People Are Sharing Stories About The Time They Threw Caution to the Wind

I'm a little late, but here be a tale from a few years ago when I was a teenage dumbass: A couple of friends (J and H) and I were hiking on a local mountain for the day.

We were just wandering around the woods about halfway up, when one of them packs a bowl and sits down. Once we finished smoking, the hike to the summit resumed, with lots of tripping and stumbling and chortling and all that nonsense.

As we reached the summit, J began reenacting the scene from Return of the King where they're trying to throw the ring into the fires of Mount Doom, using his own ring as a prop. Everyone is smiling and laughing until H joins in on the reenactment, grabs the ring from J, and promptly throws it over the cliff we're standing on.

Now J is freaking out and H is laughing his ass off, and I'm just standing there in shock at how stupid that was. The ring was a family heirloom or something (I know because J was shouting about it as he watched it fall).

In a moment of pure idiocy, I decide it would be a great idea to *climb down the cliff face* to go and find this ring. Bear in mind that this was a good 100-150 feet up, and I was still high as fuck. I began my descent, climbing over the railing and managing to get myself down a good 6 or 7 feet before sense kicked in and I realized what a huge mistake this was.

I began climbing back up, only to find myself without any more hand or foot holds 3 or 4 feet from the top. At this point I'd started to freak out because I have a crippling fear of falling, and I couldn't figure out how to get back up. A couple of minutes later, my friends figured out the best spots to use as hand-holds, and I climbed back up.

Username: Lucrion

I used to work at a Blood Bank as a components Team Leader in the lab a few years ago. For context, the lab I worked at received around 200 units of blood per day when I was hired around 2013. By the time I left in 2019, we were receiving close to 1,000 units per day, with the same amount of staff and equipment.

The company I worked for closed down all other components labs and made us the sole processor for all donations collected in the Southeast U.S. in order to cut costs, with a total staff of 8 people (when fully staffed, which was rare.)

During my last year there, we had no manager or direct supervisor as nobody wanted the position, as it required a degree (which I didn't have) and the hours and overtime were ridiculous, only made worse by the fact it was a salaried position. So I was basically performing the duties of a manager, supervisor, trainer, components tech and team lead at the end of my tenure there.

One morning as we were getting ready to finish up and place all unprocessed units in the fridge to be handled the next day (which was a daily thing, considering we would basically be working doubles every night if we tried to process everything,) I got a text from the District Manager informing me that the new policy was that ALL units must be processed by end of shift, and were were no longer allowed to leave anything unprocessed.

That particular night, we were preparing to leave roughly 200 units to be processed the next day, since the beginning of our shift was usually the slowest time of day. This amount of blood would have taken us another 3-4 hours at least, especially considering we had already powered down the equipment and started closing procedures. I informed her of this, and she told me to turn everything back on and get it done.

I wouldn't necessarily have minded that myself, since I was a full time employee without another job or school to think about. Most of the other employees, however, were teenagers just out of high school who were working two or more jobs and going to school on top of this job.

I wasn't going to force them to work 8 hours of overtime because the company I worked for was more concerned with profit margins than the well-being of their employees. So, I turned off my phone and told everyone to go home.

When I came in for my next shift, I was immediately met by HR who took me upstairs so they and the DM could yell at me for undermining their positions. I was written up, given further tongue lashing and sent back down to the lab.

I put in my two weeks shortly after that, along with another 3 of the remaining staff. From what i've been told, they were forced to hire contractors at an absurd rate to take our place until they could find more permanent staff. Healthcare is a brutal business.

Username: SugoiBakaMatt

There was this mountain top (Maybe 600 meters) in the jungles of Vietnam, up by Hue City, triple canopy, never defoliated. There was a higher mountain nearby that had a radio-relay site on it. They had reported exactly NO enemy activity anywhere within their wide-angle view.

We were looking for a mountaintop that would give us artillery access to the whole Bo River valley where Intelligence (I capitalized that so no one would think actual intelligence was involved) had decided there *must* be North Vietnamese Army base camps for the two or three divisions that had briefly captured Hue City during Tet.

We - a South Vietnamese infantry battalion, some American "advisors," and me - were supposed to set up on the mountaintop and provide artillery support for the rest of our unit, which was going into the river valley the next day to roust those base camps.

Um, yeah. The Air Force dropped a giant "Daisy Cutter" bomb on top of our mountain, which was supposed to clear enough lumber to give us some place to land. I was on the first helicopter of the first gaggle (six choppers) because I was the artillery guy, and I needed to get on the ground ASAP.

The Air Force had left shafts of naked tree trunks all over the place, so we ended up hovering while the helicopter pilots found a place that would accommodate a max of two choppers. While they were looking for landing space, I was viewing the hilltop.

The whole damned hilltop was covered in man-made fighting positions. I could see bunkers at the edge of the treeline. The top of the mountain was lined with spider-holes (foxholes). Somebody had intended to defend this hilltop. Shit.

I phoned it in. Not possible, I must be mistaken, said the American Advisors. Meanwhile, the gaggle of helicopters were seeing the same thing. They became anxious to put their loads on the ground and scoot. They decided they could fit two helicopters between the shattered tree trunks. And down we went.

I could see more fighting positions as we got closer. This was bad. The choppers couldn't get down all the way, so they wanted us to jump out at about two meters up.

You gotta be kiddin' me. Deep breath. Bail out. Hit the mat of vegetation okay, walked a foot and fell into a spider hole. Was hard to crawl out again. This was crazy.

Turned out that the North Vietnamese *division* sized basecamp was all around our LZ. The guys in the river valley found nothing but muck and leeches. Fortunately, the camp was deserted except for a cadre of NVA maintaining the mess halls and hooches and well-organized water-use areas. Was a *really nice" basecamp under triple canopy jungle.

We lucked out. The people who built it, died at the Battle of Hue. If anyone had been home, we would have been shit outta luck.

That moment, squatting on the skid of a UH1B, hanging onto the bulkhead, staring down at conclusive evidence that someone had gotten everything bass-ackward, and that *we* were the ones who were going into the NVA basecamp... I took a deep breath and muttered a kind of Army prayer, "Fuck it." And jumped.

Username: AnathemaMaranatha

So. I fell off a pony when I was two and a half and broke my arm (which, on a side note, is the second worst injury I've had in my 20 years of riding horses).

Anyway, I had a cast on and all that, which I didn't like, but I dealt with it. While playing on the jungle gym at the Montessori school, and the jungle gym had this climbing-rope type thing. I remember it as being a cross between a climbing rope and fireman's pole, in that the rope was flexible but both ends were attached to a fixed point and the rope went through a circular hole in the floor. We were all daring each other to slide down it, and finally, after much thought, I decided to do it, despite my cast.

The teachers saw me and started yelling no, but I just smiled and went for it. They caught me at the bottom and scolded me, but I knew I was a bad ass.

