During freshman orientation in college I went to check out the campus newspaper. The offices were closed, so instead I checked out the campus radio station. I fell in love with broadcasting, which led to writing and producing commercials, which led to a career in marketing communications until I retired.
Yes 
Oldie, but a goodie!
I was in my 40s. My (then) wife and I relocated to Calgary, from Toronto. It was a business transfer for her, but as a freelance technical writer, I’d be fine, especially in a place where tech writing is needed in the oil and gas industry. Right?
Wrong. The reputation I’d built up in Ontario did not translate to Alberta, and nobody wanted me unless I had written for the oil and gas industry in Alberta. Long story short, I ended up working in a factory in Calgary. It was a good living, but there had to be more to life than just working an assembly line.
On a lark, I applied to law school. I had my bachelor’s degree and figured, “why not; let’s see what happens, if I try.” So I wrote the LSAT, and applied to a couple of law schools. My LSAT score was excellent, as were my undergrad grades; and to my great surprise, I was accepted at every school I applied to. I selected one, went to school there, and got my law degree. I studied for the bar, and passed the bar courses, and today, I’m a lawyer. Which never would have happened had the Alberta tech writing community not written me off. And I love being a lawyer much more than I ever liked being a technical writer.
Similar for me - at 19, I enlisted in the Navy. Three years in, I was accepted into a program to become an officer. I was commissioned, then discovered I was a horrible officer (didn’t like being in charge, hated the politics involved.) I resigned my commission with just over 11 years of active duty, and within a year, I was working for the Navy - did that for another 26 years till I retired.
I honestly don’t know where I’d have wound up if I hadn’t talked to a recruiter in May of '73, but that spur of the moment decision led to a pretty amazing life. Meanwhile, all my sibs and a couple of my closest friends from high school all stayed in the hometown. I guess they’re happy with their lives, but I’m so glad I went to new places and did new things.
When I was in early 20’s I went to a motivational speaker thing. It had Art Linkletter, Zig Ziglar, John Wooden, etc. One of them said something that gave me an idea to ask one of my college professors a question, which lead to my first real job, which lead to being transferred across the country, and so forth. Jobs, places I lived, family, friends, religion are among the things that changed.
Sounds like things worked out great for you. I was glad for the 8 years I served, and the chance to be stationed in Australia for a few years. I wouldn’t change that.
I still do wonder how my life would have turned out had I made different decisions.
I attended an Ivy League school and part of my financial assistance package was a guaranteed part-time student services job. About a week after moving into the dorm, I went over to the office to get my job assignment. There must have been a couple dozen financial aid students in line with me.
The first guy gets dorm crew (cleaning dorms and bathrooms). The second guy gets dining hall service. The third guy gets dorm crew…and so forth. I’m trying to figure out which I’ll get based on where I am in the line.
When I get to the desk, the lady looks at me and asks, “Do you have any experience with projectors?” This was totally unexpected and caught me off-guard. I thought for a second and replied, “Sure. I was on the A/V crew in high school.” This was a total lie, but I knew I didn’t want dorm crew or dining hall duty.
I ended up working with the audio-visual services department, including supervising services during summer school, for all four years. The hourly rate was great, hours were flexible, and I made a lot more money than my financial aid package guaranteed.
The kicker is that I then went into this type of work after I graduated, finally moving into a parallel profession where I’ve worked for over 40 years. Even though I graduated with a BA and then went on to get my MA in a totally unrelated field, I’ve never made a dime in any job based on the field of my degrees.
I turned down a football scholarship to UC Davis where I knew I was going to double major in Ag engineering and viticulture/enology. Twenty years after college I’m now spending a good chunk of my days making wine and vineyards and I really love it.
On the other hand I became a petroleum engineer at the school I accepted a football and track scholarship too. From there I made enough money to start my own distillery and consulting company. If I’d taken the more direct path I might be better trained and would have started doing what I love sooner but I’d probably still be a peeon. I still think back on that decision and wonder if I made the right choice.
