20 Stories Of “Butterfly Effects” That Started From Seemingly Strange Things

The butterfly effect – a phenomenon when a simple, insignificant gesture led to a great impact that couldn’t be logically perceived beforehand. Maybe they’re simply a chain of coincidences, yet, one can’t help but believe that perhaps, a funny hand of fate is at play. And just like that, these people believe that such a small gesture had led to such an amazing future.

If you look at them from a different perspective, perhaps they’re simply looking too deep into it. Or maybe, there is a meaning to what they do. We’ll leave that part for our readers to think about as they tell their amazing stories that started from easily forgettable moments.

1.

“I had to renew the sticker on my license plate a couple of years ago and really didn’t feel like sitting in the waiting room by myself forever, so I told my mom I’d take her out to dinner after if she came with me… The guy working at the counter turned out to be my moms long lost biological brother. If she hadn’t come with me, I would have never known.” – Mutchie

2.

“I was walking to school and got distracted by a hedgehog that ran in a bush next to me then a big ass tree branch fell in front of me, would’ve crushed me if I didn’t get distracted by a spikey little mouse scurrying in the bushes. I gave him a dead cricket the next day, he took it and ran off. God speed spikey mouse.” – EhhLeeBee

3.

“I was encouraged to enter a poetry competition by my teacher when I was about 17. There was a cash prize, so I decided after some convincing that I would give it a try. I ended up winning, and my poem became published. A couple of months later, I get a message on Facebook from a girl who would like to know more about the poem because she has to analyze it in connection with her upcoming exam. It turns out her, and I are about the same age, so we decide to meet up and discuss it. We’ve been together for 4 years now and we’re getting married next month. I often wonder what my life would look like if my teacher hadn’t approached me back then.” – GoGoGadgetD*ck95

4.

“My existence.

When my dad was about 20, he needed a phone number so he called the operator from a payphone, she gave him the number, he hung up, and she accidentally refunded the money back to the payphone. She called the payphone back and asked him if he could put the money back in, which he did and hung up again. She accidentally refunded the money again and had to call back again to ask him to put the money back in; he did and hung up again. She was so flustered, she refunded the money again and called back again and my father got to chatting with her and got her number. They set up a date (which she stood him up for), then she forgot his name when he called her again, then they actually got coffee, and four years later were married. This coming August, it’ll be 50 years for them.

If my dad didn’t need that phone number, I wouldn’t be here.” – A911owner

5.

“My mother wore heels to work and slipped on the carpeted steps, resulting in a broken high heel and a broken leg. While she was home recovering, she somehow developed allergies that led to her needing an inhaler.

The inhaler (mother confirmed that it was the penicillin that she was prescribed) interfered with her birth control, and now I have a brother 13 years younger than me.” – busytoothbrush

6.

“I got a fortune cookie that sent me to Taiwan.

I needed direction in life, but since I couldn’t talk to my dead father, I went out for Chinese food and got a fortune that said “To teach is to learn twice.” I milked it over and applied for a job at a local language school as an ESL instructor. 2 years later, an earthquake hits Taiwan and the company asks if anyone is interested in going to Taiwan to replace some English teachers at their sister school (they were not killed, they went home). Signed up for a two-year hitch, got a promotion, then got a wife, a dog, a son, and a daughter. Because I like Chinese food.” – phatbatt

7.

“4 years ago a kid I barely knew from school invited me to six flags. I was a bit of a loner at the time and I heard rumors about this kid being weird, so I intended to not go.

On the day he wanted me to go, I was feeling extra bored and decided on a whim “why not?”. So I went and met this kid and two of his friends I’ve never met at six flags.

4 years later and that kid is my best friend, and I have 3 other very close friends I met through him. Not only that, but I also met my first girlfriend because of the connections some of my new friends had. It transformed my high school years from being alone to having an amazing group of friends I could do almost anything with.

I intended to ask my best friend to be my best man one day, and I don’t intend on ever getting out of touch with any of them. I’m home from college now, and we are going to have a lot of fun together. Best decision I’ve ever made.” – Generic-Online-User

8.

“I procrastinated one day in high school by watching a foreign musical on YouTube. I ended up trying to learn the lyrics and eventually the language. That led me to discovering the field of linguistics, which I’m now majoring in. I don’t know what I’d be doing now had I actually started doing my homework that day instead.” – ASzinhaz

9.

“I was going out to grab a pizza and a case of beer for me and my roommate but he texted me that he had a stomach thing so I walked to a restaurant and ordered dinner at the bar and met a girl there and now we are married and have two kids because my roommate had diarrhea.” – plateishot

10.

“TL; DR McDonald’s likely saved our lives.