Also, while I'm on the subject, a few months later (with my cast removed), I decided that I was done with being inside, so during recess I climbed a tree and refused to climb down. It was a revelatory moment in my 3 year old life realizing that the fat, older women were unwilling to climb trees to get me and that if I made their lives difficult I could get what I wanted.

But, I didn't really want anything. Well, I take that back. I wanted to be in the tree, and being in the tree were the means to the end of being in the tree.

The teachers offered me fish sticks as a bribe to come down, but I, being the crafty one that I was, knew that they didn't have any fish sticks on hand and that they would not be able to procure any in a reasonable time frame.

I spent a wonderful afternoon relaxing in the tree and ignoring the angry teachers who finally had to call my mom.

Username: FlyingChange

When I was in college, me and my best buddy were talking about what we were going to do during the summer. We had grandiose ideas - going to Alaska and working at a cannery, working on a cruise ship, flying out west to work at a cannabis farm, stuff like that.

We settled on moving out to the beach and working in a tourist town, securing jobs and a place to live with a few text messages back and forth.

When it's time to leave, we said fuck it, might as well start the adventure and left at 1AM after packing everything we owned all day. We get halfway there and were out in the middle of bumfuck nowhere when we realize that the door on the bed of the truck had come open.

We pulled off on the side of the road near a place called Alligator River, known for the alligators and other wildlife (bears, coyotes, snakes, red wolves, etc). Theres not a single street light in miles and no houses around.

Anyways, my buddy jumps out of the car and puts both of our phones on the back of the truck (unbeknownst to me) and we strap everything back up and salvage whatever fell out the back of the truck that we could find. At this point, it's about 3AM and pitch black outside and we weren't trying to stick around there for long, so we hop back in the truck and keep going.

We got about 20 minutes down the road and realized that our phones are nowhere to be found. Turns out, they fell off the truck after we got back on the road. We didnt know how far we had gone since we stopped and there were no street lights or landmarks to go off of.

We ended up driving back and forth down a stretch of road about 3 miles long, me driving the truck a few miles per hour while my buddy is looking on the side of highway (which was all grass and swamp) to try and find our phones. About an hour or so goes by and no luck. We had a very vague idea of where we were headed and it's the middle of the night with no way to call anyone, no GPS to follow, and a portion of our stuff missing from the back of the truck.

We say there for a few minutes and debates whether or not we should go back home or keep on going. My buddy started work the next day and I started the day after, so if we went back home, we wouldve probably lost the job opportunity.

Eventually we just said fuck it and kept driving. Just as the sun started to rise, we saw road signs pointing us in the right direction and made it to the beach just as it was getting light outside.

It ended up being one of the best experiences of my life, living and working at the beach. I had no cell phone for the first month, which was incredibly liberating. All in all, I would definitely do it again - losing half our shit and all.

Username: obxnc

My class was participating in a unity project with the rest of the school, and this was done in the form of a relay race. Now, today was hot at about 98 degrees, so no one really wanted to race, but I decided that because no one else wanted to do it I'd take the first leg of the relay. Big mistake.

It wasn't until now that I realized the relay race wasn't completely in the form of running. The first leg was a food relay. Being a very picky eater, I regretted taking this the moment I was put into the chair next to the food. It wasn't too bad, I thought to myself, but that was a lie.

There was a cup filled with Lucky Charms, three saltine crackers, a cup of prune juice, a bottle of water, and a pickle spear. I figured I could eat the Lucky Charms pretty quickly, I could wash down the saltines with the water, and I actually like prune juice. But the pickle...I didn't know what to do with the pickle. I hadn't tried to eat one since the Crabhouse Incident of '08, and this certainly didn't seem like the time. Nevertheless, my class needed me, and I wasn't about to let them down.

The horn sounded, and I began to stuff food into my mouth. As I expected, I ate the saltines with speed due to the water, and the Lucky Charms didn't last too long either. I figured I could wash down the awful pickle with the prune juice if I needed it, so I lifted my nemesis, staring down the green jaws of the devil with all the intensity of a man facing down death itself.

My teeth tore into the awful, smelly, sun-heated pickle spear like Squidward in that one episode of Spongebob where he discovers he likes Krabby Patties.

I would have no such luck to discover that all this time I liked pickles. As the juice squirted onto my tongue, my life flashed before my eyes. I pushed onward, fueled more by determined rage than unity at this point.

The second I did take that fateful bite, Dean came and sat by my side. *Dean.* To this day I can't recall a more obnoxious human being. With a smile, he looked me in the eyes and said the following:

"Throw up." I gave him a look of disgust, but this only seemed to encourage his tiny, monkey-like brain to continue its assault.

"THROW UP! THROW UP!" The chant rang in my ears, penetrating my sanity with its mind-blowing idiocy. Yet, my brain somehow found some common ground with Dean's at some point around the third bite.

Pickle bits launched across the table, mixed with Lucky Charms and watery saltine lumps. Women screamed and shielded their eyes from the oncoming projectile vomit and men ran in terror. My eyes watered from the acidity, and Dean gave an awful, shit-eating grin. His plan had worked, and he began to laugh.

Fuck Dean, by the way. Anyway, being the first contestant to "render his plate of food complete," my classmate was told to run to the next station. I never did find out what it was, or if we won. I was too busy staring in horror at the devastation I had wrought upon the gazebo. I hate pickles.

Username: Spartan-312

A group of guys(around my age, 3 years older) jumped my little brother at a high school age dance for every school in the area. These guys were all out of high school. They jumped him because he was alone walking to the bathroom. I was a 2min drive away working backshift at a burger place. He didn’t want to bother me, I would’ve been there in 90 seconds.

Anyway, about 4 days later I was driving around with my friend through their town(always went for a drive there before this whole thing happened, nothing was preplanned) and saw one of their cars parked next to someone and it was full of people. 4-5, was a 2003 Civic. Friend tells me to pull in, I said no, he said ***fuck. that. pull in***.

I pull in, adrenaline coursing as friend screams at them(“YOU LIKE JUMPING KIDS? LET’S GO. GET THE FUCK OUT OR I DRAG YOU OUT”) as I park my car. I get out and I’m on the very of edge being black out angry. Brass knuckles in my cup holder. I glance quickly at their car and see it’s full, with the car they’re parked beside starting and taking off.

I see them(cowards) start to drive at us so I open my trunk and grab my bat. Normally I wouldn’t but the amount of disrespect from them on social media mouthing off about “kicking my brothers ass” and more importantly we were outnumbered. They drove a circle around my car, yelling insults as I smile and tell them to park.

They take off to what I assume is build more reinforcements because it took 5 20 year olds to jump a 17 year old. I didn’t follow the car because I’m not fighting 20 people in a town I’m not from with just my friend and myself.

