What significant event has brought positive change in your life or way of thinking?

Getting into therapy (c. 5 yrs – one hour/week) w. a really smart guy. Together we helped grow me a back bone; enabling me to make, finally, decisions that were healthy and smart for me, instead of deferring to other people. (That’s the short version.) I’‘ve thought about this question (or these questions) all my adult life.

Being prompted to better manage my hypothyroidism.

It’s hard (for me) to reconcile, but in my case bad chemistry = bad moods. Better chemistry = all is manageable in the world. So, the significant event is remembering to take a pill every morning.

I spent six weeks in Lac Xao, Laos, at an in situ wildlife conservation facility teaching our local employees animal husbandry. The village had approx 6 hours of electricity a day and were a 7 hour bus trip from the nearest medical care. We spent half of our time digging up unexploded (American, mostly) ordinance from the war. In spite of the griding poverty, the poor health (intestinal parasites, malaria, amputations), and the lack of exposure to the rest of the world, the people were astonishingly open, friendly, positive and a joy to work with. The experience changed my life. Returning to American consumerism was a shock.

Leaving church. Once I realized that my spirituality is my own business and not subject to anyone else’s ciriticism, I became much happier, and closer to God.

Being told by the woman who was about to marry my son that I was not “selfless enough”. I was trying to figure out how to put on the
rehearsal dinner of their dreams. I believed that I could do this. They believed I should just finance it, carte blanche. This led to a standoff.
Being told I wasn’t “selfless” was a HUGE wakeup for me because I believed I was being WAY GENEROUS and hardworking.
What did I learn from this? I learned what on earth was going on with the other parties: they thought I was being controlling. I didn’t think that, but I took a couple of months to think it over, and I continue to think it over: when I feel like I’m not able to make something happen the way I think it ought to happen, perhaps I’m being selfish, as opposed to unbelievably nice. Consider the imperial United States and consider me to be its equivalent, only maybe, with the aid of my daughter-in-law, a better learner.