Me and my girlfriend were on a road trip around the West Coast, and we had planned to spend a night in Las Vegas, go to Zion the following day, do some hiking there and return for another night in Las Vegas.

When we woke up to prepare for the Zion trip, the coffee machine broke down in our hotel and we couldn’t get our morning coffee, so we decided to go to a nearby McDonald’s and get some coffee to go. When we got there, however, they informed us that they had run out of milk, which made us a bit angry, but there was supposed to be another McDonald’s around the corner, according to our GPS. We arrived at the second MCD just to find out it has been permanently closed.

At this point, getting a milk coffee from McDonald’s has become our quest, we weren’t leaving Las Vegas without it. The third McDonald’s we tried to find only existed on the map… Not sure if it was recently closed or never existed in the first place. All nervous, we arrived at the fourth and final McDonald’s, we agreed that if they don’t get the coffee there, we’ll stop wasting time go to Zion.

To our biggest surprise, they had the coffee and milk, so we ordered and took the coffees to our car… Only to find out that we were served the wrong order. After they replaced the order, we laughed all this situation off and went to Zion.

We returned to Las Vegas late in the evening, just before 10 pm. We started preparing to go out, as we had planned to check out the Harvest Country Music Festival that was happening on the strip. We knew it was already late, but we thought we’d go anyway. We turned on the TV just before leaving and all over the news they were talking about some shooting in Las Vegas. We decided that it had happened sometime before and went out.

We were stopped at our hotel exit by a policeman telling us to remain in our room. We had wasted at least an hour in the morning, trying to get a coffee, if this wouldn’t have happened, we would have made it to the festival in time. 58 people were shot dead that night at that festival. If not for McDonald’s, it could’ve been 60.” – irunn3r

11.

“Pregnant cousin usually takes the bus at around 5:10 pm after work. She was about to hop inside the bus but she needed to pee really badly and the commute is about an hour-long so she decided to go to the restroom instead and just catch the next bus. That 5:10 bus ended up falling from a cliff.” – ImaginaryxDoll

12.

“TL;DR: I over-drafted and caused four marriages and five babies.

Longer version, I was just out of high school and new in town with no job. I was living off what savings I had left and my account went below zero without me knowing. I was overdraft charged like 10 times and owed $300+. I went down to the bank spoke with a teller and she ended up being a lifesaver. She worked with me and got all the charges removed. On top of getting the charges removed, we got to talking about my situation and she said that her son worked at a local restaurant and she would help me get a job. She was a woman of her word and by the end of the week, I was working full time. Fast forward, I meet a cool dude who worked there, we became friends, I introduced him to my sister, they fell in love, got married, and had two kids. His best friend came into town for the wedding and I introduced him to my roommate at the time, they fell in love, got married, and had two babies. I also got my best friend a job at the restaurant where he met a girl working there, they fell in love, got married, and had a kid. Right before I left I got my roommate a job at the restaurant, where he met a customer, fell in love, got married, and had a kid.

As a bonus, my best friend, who I helped get the job repaid the favor and got me a job at a different restaurant, where I met a girl, fell in love, and got married.” – nuckingfuts73

13.

“My mother and her five siblings were deported to Auschwitz in May of 1944. Soon after arriving by “train”, my mother was placed into a line of people assigned to “take showers” after their long trip. My mother was 13 and was holding her mother’s hand, obviously very frightened. A Nazi soldier spotted this and ordered my mother out of the line and into another line, which was for the work camp. The soldier had apparently seen my mother holding her mother’s hand and thought it would be funny to separate them and make my mother cry, which she did. My grandmother told my mother not to worry, she’d see her later. My mother went to the other line and was quickly taken away to the barracks.

My grandmother was gassed to death about 15 minutes later, along with one of my uncles. My mother worked in the labor camp from May of 1944 until the Russians liberated Auschwitz in January of 1945. She lived with her older sister in Romania for a few years after that and eventually met a man who would become my father.

I’m sitting here, writing this post, over 75 years after that Nazi soldier cruelly separated my mother from her mother. He unwittingly ensured that I would be born and so would my brother and my four children. Had he sneezed, or turned away or was somehow distracted from his duties, possibly thinking about some fraulein or another, and didn’t separate my mother, I’m not here today.” – peterfonda2

14.

“So a few years back, I lived in Nice (South of France) for a while. As a musician, I would make a bit of extra cash busking, and one day, I figured I’d go and busk at the promenade ‘d’anglais by the sea. It’s usually packed, and it is just a generally pleasant place to be. I set up, played a couple of songs, and was doing pretty well and making a decent amount of money. Then suddenly not one, but two of my guitar strings snapped (I even remember I was playing ‘The Scientist’ at the time).