Username: BulimicPlatypus

Well, I've told this story before on another thread, but I feel like I didn't give a lot of detail. It's gonna be long

I was at a bar in Texas, in some little village or town of some kind. I get shit-faced, and I mean the Taco-bell type of shit. A couple hours of whiskey, shitty bar French fries , and some dude hitting on me...well, got me a little...fuzzy.

I don't remember the time, but it was after 10:00 pm. Eventually, some skinny dude with hygiene problems and about a dozen teeth missing comes in. He was wearing a... I think it was Cowboys hoodie or something to that effect. He comes in with a bunch of scabs on his face and shit.

Anyway, he had his hand behind his back. I turned, looked at him, and went back to drinking. I heard a click, kinda like how a pistol sounds when you cock it. He pulls out a Berrata. I disn't think it was loaded, but damn, the guy next To me, well... shit himself sure enough. Wasn't the best of smells.

The crack-head looks around the bar, and says "ANYBODY MOVE AND I'LL POP THEIR CHERRY" Pretty sure the bastard was high as a plane, but that didn't stop him waving the gun around the bar. Me, being the drunk, 24 year old, 5'10, 180 lbs boxer ( the street kind) thought I could get to him before he did anything stupid.

I jump out of the stool, yell at the top of my lungs "I'LL POP YOUR CHERRY" and charged like general Custer did. He spins, sees me, and proceeds to fire a couple of shots. Of the 2-3 he fired, most went out the window of into the walls.

The one that hit something? Hit me right on the shoulder, grazing the Mc-fuck outta my left. I got to him before he could do anything else, and proceeded to break his wrist by using the incredible powers of whiskey, adrenilene, and super kick-ass boxer moves.

He cried out in pain, dropped the gun, and cried. Like a bitch I might add. Me, being the manly man, screamed "FUUUUUUUUCK THIS HURTS" and collapsed on the floor. Now now, I know what your thinking " but reaper, weren't you drunk? How could you feel the pain"

To answer your question, I don't a have a clue. The Ambulance showed up, picked me and the dude up, and went to the hospital. When I got back there the next day, having rented a room for a few days, got celebrated as a "Hero" . Free drinks, free food and some new numbers in my phone, I felt pretty good.

Username: TheReapersGrim13

Freshman year of college. It was the night before one of my poli-sci finals that was worth 50% of the class grade. hadn't studied for shit up to then because I was so backed up on studying for other finals..well, rumors were going around that none other than **Tiësto** !!!! himself was going to show up at a local club and chill, maybe throw down some tracks.

This was a hard situation, should I go and risk fucking up a vital grade resulting in me failing a course, or should I just go see the dude and hope to luck out. Well, the fan in me won and i went to the club. I promised myself I won't drink and just go for a little, hope to see him, and go back to the library.

Once i got there some of my older frat brothers were there (i was pledging). Despite me telling them my predicament, they decided to force me onto my knees and poor vodka down my throat. It was goose though, so it wasn't too hard to deal with. 30 minutes in, after various pulls from whiskey/vodka bottles, i'm absolutely hammed. I'm thinking.

FUCK. I shouldn't have done that..i should NOT have done that. Anyway, some time goes by and it doesn't seem like **Tiësto** is coming. I'm about to leave when the fucker, in company of two guards and hot chicks, walks in. I'm fucking shocked and exhilarated.

I instantly run up to him just to try and say hi, doesn't really work cause theres at least 50-60 other people (who realized he was there) trying to do the same and guards pushing us away. Well, my frat brothers (by complete coincidence) had the table NEXT to **Tiësto's** table.

FUCK YES. I look over, the guy is sitting there just chilling. Turned out to be a really chill and nice guy, we talked a little (as much as we could in the loud music) and that was that.

He went to the DJ booth, messed around a little and left. Luckily have some pictures from that night. Oh and about that test, didn't spend a second studying, went in, took it, killed it and got an A.

Username: [deleted]

I live in an apartment in which we have 2(No.1 and No. 3) apartments on opposite sides of the building, there are 3 on each floor and my parents own 2 of 3 on it floor. I spen most of my time in No.1 cause of online classes, I had practically shifted there.

I sleep in No. 3 though cause I am not allowed to sleep alone. Every night I have to lock the door of No 1 with a lock as well ass the latch.

A week after New year's I went for a sleepover at my friends house and before leaving my mom told me to lock the No 1 house door, I didn't use the lock and just put the latch...

After my eventful sleepover, I came back home walking from my friends house and came home to take a shit and chill at home, I entered through No.3 and went to No. 1 to take a shit. It was only latched and not locked, like I left it. Walk in to see that my new laptop is missing....

I think to myself "oh shit(shit hehe) it's gone... My mom will beat the hell out of me, I'm dead." Then thought " this is a problem for future me" and proceeded with on of the best shits of my life( I ate a lot of taco bell for dinner)

Finished the shit( it was a brutal but satisfying shit) felt amazing, then come out to see that my laptop is still missing. Shit.

Long story short; thought it was stolen at first; using my Sherlock Holmes skillz I deduced that my mother had taken it; acted all sad in front of her and went to file a police complaint ( online); typed in the url and mom came clean; no laptop for a week; had to do online classes in the old laptop.

Username: OHLEYTOP

Our school went on a trip lasting from thursday to friday including a night in a hotel, 4 people per room. We were about 17 at the time. During the first evening we got about two hours off before we needed to go to our rooms to sleep. As any group of adolescents does we went out to a park after buying some alcohol (Europe). We also had weed on us for a group of about 15 people.

After our free time ended we went back to our rooms without any problems with the teachers... until my idiot friend left a joint we kept for the next day in full sight on the table. When the teacher came to check our rooms before bedtime they ofcourse see it. Teacher flips out and gets the principal involved who tells us he will deal with it when we get back to school.

Come monday every one of the 15 guys get called to the cafetaria where the principal is waiting. He tells us we are all suspended for the day and he is going to punish us further. He tells us we need to individually write down what happened and who was involved and give full details. He was especially angry about the weed and was very clear that whoever smoked would be punished more severely (I went to a school with a great reputation, stuff like this never happened there). If your story didn't check out with the others you would be expelled. He also made it clear that you wouldn't be allowed on the scool's next trip to Italy if you smoked weed.

I decided fuck it and lie in my story and said I never touched the weed and knew nothing about it. I said I wasn't even there when it happened. I did it because my parents would be extremely pissed if 1) they found out I did drugs and 2) wouldn't be allowed to go on the Italy trip (I'm from Italian herritage).

I hand in my story and give it to the principal and he tells me I'm free to go for now. Everyone else told the truth but nobody mentioned me. In the next few days they were frequently called to the principals office to recieve punishments.

In the end they were in fact banned from the Italytrip. I never got in trouble for it. My friends couldn't be mad because I didn't throw anyone under the bus. Italy trip was dope.

