Have you ever had an experience that changed your life overnight?
By GraySpirit
@GraySpirit (103)
United States
June 21, 2009 3:49am CST
A few months ago, I stopped at a fast food place for an ice cream soda on my way home from work. By the time I got home, the ice cream soda was wanting to get out of my body any way possible. I spent over an hour in the bathroom in intense meditation.
It was so bad that I eventually passed out and when I regained conciousness I was too weak to even stand up. I honestly thought that this was the Big One and that I was a goner. It felt like my life was flashing before me.
I could only think that this is how the world would find me. Naked and dead in the toilet. Never mind my career. Never mind all my dreams and goals. Never mind everything else. My tombstone was going to read, "He died on the toilet."
Next day the doc said it was probably just something I ate, a bad case of food poisoning, and that I had probably fainted from a loss of fluids. The day after the doc said I was fine, I went back to work, sat down with my boss and announced that I was taking early retirement.
Now I am happily retired. I'm not wasting any more time on things that aren't important. When I finally do die ... maybe 60 years from now (cross my fingers) ... I want the satisfaction of having no regrets and knowing that I've done everything I've ever wanted to do.
1 person likes this
7 responses
@James72 (26790)
• Australia
21 Jun 09
This is one heck of a way to get an epiphany! 
I'm yet to experience a defining moment that causes me to completely change course in my life, but I do hope to have one! We all tend to get caught up in life without necessarily living it. It's a jolt like the one you've shared that can put things into perspective. I wish you every success with your journey of self discovery! 
I'm yet to experience a defining moment that causes me to completely change course in my life, but I do hope to have one! We all tend to get caught up in life without necessarily living it. It's a jolt like the one you've shared that can put things into perspective. I wish you every success with your journey of self discovery! 1 person likes this
@James72 (26790)
• Australia
21 Jun 09
Many people go their entire lives without ever having the chance to find and come to know the REAL them. You are very fortunate. 
They say things happen in 3's too.... Sitting on the toilet, sitting in front of your Boss..... I wonder what the 3rd "sitting" will be?
They say things happen in 3's too.... Sitting on the toilet, sitting in front of your Boss..... I wonder what the 3rd "sitting" will be? 1 person likes this
@GraySpirit (103)
• United States
21 Jun 09
Hi James,
Funny. That's what came out of my mouth when I sat down with my boss when I announced my retirement. I said something like, "Hey boss, I had an epiphany the other day."
Thanks. At my age, it is about time that I discovered myself ... heheh.
1 person likes this
@GraySpirit (103)
• United States
22 Jun 09
With any luck, it'll soon be sitting in an airplane flying to a new life in Asia. Hehe ... I should end up in the same time zone as you, but a little further north.
1 person likes this
@pyarebhai (199)
• India
21 Jun 09
Thank you GraySpirit, Greetings
Your small but powerfull experience, which has the life changing, it is most useful incident in the event of life. With similar type of experiences, the related question rised in Budda has led him to have changed the entire world of his followers. No doubt, such incident will have most useful influence on the future life of your collegues also.
I seek guidence from you for my life please.
1 person likes this
@GraySpirit (103)
• United States
21 Jun 09
Hi Pyarebhai,
It is interesting that you mentioned Buddha. In many ways, when looking back on that experience I felt that it was similar to my search for enlightenment. It just took a scary experience for me to discover that it was now time for me to go beyond what I had achieved in life. And to seek another level of life and experience.
In some ways, I am now on a journey to the East to discover another level of living. I don't know if I can provide you with guidance. Despite my career in the past, I am only a child now rediscovering the world.
@pyarebhai (199)
• India
21 Jun 09
Dear myLot freind.,
Thank you, you have respondent so quick. I am sure you are going to have good future life. In presence of your boss and after in the toilet, if I may forgiven, this experiance will certainly give new paths where by you will be reaching advanced experiences. I certainly affect lives of your surrunding freiends, relatives, collegues positively. I hope. Thankyou for having shareing such experience. I only request that if at all, if in any time slot you feel to spare a little of your valuable time, that is sufficiant for the guidance please. I wish you all the best for your highest good.