I was massively gutted and decided to cut my losses early. I stormed off home (by the station) in a bit of a sulk at having to re-string my guitar and cutting short what was essentially one of my most productive days of busking since moving there. Literally, one hour later, my phone starts to blow the f**k up with family and friends freaking out and asking if I was at the promenade.

It was Bastille Day, 2016. The truck drove into the same crowd I was playing to, killing 86 people, including my at-the-time GF’s uncle. I had two other friends who were amongst the 458 injured. I moved home the next month because it was too much, and haven’t been back since.

It’s hard to explain, sometimes I think I was super lucky, sometimes I just kind of cry and wonder why I was lucky and others wasn’t. It’s surreal, and despite what people think… it’s a truly horrible feeling.” – haywhat

15.

“I had to call my heart surgeon to give him my new insurance #s (I had only just gotten them because the person who had them had the flu and was not getting back to me) as soon as I got my numbers, I called the surgeon – the receptionist said, “oh, hey, we just had a cancelation for this Friday, do you want it?” Of course, I wanted to get it over and not wait another month. Decided to take the open heart surgery cancelation appointment (a month before my actual appointment), and well, the surgeon said that thank goodness I did because once he got a look inside, he realized I would not have survived to the original appointment date.

So, if the insurance lady didn’t have the flu, I would have gotten those numbers a lot sooner, and never gotten the offer to have the surgery when I did.

Someone else’s flu saved my life.” – myeggsarebig

16.

“When I was in 8th grade (13 years old) I had a really long bus ride home so would pass the time by reading. One day I faced the very serious situation of nothing to read and a minute to grab something in the library, and for whatever reason, I grabbed a book on astronomy. That book was amazing and grabbed me like nothing else had before. I remember being excited to realize every astronomer on Earth was 13 years old once too, and that was a career you could actually do, even if you were from Pittsburgh.

Anyway, today I am a professional astronomer who studies gigantic space explosions for a living. There was a lot of work to get from that moment to this one, but I’m always grateful that I picked up that library book!” – Andromeda321

17.

“High school, I didn’t get into the AP history class wanted. Changed up my schedule, including a different gym class, without everyone I knew. I was heartbroken. I really wanted to teach, and without an AP class senior year, I was screwed.

Made a new friend in gym class, who was wearing a volunteer firefighter shirt. He had just joined. Seemed interesting, and he invited me to check it out. They paid for me to get my EMT. Fell in love with healthcare.

Fast forward quite a while, and I’m an ER Nurse and ‘precept’ students and new nurses, teaching them how to survive in the ER. I also do public outreach and injury prevention. And I love it. Glad I missed out on my class.” – sh*tscrubber

18.

“My grandfather, then a toddler, woke in a night during WWII and moved to his parent’s bed. His room was a short while later decimated by a German bomb.” – cali_mari_

19.

“My parents’ dream was to have a “famous child”. When my older sister’s figure skating career ended in her early twenties, the spotlight shifted to me. I was a fine oboist and took private voice lessons with the intent to audition for the local music faculty (opera?). In any case, there was a lot of pressure, and while I was successful at school and classical music, it was never enough.

At 17, before the senior year began, my sister gifted me a kitten. My parents had given her 2 in her senior year and the implication was that it was my turn. When my sister dropped me off, my parents locked me out, saying that if I wanted my own pet I needed my own place. So I found one – that night. I worked 3 jobs to support myself through senior year and graduated with entrance scholarships to both of the local universities.

I couldn’t afford a music degree while living on my own, even with the entrance scholarships. And good thing. Entering the workforce showed me how much I love active jobs. 3 years later, I enrolled in college and became an industrial mechanic/millwright, to my parents’ great shame.

After a few years of this, I landed a sweet contract where I work on Saturdays and Sundays but receive a full week’s pay. Although I am a living beacon of disappointment, I comfort myself with my 100k a year job, 2-day workweek, and 2 cats.

Being kicked out over a kitten saved me from wasting years chasing an improbable career just to please my parents.” – duceddaftfan

20.

“My mom made me sign up for French in high school since I already spoke Spanish. I didn’t really care about the language, but I became friends with a girl in that class. Later that year, she became sick with cancer, and she passed away the following year.

Well, I had become close with her family, and they told me that French was her favorite subject and that it was her dream to study abroad. Her parents asked if we — her friends from French class — would do that on her behalf… I was the only one who worked towards it, and I finally spent a semester there during my third year of college. I had always enjoyed French, but it wasn’t a passion until something shifted that semester. So I came home, finished my undergrad degree, got my master’s in French, then moved back to France. It’s been 11 years since my friend died, and three years since I’ve lived here, and the whole time it’s been clear to me that she’s been with me on this journey.” – avocadopixels