Username: Lumaty

I was traveling with three friends and we went to a local cliff jumping site so the water was unfamiliar to us. Once we arrived, there were two jump spots. After a little while we found a trail that climbed to a higher jump point.

We estimate the height is around 45-50 feet (13.7-15.2 m) so it is not a huge cliff but it is decent. The catch is that the cliff is not vertical and there is a shallow section of water at the base of the cliff. We will need a running start to clear the cliff and shallows to get to deep enough water.

Even then the depth is still questionable so when you hit the water you've got to swerve forward to avoid hitting bottom. The running start is 3 good steps and you have to avoid tripping on a branch/root on your last step.

The closest hospital is a boat ride across a huge lake and then a bus ride out of the valley; this easily takes 1.5-2hrs. If we get hurt, e.g. break a femur, we're fucked.

We all chicken out and go back to the lower jumps. The whole time the high jump is festering in my mind. I know I could do it. Well, I'm pretty sure I can do it and pretty sure I won't get hurt. Pretty sure.

It is late in the day. We pack up to hike out. I stop to look up to the top of the cliff. My buddy notices and looks up with me. "Gonna do it?" "Yep. FUCK IT. I'LL DO THIS" (i didn't use those exact words, but it's the theme and not too far off).

I hike to the top... Standing at the edge to visualize and focus... Breathing deeply I see it all take place, including the possibility of breaking my femurs, but I push that out of my mind. Stepping back, I pause to tense my muscles so I can explode with all I have in those three steps.

GO! I give it my all and yell out with the third step. I'm falling and it feels higher than we estimated. I'm clearing the cliff. Will it be enough to clear the shallows? Just before I hit the water I think I am too close and yell out, "OH SHIT!" I splash down and curve my body to swerve to deeper waters.

I only skim sand. I made it! Fuck yes!!! Even after going first, none of my buddies tried it. The pictures were lost at an internet cafe, so when we had a chance we went back again for another photo op. I wonder if I still have it.

Username: smokingbarrel

Joining varsity theater. In middle school I was a total band kid. Eventually I got depressed and didn’t enjoy it but stayed in it because I thought I’d enjoy it again when I got better. I realized after my freshman year I didn’t like band anymore, in fact I dreaded it.

I’ve always had an interest in theater but I had a really bad theater teacher in middle school so I didn’t pursue that interest. I decided to just go for the auditions for varsity theater because I didn’t want to be in a freshman class. I learned two monologues and tried out.

I wasn’t that good, but there weren’t much students trying out so I think that’s why I was let in despite the fact I’ve never had a high school theater class. Turns out, I made it and I was so happy! At first I was planning on balancing theater and band but over the summer I had an epiphany.

I didn’t not like band because I was depressed, I lost interest in it and forcing myself to do something I hated only made it worse. I quit band cold turkey in the middle of summer which shocked everyone because I didn’t bring this up with teachers before and my brother is super amazing at band (I was pretty good myself but he was good enough to get a job in the music field professionally.)

When my sophomore year started I joined every play, landing my first role in Alice in Wonderland as... drum role please... the frog footman! It was a totally ridiculous part but I had a blast! I painted my face green and wore a frog onesie with a fancy tailed suit.

When I got on stage the whole audience laughed and it was really nice. I have a hard time getting out of my shell and theater has helped me so much! I still have a hard time opening up to people but theater helped me get better at that.

Now I can take risks and do dumb things that I would never do before. I love the people I’m surrounded by, despite the fact I’m not very open to them, they are all such wonderful people! I have a hard time getting close to people and have never been able to say an extra curricular group is my second family but they are kinda like that. My weird cousins.

I’m kinda a loner but just seeing them happy makes me happy. Theater has helped me grow and appreciate people and gave me a place to have fun. I know no one I know will see this (and I hope not too cuz that would be awkward lmao) but I really appreciate them and am super glad I said, “Fuck it, I’m doing this.”

Username: sogsogthepleb

Burning all the money I had saved and borrowed for years. I had prepared to shoot this short film for so long. Morning of the first day of the shoot, I was super prepared. It wasn't even my first rodeo. This was going to be my 3rd film.

I had rented the locations, put up the whole set, carried trucks load of gear to location, bagged the talent, arranged catering, and on the day of the shoot, my DoP disappeared. This guy, with whom we had been planning everything together, shot by shot, all through the last 6 months, just disappeared. Didn't show up on set, wouldn't answer his phone, can't be reached by anyone...

I postponed the shoot 1 day, which costed me massive amounts of money. Tried to reach him till next morning. Nothing. Next day morning I found a new DoP but if you know how these things work, you now a last minute DoP is not gonna cut it.

Especially since the guy I bumped in was a massive ahole and I am pretty sure he intentionally sabotaged the project. Since I'd sunk in so much money, and everyone elses time as well, I pushed for the shoot. That night I watched the footage and cried.

I stayed all night on the set and watched the shit footage and cried. Until about morning. At 8 my crew would be back on set and talent by 9. I gathered my core crew around me in the morning and we drank and smoked and talked. I had to make a decision before the talent arrived.

And I did. I said "fuck it" and I cancelled the shoot. My actors had other projects scheduled, we had the location only for a limited time and I was losing money every day I kept the gear and trucks. So I couldn't just postpone it. I cancelled it.

After that I left the city and stayed at a tiny seaside shack way south, for 3 months, by myself, surviving with my parents help and questioning my life choices.

Amazing thing is, before I gave up on directing, I did return and shot that movie. Had to recast some roles and change location, obviously found a new DoP, and shot the whole thing. Turned out pretty good too. Not great but ok.

But these sorts of experiences sucked all my energy and motivation towards life. I try to keep it light from now on. No more making films either.

Username: eye_snap

When I was 21, I was visiting my family on a weekend during college. I lived in Traverse City, MI at the time, roughly 2.5 hours from home. I was about six semesters from graduating from the Great Lakes Maritime Academy at the time.

My dad had lost his battle with throat cancer about a year and a half prior, and his expectations were honestly the only thing keeping me in the program. I had been in a pretty unstable mental state since that happened.

While I was visiting home, a pretty severe lake-effect snowstorm hit Sunday evening and would have more than doubled the time it took to get back to my dorm.

The stress of dealing with my depression at the time added to the thought of driving in the dangerous conditions drove me to a breaking point. I told my mom after dinner that I wasn't going back and started balling. All she said was that she already knew and that she supported me in whatever my decision was. I'll always be incredibly grateful for that.

I know a lot of people's parents would not have reacted the same way. Since then I have been working mostly in the culinary field. I worked up from pantry station to executive chef in my first long term restaraunt job. It was a small pub about ten minutes outside of downtown Grand Rapids.

I left that job eventually because of the stress, low pay, and ridiculous hours. After that I started as, again, a pantry line cook at a much higher volume restaraunt downtown. I'm now the sous chef and have found how much I truly love this industry, despite the stress.