I was in my 30’s and so tired of dating, for 20 years! I had three long-term relationships that just didn’t work out. I met men, but fewer and fewer suitable ones. I wanted badly to fall in love and settle down like the whole world said was the ultimate. So - I joined a dating service that matched you up via postcards (this was pre-internet) and I was swamped with calls from gentlemen in the area I was ‘matched with’. They could call me, or I could call them. So I went on even MORE dates! (Oy. Quantity does not equal quality.) Eventually, I did meet a man and we got married. Maybe I did settle. I can’t say I was happy, we weren’t madly in love, but had the same goals in life. It turned out he had several hidden issues I either didn’t pay attention to in the early years, or just ignored. We did stay married for decades till his sad death, we bought a house, had a child. I was a SAHM and then a SAHW… I don’t know if I would do it over but I did my very best to be a good wife and mother. I enjoyed being out of the rat race, I was grateful for our modest home, we had everything we needed and much of what we wanted. I don’t know what would have happened to me otherwise. I had an education and worked office jobs, but no great career…but that matching service, I bit the bullet and joined! (I never told anyone about it. If I had, I could have said I ‘bought a husband’, lol - it cost a whopping $200 to join way back then!)
Bit of a tossup, but having sex as a teenager without effective birth control was a biggie, then agreeing to driving a drunk friend’s car home for him on the day the tie rod gave out was the other–that one resulted in a long hospital stay, a divorce and both my kids having attachment disorders of varying degrees. Both of these things occurred before my 21st birthday and I’m pretty confident in thinking my life would have had a VERY different trajectory if either or both of these events hadn’t happened.
Today I learned that there is an actual town named Blawnox, and it’s not just the legendary home of Orson Bean and the Blawnox Institute of Technology, as often depicted in the “Made-Up, False, and Flat-Out Wrong Trivia Dominoes” thread in Thread Games. 
Yep - it’s a borough in Allegheny County, PA, just outside Pittsburgh.
Hangin’ out with the Hanson Brothers.
Age 17: Moving from Madrid to Berlin to go to university far away from home and family.
Age 19: Change my subject from engeneering to political sciences.
Somewhere in between: discovering the usual distractions. Sex, booze, dope, books, comics, music… friendships! So it was not one single decision, but in a short span of time everything fell into place.
When I was 19, I was a student of architecture at Ohio State. Though I was at the top of my class (was the first person ever to ace the entrance exam) I was having second thoughts about being an architect for the rest of my life. So I hitched to NYC, arriving with $17 in my pocket. No skills, no resume, no contacts, just me alone in the big city with 17 bucks. I spent the first night in a cheap flophouse on 42nd Street and got a job as an office boy in an architect’s office the next day.
Best decision I ever made.
Another amazing thing about that evening. We met at Moondog’s. We had each driven 45 minutes to get there. We lived less than one mile apart.
So pleasant to read about such happy outcomes based on that one decision.
I can’t complain either.
I probably would have ended up retiring rich which is kinda out of the question at this time. : )
So doing the daily grind until I can buy my little acreage.
Having unprotected sex as a teenager and having a baby when I was 17 was a real life changer. My boyfriend (husband now) and I both stayed at home with our parents, finished school (he had already graduated HS), went on to vocational/business schools and got married when our daughter was 3. We’ve been married for 39 years. Would we have gotten married if we hadn’t had a baby? I’m not sure. We loved and still love each other, but I think we worked a lot harder on our relationship/marriage because we had a child. Maybe we would have gone our separate ways at the first bump in the road.
I always wonder where I’d be today
Enrolling in a four-year university after years of bumming around. I had dropped out of high school due to bullying and just sort of hung out for seven years. Some of my friends were a bit on the intellectual side, and they got me to start thinking maybe I should give college a try. I did, going part-time my first year after taking an entrance exam. At the end of five years, I had graduated with honors. From there, I applied to the Peace Corps and was sent to Thailand.
I am tempted to say applying to and being accepted by Peace Corps was that one decision since Thailand looms large in my life to this day, but switching from goofball bum to serious college student laid the groundwork for that. If I had not gone to college, I might still be working graveyard shift in a West Texas convenience store.