have to work hard to get good grades there and more often than not I don’t perform as well as I think I will because of the stiff competition. But I think this is exactly what I need. I no longer think I am one of the smartest people on the planet, which is an important realization.
I still feel that that moment was a Moment of Destiny for me, though I don’t necessarily believe in pre-destination. But there was something about the way everything unfolded that I knew that I should go to this university.
Of course, it worked out well. That’s where I met my lovely girlfriend. And she’s an intelligent hottie!
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When my dad took me to see a double-feature that we thought was all science fiction I experienced a Moment of Destiny. The first movie was fun but did not affect my life much (Dr. Strangelove, or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb) but the second one, ah ha! It was World Without Sun, Jacques Cousteau’s feature-length film
When I saw that film I knew I was destined to become a marine biologist.
I Moved to Tampa Bay florida for school what seems like ages ago.
22 hour drive from western new york, slept for 2 hours and drove the rest only stopping for gas and gas station snacks.
I made it at 2 in the morning. I drove right onto the beach near my apartment. The wind was strong, but warm, the waves drown out all the other sounds, even my own thoughts. I had been searching my whole life for a reason to reach my potential. My entire childhood I listened to teachers, coaches, and my family tell me the natural gifts I had could allow me to do great things with my life and I never believed a word they said, until I sat on that beach. All my life I’ve been overly cerebral about everything, thinking, thinking thinking. I get headaches a lot, always have. But that night on the beach, letting the sand still warm from the sun that day sink between my fingers and toes, I finally realized what it would take to be who my family deserves me to be. I didn’t owe it to anyone but myself, but I knew my family deserved the chance to speak my name with a sense of pride. Ever since then, no one has ever accused my of underachieving, in anything I do. That moment saved my life.
When I was quite young (about nine or ten, making it about 1964) a family drive took us to Westwood, California, adjacent to the UCLA campus. We took a brief drive through a small part of of the campus and I was in awe of the place…the large, ornate buildings in all their magnificence, spread apart on beautiful rolling hills. It was a sprawling campus that still had a warm, quaint feel to it. I knew at that young age that UCLA was my destiny, just as you recognized Rice as yours. Six or seven years later, when it was time to apply for college admission, I applied to UCLA and nowhere else. I was accepted out of high school and started my studies there in the fall of 1972. I loved it there. Every elective course I took begged for me to take another. A course in 19th century Russian Literature led to a course dedicated to Dostoyevsky, for example. I packed in the courses and even sat in on a couple without credit. I stretched my undergraduate studies nearly five years, receiving my Bachelors Degree in 1977, hell-bent to travel and see the world that had been exposed to me at UCLA.
Life leads those who let it…
Those who don’t, it drags.
When I read the book, “On The Road”.
I felt as though I was meant to travel. The utter… reliability of Sal and Dean led me to San Francisco (in which some parts of the book lie) and to take a bus 800 some odd miles.
It also led me to the decision to write, or at least to capture time in some form. I’ve since started writing and am an amateur photographer.
@ABoyNamedBoobs03 – that is a great answer. I wish I could say something momentous like that, but I am more in the boat with
@evelyn’s_pet_zebra- which is also a great answer!
I was seventeen or eighteen, walking under the swingset in a playground at night. It was one of the clearest nights ever. You could still see the Milky Way in semi-urbanized areas, sometimes. I looked up, and I saw all the stars, and for some reason, I felt like all the stars were people and there was something about them that was all the same. It was such an expansive moment, and looking up, I felt like I was one of those stars, and connected to all the other stars.
I don’t know if I knew anything at that moment about what I would do with this realization/experience. Since then, I have come to feel that it is my job to connect people with each other, and to show them how we are all similar, and the implications that realization has.
This has been a mixed blessing. I’ve always had a sense of purpose, but the purpose is too big. Unreachable. Sometimes this feels like a failure so huge, that I don’t deserve to be alive. Other times I think it’s a dream; an idea; and I don’t have to succeed; I just have to do what I can.
I’ve had many, yes
I live my life according to these moments and nothing else
Sitting in jail, knowing that I was responsible for my destiny.
1) I was in a car accident when I was floating around as a lost 19 year old. My friend to my right was killed. Not so much a moment as a month followed where I realized how badly I wanted to go back to school and do something more with my life, which I did.
2) While studying Industrial Design, I was building a hobby project, a coffee table made from pallet scraps and other industrial wood waste laying around in a cabinet shop where I was employed. One day, I went searching for a nice plank to make the top from at a reclaimed timber yard. I swear the light was shining down from a crack in the wall right on this one bright red board. It seemed covered in the Jesus light. I knew I had to use that plank and that from then on, I would focus on Furniture Design, which I did.
3) Later, as a furnituremaker, a female apprentice, the sweetest angel face with a giant bodily smile and glowing blue eyes was assigned to assist me on a large project. At one point, after she asked me how to do something and then wandered off to do it, I caught myself saying “I am going to marry her one day.” Which I did. Mind you, never before in my nearly 30 years had I ever had that inclination. Not once. Until I met her.
4) So, after years of orbiting around all things architectural, I decided to take a trip to see SCIArc in L.A. During that tour, with my fiancee by my side, I knew. I had to go there. I was filled with an energy that compelled me to exude warmth and confidence. I spoke to strangers for hours about their projects. Later, I was sunk. It was obviously too expensive. My fiancee said to me, “you have to go. You know this is what you must do.” She convinced me that we could deal with the financial issues as a couple and that she would be with me. That if I really wanted to go, I should go. Which I did.
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