Since that freak decision to drop out because I didn't want to drive in a snowstorm, I have found a personal passion of mine while creating a decently respectable resume.

My mental health has been improving steadily ever since. I suppose sometimes freak decisions can make a world of difference for personal happiness.

Username: dapelak

One day I was working for Nintendo customer support. It's a phone job, so I sat there drawing most days between calls. Not to brag too much, but I am pretty dang good at drawing. My buddy a row over asks to see what I am drawing, so I hand him my notebook. A minute or two later I hear "Who drew this!?" and the cutest girl working there stands up and my buddy points to me saying I did the drawings.

Later that day, on my break this girl approaches me and asks if I can draw something for her. Of course I say yes, and ask what she wants. I love drawing horror stuff and monsters, and without pausing she says "I want a rotting zombie pin-up girl" So this girl likes horror and art, and she is waaaay out of my league.

I drew it for her that evening, and gave it to her at work the following day. She absolutely loved it. Now at work you aren't really supposed to date other coworkers, but if you're both at the same level in the company, they won't fire you for it. I had always been awkward with girls, had only asked out a couple of girls in my entire life, but even stupid ol' me could tell this girl was giving me strong signals.

So I said "Fuck it" and asked her if she wanted to hang out after work and grab a beer. I hadn't even gotten the sentence out before she blurted out "Sure!" and then blushed and apologized for cutting me off. God damn she was so beautiful (and still is, of course!) and I'll never forget the look of excitement on her face as long as I live. I'd never had a girl look at me like that before.

We've been together almost 5 years now, living together for 3, and couldn't be happier. As a fairly introverted person, there aren't many times I've thrown caution to the wind and said "Fuck it", but in this instance it paid off more than I could have imagined. She's my other half and I never realized how empty I felt until she came along.

Username: SegmentedMoss

When I lived in Germany a few years back I was a a festival called "Pig Fest" I don't remember the name of the town, but is was somewhere in the Eifel. My best friend at the time was starting to date this girl, and I was left to entertain her 3 friends(in the most legitimate way possible, they were all married). Naturally, in Germany, we have had a few drinks and have been riding a few of the carnival rides. We then decide to get on the ferris wheel.

After our first complete circle, We start to go around for round 2. I notice a Huge Semi Truck parked a few feet away from the wheel. If the wheel is a clock, its at about 4:00 - 4:30. So during this pass, I lean over the side of my ferris wheel cart thing and reach out to put my beer on the top of the semi truck.

When I reached over, My cell phone fell out of my front shirt pocket and fell on top of the semi truck. The 3 married women in the cart with me kinda looked at me with a half-smirk/ half-that sucks face.

So next go around I look over the edge of the cart, see my phone and beer on the top of a semi truck. Before I could even scream "YOLO!!" I was falling through the air and landed on top of the semi truck.

Immediately I grab my phone and my beer, and watch as what seemed to be 20 German men running at me screaming in German. I'm not sure if they were angry or concerned.

Two of them held a ladder up for me to drop onto from the top of the Semi truck. By the time I got off the truck, my friend was running over to me like I had just won a million dollars or something.

I'm normally a very introverted person, But when I saw my phone and my beer on that semi truck, despite the fact I was on a moving ferris wheel, I said to myself "FUCK IT, I'LL DO THIS".

Username: jabe1127

In my rebellious teenage days, I had an opportunity to throw one final house party at my parents house. I was going off to college the next month and figured that throwing a house party at your parents house after you're in college just didn't have the same Je ne sais quoi as when you're still a kid. **We'd decided we were going to make this one big.**

I'd invited all of my friends over and as parties go, they invited their friends. By 10pm, hoards of people were showing up to my parents house. Most of them I didn't know. I also broke the cardinal rule of throwing a house party at your own house and got drunk pretty early on in the night.

By 11pm, there were close to (100) people in and around my house. My smallish neighborhood (about 10-15 homes) had been flooded with cars (to the point that people were filling my neighbors driveways). At this point, clarity hits and panicked, I run to a group of my friends that helped me set up.

I asked them "How the hell does everyone know about this!? Who are these people?". My friends replied by opening up their phones to snapchat and instagram to show me that my address had been posted to at least 20 people's stories. I even heard someone may have posted it on craigslist.

Fuck. At this point I knew this would end terribly, so I had a choice to make. Either freak out, end the party and have the cops show up to my house OR have as much fun as possible until the cops show up to my house. I chose the later.

An hour later, cops from (4) different counties are at my house. They basically walk in the front door and start shutting everything down. That's where chaos started to ensue. Kids are fleeing, drugs were being thrown in toilets and there was even a kid that got taken down by a police dog (no, not joking). It was absolutely nuts.

The police proceeded to go through the house and round up all of the stragglers while they made me pour out every single ounce of alcohol that had been left (that took a while). By 2am, everyone was gone. My buzz had completely subsided and I was left and anxious wreck trying to assess the damages. Surprisingly, none of my mom's china had been broken and my dads prized sports car was left without out a scratch (thank god).

My parents were coming back from a vacation the next day an as punishment, the police made me call them in the middle of the night to explain the situation. I knew I was done for. The rage in my mothers voice that night shook me to my core. I ended up getting grounded for the rest of the summer and had to pay some hefty fines for underage drinking, noise violations and everything else.

Although I look back on that "fuck it decision" as an extremely immature one, I still don't regret it. It was the perfect storm and the idea that "this can never and will never happen again" made me pretty lax, even when it got out of control. After years of apologies (and growing up) we look back on that situation and laugh. Glad I did it but never again.

P.S. You can find my post-party clarity posts in r/legaladvice from about 6 years ago entitled "HOUSE PARTY GONE WRONG". Pretty funny stuff.

Username: SupremeD1

My friends and I were in Osaka, Japan, and for some reason, we decided that it'd be fun to try to jump on top of a marble sphere. It was in front of the train station at about 11:30pm - we'd had a long day running around and were about to go back to our hostel, but wanted to try doing this first.

After spending like an hour there, we made our way over to the station entrance and were suddenly reminded that trains don't run 24/7. A station officer was closing the entrance already and we were basically terrified because if we missed our last train we had a good two hour walk to look forward to.

So we sprinted back outside, up the not running escalators because it was THAT late already, and to the second floor entrance that was thankfully still open. When we got inside we started sprinting towards where the trains were running, and after seeing only three business men going in the opposite direction of us, the fourth one told us in broken English that the last train had already left.

We thanked him and kind of just stopped like - what do we do now? So we slowly made our way back to the front of the station hoping to exit the same way we got in so we could get out and orient ourselves at the very least.

Guess what - train station officer is now at the second floor entrance too, closing things up there too! We embarrassedly spin away from him desperately hoping mans wouldn't hunt us down and kick us out for some reason, but we have no idea what the layout of the station is or anything.