1 person likes this
@chenxiaoyue_713 (2165)
• China
22 Jun 09
Yeah, I had such an experience, though quite different from yours. It's all about my career. Well, I have to start from the very beginning. I hope you won't feel bored. When I graduated from college, I continued postgraduate studies with the financial support from my mother college. I signed a contract with my mother college and promised to go back there to work after I graduate. So you can think about how happy I was at that time. I needn't worry about my job when classmates around me were madly looking for a job. But when I did graduate as a postgraduate, I found things were different. What was waiting for me was unexpected. When I returned my mother college, I was informed that I coudn't get the job. So, I became unemployed all of a sudden. I felt like I lost all my hope and my life had changed overnight. I didn't know what to do. But fortunately, my parents and friends came to stay with me and encouraged me to go on. Soon after that, I got a job with decent salary. Now, I often think about what my life would be if I didn't get through that.
1 person likes this
@GraySpirit (103)
• United States
22 Jun 09
I am glad that everything worked out well for you. When I look back on my life, the big challenges and disappointments in my life were often good things to happen. After a while, I discovered that some of the things that I wished for and did not get, were really not important after all. And when I went in search of new things, I found better things in life.
@GraySpirit (103)
• United States
22 Jun 09
Hi dozhou,
Hehe ... well if it should ever happen to you, I hope that it will not be a scary experience!
@jewelali_91 (33)
• Philippines
22 Jun 09
here is a good example of finally realizing what are the important things in one's life but life per see and the reason why we have life to enable us to function happily and doing the right thing. same experience when one time i took at least 10 shots of vodka with an orange flavor a niece gave me, i thought it was a bliss coz it taste so sweet. when i came home i suffered the worst time of my life going back and forth to the toilet, vomiting and loose bowel movement every 5 minutes whew! i think that's it a scary feeling, dawning to me i am dying in one of the most shameful kind of dying hahahah... looking back, never will i try again something very sweet without knowing what will be the result of that will happen to me. and the more you appreciate the thoughts and deeds you have just decided to do. i did not take an early retirement because i have a family to feed and help so, instead make worth the free time i have and learn time management to do what is the no 1 priority in life - serving the Almighty God Jehovah and show love and patience to everyone family or not.
1 person likes this
@GraySpirit (103)
• United States
22 Jun 09
Yes, the sweet drinks do definitely catch you off guard. Haha ... I am not strong enough to drink 10 shots of anything so it should not happen to me.
@Toxicon (163)
• United States
21 Jun 09
I'm sorry to hear about your horrible experience, did the doctor also explain to you tht it could not have been the ice cream soda? food poisoning generaly takes 6 to 8 hours to hit you so it would have been something you are earlier in the day. I would hate for something like that to make you not want ice cream sodas every again.
I have had a similar experience but in my case I was drinking and got drunker than my body could handle at the time, I was, at the time way to young to retire so I just drank a little more after I woke up and was fine.
As for the question you posed in the title, I think at some point in most everyones life there is a defining moment that changes how we think and feel about everything in the world around us.
@GraySpirit (103)
• United States
21 Jun 09
Hey Toxicon,
Yes, I think you may be right about that, but I have stopped drinking ice cream sodas for another reason ... lol. The doc did a physical and told me I was prediabetic ... so I have been watching my diet more carefully.
Hehe...as for drinking, I am now a lightweight ... only social drinking now and not more than two drinks. When I was younger, the only thing that could cure a hangover for me was a couple of cokes. I think it was the sugar and water that my body wanted.
I think you're right that we all have defining moments. Maybe they happen more often that we realize and we don't take advantage of them enough because we don't realize it.
@flyisky (196)
• China
21 Jun 09
Thanks for sharing your interesting experience. Actually, even a trivial thing can change a person life. It looks like someone`s fate and it is doomed to happen. I have a experience that 3 years ago I recognised a friend by chance. He was a postgraduate student at that time. And I went to his home to ask some questions about how and why I should futher my study. From that time, I worked harder and finally I made it. Thanks to him, without his words I wouldn`t be a postgraduate student now.
1 person likes this
@GraySpirit (103)
• United States
21 Jun 09
Hi Flyisky,
Sometimes unexpected and unplanned events do change our lives in remarkable ways. I am not sure if it is destiny or just random chance. But yes, my life has been full of little things that have shaped by life. Good luck in your postgraduate work.