We're like resigning ourselves to sleeping in an empty train station (which isn't too bad tbh at least when you're in Japan) when I find this doorway to these apartment complexes and we dash outside. Lucky for us, it doesn't actually lead to the road. It's like a little courtyard with paths leading to two condos.

And obviously when we go into each condo there's a small security foyer that we still can't get through. So we're still stuck. That is, until we see this fence. See the fence was just two shoulder widths wide really, and just as tall as my chin.

And from the alleyway beyond the gate, we could see the main road. So my friends and I, we turned to look at each other. And the very conspicuous security camera mounted at one corner of this little courtyard, pointed straight at us.

I bowed to the camera, threw my backpack over the gate and jumped it. My friends followed one by one and the last friend to leap the gate kept saying 'oh my god we're gonna get caught by the police we're gonna get taken away to Interpol' but we just kept running and didn't look back.

This is probably still pretty tame compared to the rest of these but thought I'd still share

Username: ZephLair

I've been an event videographer for just shy of 9 years. I've worked my full-time job as an IT Manager the entire time. I'm fairly accomplished having shot many indies and done production work for prime-time ABC shows. With that said, the work is sporadic and I always kept that as a weekend job. The majority of my work is weddings.

Long story short, I worked for another company for a friend (weddings) and after working with him for so long he knew how unhappy I was with a 9-5 and said it was time I went off on my own. I'm certainly good at what I do but I was hesitant to leave him as it felt like I was betraying him and also, it was a fear of the unknown.

Fast forward to 8 months later, 35 weddings on the books for this year and I have replaced my salary at my primary job. I pick up random commercial work some weeks which is nice and that is a focus for the future but weddings are something I enjoy. Weddings usually net a high turn over. Most don't last for 3 years doing weddings before getting burnt out. I've done it for almost 9 years. I do enjoy the stress but I can see how it is sometimes overwhelming to most. At the same time, it's exciting every weekend.

As for my IT job, I tried to quit in a way. I pitched that I will work remotely and basically asked for a hourly rate-raise but decreased my hours. They went for it somehow, so now I work from home providing IT support remotely while editing. And editing is my life at this point, I usually put in 10 hour days and won't catch up anytime soon but I wake up, grab coffee and I'm at work.

I should have done this earlier, but I did it the correct way. I didn't burn bridges and this industry is certainly about helping others and hopefully them repaying the favor.

It's easy to say take the risk and just go for it especially when you did and it worked but honestly, if you can take the risk and probably won't live in a cardboard box, it could certainly be worth it. The risk is what keeps others away and also makes that endeavor worthwhile.

Things that are tough are usually what pay off in the end. Everyone else takes the easy road and perhaps they do well, but you can just about always do better by taking a harder path.

Username: Kjarahz

My freshmen year in high school, it was spirit week. Every year, the gals in each class participate in Powderpuff Football, which is basically football with no flags. Me and my friends (dudes one and all) decided it would be funny to sign up to be the Powderpuff cheerleaders for the Freshman/Sophomore team. Thing is, last minute, all my buddies ditched, leaving me the only freshmen cheerleader.

So, it's about this time that I learned that being a male cheerleader doesn't just entail standing on the sidelines and cheering. Turns out, the school expects the cheerleaders to come up with their own dance routine. Being the only cheerleader, I quickly begged my gal pal to help me come up with a dance routine, of which I only learned half.

Upon arriving to the game, they handed us flyers with names of all the people participating in Powderpuff that year. Hell, they even put the cheerleader's name on their. Note: cheerleader's, not cheerleaders'. Apparently I hadn't got the memo that no one actually performed on the guys' side of Powderpuff anymore. So, listed after all the athletes in big, bold letters were "Cheerleader - [My Name]."

When halftime came, I put on my big-boy pants (which were short, black shorts) and danced my ass off, improvising over half of the routine. It went fucking swell. Naturally, you got the douches who threw (verbal) shit my direction, but the feedback was mostly positive, "Dude, that took balls," sort of schtuff.

Username: hufreema

Was going to a concert with my buddies in a taxi cab, saw 4 cute girls in a car next to us blasting music, they rolled the windows down and started yelling the lyrics at us. We all had the same "dude" reaction, and started to smile.

We opened the door and introduced ourselves, but the car drove off with the green light. We were in the process of writing down numbers, and we were dissapointed to see the young ladies drive off.

When we came to the next light we saw their car about 10 cars down, and we all had our numbers. One of my friends commented,"dude, we should totally just run up there with our numbers." followed by a bunch of "yeah"-s. So I said "fuck it give me those scraps of paper" and jumped out the door.

I ran down the street in my navy working uniform (it was a concert on a nearby base and we didn't have our civvies yet as we'd just got out of boot), ran up to the driver's side of the car

Awkwardly threw the scraps of paper at the beautiful blonde in the driver's seat and yelled "call us" over the music. light turned green and i ran back to the taxi before they could say anything. They never called. To this day my friends still blame my inherent awkwardness for their singleness.

Username: [deleted]

My wife had serious complications in the 37th week of her pregnancy with our first born child. We spent a week in the hospital with her getting monitored and eventually induced. Induction took several days.

Finally the baby came, and when she did, she had to go straight to the newborn intensive care unit due to complications with the medication why wife had needed to take to handle her complications. When the doctors took our daughter, my wife yelled “go with her” to me and I followed them out.

I spent the next hour or so watching the nurses and doctors handle and monitor my newborn daughter. They were doing so many different things and explaining things to me that I totally lost track of time. I did not realize how much time had passed, which did not trigger me to wonder why my wife had not been brought to the room yet.

It turned out the doctors had been running constant tests on my wife. We found out days later that some of the tests had detected a serious issue with her heart. However, at the time, the doctors were not explaining to her, or us, when I got back to the room, exactly what was going on.

Eventually, they moved my wife out of the maternity ward to the intensive care unit. They wouldn’t even allow her to stop at the newborn unit to see our daughter (who she had barely seen at this point). Again my wife insisted that I stay with our daughter as they carted her off.

I was reeling. Everything seemed to had happened so fast, though it had been several hours. My wife and I have both lived very sheltered lives, free of serious trauma or tragedy.

The fact that the doctors were not explaining to us completely what was going on left me absolutely terrified. All I knew was that it was serious, it had something to do with her heart, they needed her in ICU, they needed me out of the way, and she wanted me with our daughter.

I went back to the newborn unit, where my daughter was hooked up to an IV and laying under what I can only describe as looking like a food warming lamp that you’d see at a restaurant. As confused and scared as I was about what was going on with my wife, I was equally shocked and afraid about the suddenly real responsibility of fatherhood.

I had been afraid of this responsibility for the entire pregnancy. I had read books, talked extensively to friends and family, taken pages of notes in classes, but I still felt totally unprepared to be a person’s father. I had never changed a diaper. I had only even held a baby two times.

As I looked down at my little daughter, born just over a month early, under five pounds, I still felt completely unprepared. She started to cry, and one of the nurses came in and said “she needs her diaper changed, do you want to do it?”. I was frozen in place, stunned by the idea that I would be allowed to even touch this fragile little person, let alone pick her up and do actual things to care for her.

The moment suddenly felt enormous. I had no idea what was going on with my wife, the doctors had left me so scared and confused that the possibility that I would be a single father, in that moment, felt very real. My tiny, helpless daughter lay before me, with potentially no one but me to be there for her.

I clearly saw two paths before me. I could continue to be timid and watch other people handle my daughter’s needs, or I could just do it. The nurse was looking at me awkwardly and starting to turn toward my daughter to start changing the diaper. I blurted out “I’ll do it.”

And I did. I just did it. And then she needed to be fed, so I just did that too, and some of the fear and anxiety started to melt away.

The feeling that I had was that if the worst would happen, and it would end up just being the two of us, I was going to do it. I was going to take care of this little person and make sure she had everything she needed. Whatever happened I was going not going to let her down.

Thankfully, the worst did not happen. My wife was finally able to join us around 36 hours after our daughter’s birth. We never got a good explanation about what happened out of the hospital.

We saw several different medical documents later, some of which had the words “heart failure” on them, but we never really understood fully what the issues were. The most the doctors and nurses would ever tell my wife was “you were very sick.”

It would take months of time with our daughter and therapy for my wife to get over being kept separate from us for all that time. I can’t really put into words, nor do I probably even fully understand what that separation did to her emotionally, but we have been getting through it.

Our daughter is now two and a half, and every new step that has come along the way, I have jumped in head first. Every new milestone, I have just done it. Not a day goes by that I don’t think about that moment when I had to decide what kind of father I was going to be. I hope that I’m doing it right, but I’m not going to waste time being afraid that I’m not.

Username: WackyForeigner

From the ages 13-18, I was sent to a religious military bootcamp. That in itself is a long story so just know it's what it sounds like. Anyway, my last year they had this fear conquering challenge.

Basically there were ten telephone poles with plastic rings above them hanging by hooks. All the poles were varying distances away from the center telephone pole which the boots (the name for the kids attending) would climb up on.

The rings would allow the boots to have extra time in the chow hall. The closest ring would give an extra 5 minutes, the farthest one would give an extra 30 minutes, with varying rings at varying distances, the further the ring, the more time we'd get. Cool? Cool.

Someone from our platoon needed to do the challenge but no one wanted to. My D.I. volunteered me. He hated me because he thought his daughter liked me (she was a lesbian and she knew I was one of the only teens her age that didn't care because I was going to leave the church so we were pretty close) and he knew I was *terrified* of heights. I think his end goal was hoping I'd freak out or pass out and his daughter would see I wasn't "a real man" or something, idk.

Anyway, I was shaking like a leaf, and the rest of the platoon snickering at me didn't help. I climbed the pole, and, shaking so bad the entire pole felt like a earthquake, jumped for the closest pole. Much to my surprise (even though it was like 2 feet away in all honesty) I landed safely, grabbed the ring, turned and jumped back.
I am 6'4. This is important because I have long legs. I'm guessing because of my fear of heights, the distance seemed like a far bigger chasm than it was.

When I jumped back, I missed the center pole I climbed up on by a country mile. I went past and collided with another pole. Gripping the pole with an iron clasp, I slowly edged my way up on it. By now I was pale, shaking, and most likely, crying a little. However, above me, a 10 minute ring hung. Why not?

I took that one as well. As far as I knew, there were no rules against taking more than one ring. The platoon below me cheered like an army. They had never even talked to me, much less cheered for me. I felt amazing, no one had ever, *ever* cheered for me before.

So now I had 2 options. I could take the two rings, give my platoon an extra 15 minutes at chow, or I could leap wildly at the other poles, hoping my upper body would collide with it, and see how many poles I could collect.

Fuck it. So that's what I did. Hook the rings on my harness, leap at the nearest pole, doing everything in my power to not close my eyes, and scramble up the pole like drowning drowning raccoon. I was able to get 5 other rings before I hit my head on a pole and was lowered to the ground.

Once my feet were on the ground, I honestly don't remember anything after that. I had been told I collapsed on the ground, threw up more than my weight in white bread and fruit, and wouldn't move for 3 minutes.

There was a debate amongst the D.I.s whether or not I cheated, but they finally decided that since I "conquered my fear" and it was the last day, to let all the extra time stack. In the end, we had an extra 55 minutes added to the standard 15 minute lunch.

That was my last year there, THANK FUCKING GOD. Did I defeat my fear of heights once and for all? I don't know, and I'm not going to find out. So probably not.

Edit: I kinda realized it sounded like they sent me up with no equipment and expected me to jump around like a crackhead hallucinating he's spiderman, but that's not the case. We had harnesses attached to elastic ropes and helmets. We were safe, relatively speaking.

Username: NLY96

Was in Amsterdam 3 days ago as part of my Eurotrip. Am traveling with my mom again and we had spent an entire day at the Van Gogh Museum and Rijksmuseum since we’re both a huge Van Gogh fan and have a Rembrandt replica of the Night Watch. Last time I was in Amsterdam was 11 years ago which would make me 14.

Well after spending the whole day in museums and making my mom happy I said fuck it I’m gonna ask if she wants to try a coffee shop with me this time since I’m not, you know, 14. To my surprise she said yes and we bought ourselves 2 joints.

She surprisingly had about half and I smoked all of mine. We ended up in an Indonesian restaurant which was phenomenal and then we went back to the hotel. She knocked out and that’s when my mind started racing.

We hadn’t gone to the red light district this time because my mom doesn’t care for it and last time, 11 years ago, she had taken a picture of me in an alleyway full of red windows and out of nowhere came a random Rasta man saying “no no no mamacita. If pimp sees you, you gonna be in big trouble.

Best you put that camera away,” which sketched the hell out of my mom. It was the last night we’d be in Amsterdam before heading to Paris. So here I am at 1am in the dark hotel room with my mom knocked out in the other bed next to mine, wondering if I should sneak out and go find the red light district for an experience I may never have if I choose not to that night. Well again I said fuck it! Got up quickly changed into warmer clothes since it was 39 degrees Fahrenheit and took off on my journey.

To my convenience there are 3 different red light districts and one happened to be at a 15 minute walk away from the hotel. 2 cigarettes later I was in front of the windows browsing haha. Well I ended up seeing one of the most beautiful Romanian women ever with big breasts that were real and I was in deep enough so I said fuck it I’m gonna get laid in Amsterdam!

15 minutes later my time was up and the prostitute was amazed that I hadn’t finished and said she couldn’t feel her vagina anymore. I had noticed she had a Romanian friend equally as gorgeous occupying the other red lit window in the building and asked for a threesome which they call a trio.

This would be the first threesome experience I’ve ever had (hopefully not the last). 15 minutes later I had finished and ascended into another stage of my adult life.

2 more cigarettes down and another 15 minutes later I was back in my bed smelling of cigarettes and cheap sex mixed with the heavenly fragrances that the Romanian women wore to entice you into entering their red lit rooms.

Does my mom know? No clue. Not a word was said. We woke up the next day (couple of hour later for me) and went about our day. That was my most recent major fuck it moment.

Username: petersonspants

Jumping out of a plane. Not as dramatic as the others, I wasn't completely freaking out I somehow managed to hit a stage (either by sheer shock or repression) where I just thought "well, I'm on the plane now, if this doesn't work at least I'm going out in style".

Jt was a tandem dive in a group, and my experienced tandem instructor noticed the guys up first by the plane's door weren't in our group but they seemed to know each other. Asked them what was up. One of the guys said "imma do a backflip coming out".

My guy comments "I think we're gonna try that too." I'm second up in our tandem group, and it sounds like that comment made the first tandem ahead of me even more nervous, but I'm already in "fuck it, let's have some fun mode".

Did the butt scoot towards the door, flopped out of the plane, and I couldn't even tell ya if we actually did the backflip or not (my instructor later confirmed he did in fact flip us around backwards :P). It's crazy going out of a plane for the first time.

You feel an absolute insane amount of acceleration for....3 seconds. After that you hit terminal velocity (at up to 180 mph though), and you don't feel anything at that point. You're so high up that you can see the ground, but it's coming at you so slowly that you can't really tell you're falling.

I screamed into the abyss for a second since I thought that was the thing to do, then just shut my mouth since it felt a lot cooler than I thought being that free in the open sky.

Also a lot more comfortable without air rushing into your mouth at 180mph. Couple of seconds later the chute pulled, we flew around for a bit, and before I knew it we were back on the ground.

Username: Azaex

Had that moment just now. I'm an ENT-resident and I just had my first emergency tracheotomy. For people not knowing what that is, it's a direct opening of the trachea in a patient suddenly unable to breath (choking).

We have this 52 year old patient undergoing radiation therapy for tumors in both tonsils. We've been observing him for the past few days due to increasingly difficulty in his breathing.

He has refused a tracheostomy for the past few days, even though we've been advicing him to accept it and get it over with. It was inevitable.

Well, exactly 2 hours ago I got a call from the nurse telling me that he's not responding, his saturation dropped to 60, and is now currently 85 with 14L of pure oxygen. Not good.

I get on site and tell the patient that it's of no use to refuse it anymore; either he accepts the tracheostomy now or he chokes to death during the night. He finally accepts, so I start making the necessary arrangements, getting him to theatre and so on, when his saturation drops to 60 again.

We can't get him back up to 85, so I think to myself 'okay, here we fucking go'. I cut his neck open over the windpipe, I place a tube inside it and we can finally get him to breath again.

This is special, since we almost never do that. It's normally always done the conventional way in theatre, but on rare occations we simply have to make a quick decision on the spot. Still shaking. Patient survived and just had the tracheostomy replaced to conventional, anatomical location.

Username: Foorku

While in college, I bought a van and lived in a parking lot on campus. Slowly, my friends found out what I was doing and one of my coworkers offered to let me park it in their driveway. Starting out, I didn't know where the F I was going to park it, but I bought the van anyway, and didn't sign a lease on an apartment.

I lived in it for a year and even had the opportunity to use the van as an office as I worked for my mentors startup. 3 years ago, while I was still working for my mentor, I dropped out of college to start a robotics company with the mission of dropping the marginal cost of food & shelter to 0$ and establish a global & decentralized universal basic income.

I continued doing freelance work until last month at which point I quit fully and said I am not getting another job. I am going all in on the robotics. I now have <1 month to make my company profitable before I run out of all rent & food money. I actually think I can pull it off, although there have been several "OH SHIT WTF AM I DOING?!" moments.

I like to think that an alien species is watching over us humans, waiting for us to get our act together and that if only we could establish a UBI, start caring for the poor, get rid of war, and realize our potential to occupy our solar system, that the aliens would establish contact with us and invite us to the space party they are having.

At any rate, even if the aliens don't exist, it still is in the best interest of humans to establish a UBI and that is what drives me. Anyway, I have a half finished robot sitting in front of me as I type so I am going back to work!

Username: SlightlyCyborg

I'm about to do it. I'm going back to grad school for my MFA in creative writing, hopefully to a PhD in either creative writing or English. This year, I hope to work on a novel maybe get it published, maybe not.

I graduated from college with two degrees, one I loved, creative writing, one I found super boring but better possibilities for work, communications. Had a job in advertising/media, found it boring and they were eliminating my position.

Met a guy, super cute, smart, funny, getting his PhD, loved what he was doing. We decided to be friends, more his choice than mine. Went through major depressive period, first one I've ever encountered. That was Feb; I had just graduated, so I also attributed part of it to that.

I've always thought about going back to school, I just wasn't sure for what, and I wasn't sure if I actually wanted to go back. But, the job I had gave me the opportunity to teach and mentor the interns, loved it. I love writing absolutely. And I love being in school. Decided, fuck it, and try to go back.

I take my GRE in two weeks, have four great letters of recommendation, a professor who is willing to look over my statements of purpose and my writing samples, and I am feeling better than I have in about six months.

Got a pretty nice job for the interim, good pay, easy work, dreadfully boring. They don't know I'm leaving next year. But I'm going to pay off my car. Wish me luck.

Username: DwarvenAxes

I worked a dead-end job I didn't enjoy for the past 10 years. It was once a passion but the low pay made me feel unappreciated and I no longer looked forward to going in to work. It was a family business and being the only non-family employee, I saw the other family members being able to take extra time off whenever they wanted, leave early, come in late and I grew to resent that unfairness.

I started looking into other careers and came upon an askreddit post, "what is a great career path that college students aren't aware of?" Someone posted a comment about licensed customs brokers. I learned there's no education or experience requirement. You just have to be 21, a good citizen and be able to pass the license exam.

That sounded great to me until I found out the license exam has a passing rate of around 10%. But the more I researched the job, the more intrigued I became and decided, "fuck it, I'm going to start studying for this!" I studied harder than I've ever studied and at 35, I was worried my brain wasn't as sharp as it was when I was younger but I passed!

I'll be starting my new job this Monday and for the first time in a long time, I'm looking forward to going into work! I'm nervous starting over in an industry I have no experience in but I'm also excited and optimistic. The pay is an entry level salary and a little less than what I was making after 10 years of working at my previous job but there's a lot more potential for me to make more in the future.

Username: MrMeeeseeks