What was your greatest epiphany?

[Ally]

Mine occurred in my freshman year in college. I realized that not only was I an introvert, but that I really don’t care if some people don’t like me. I like having a few really good friends, and I stopped feeling like I had to please everyone. That really decreased my anxiety.

My mom was a real people pleaser to the expense of her peace of mind. She always talked about what we “should” do socially, even if I didn’t want to. It was freeing to not have to go to a social event just to please someone I really didn’t care for much anyway.

 

[Yoheadden]

Little did I realize it at the time, I had an epiphany that set me on the road to FIRE.
Just because I had some money, I didn’t have to spend it.
Prior to this, If I had had money in my pocket, it was pretty much getting spent.

 

[scottpush]

I was just reading the thread on what are introvert hobbies and it reminded me about how I learned I didn't actually hate people, I was just an introvert.

I remember when I was in my late 20s and read an article that described an introvert vs an extrovert.
An introvert = a person that recharges themselves by spending time alone
an extrovert = a person that recharges themselves by spending time around other people.
Nothing more, nothing less.

This to me was a life game changer. I always wondered why I couldn't be around people even good friends for too long. I always thought there was something wrong with me.

What was your greatest epiphany?

Same! And it was a huge relief. I too, thought something was wrong with me. Spent a large portion of my life trying to change who I was. Not any more. I'm OK despite what a lot of society says we should be.

 

[KarenF]

I didn't know I'd fall in love with our first grandchild from the get go. Babies are not my favorite stage. At 7 months, he's got me. I could just hold or watch him play 24/7.
I think I fell in love with our own two children around age two. Working FT and raising babies is not for the weak.

Perhaps it is because I don't actually have 24-7 responsibility for grand.

I agree with you. I did not "not love" my kids but I did not feel like I do with the grandbabies. With my kids I was desperately sleep deprived and trying my best to survive - took 6 weeks off when each was born because that is what we did. I actually have no idea how I actually did that. I don't remember a lot of my younger son's first year of life (I had 2 under two). With the grandbabies I like changing poopy diapers lol.

 

[OfficerFriendly]

I was about 27 or so when I realized my parents were right...about everything.

 

[Montclairbobbyb]

TIME is the most precious commodity... IF you can FINANCE a lifestyle where you can SPEND TIME doing things that bring you joy, that (to me) is the meaning of success. The MOST fulfilling part is eliminating things that can really do without, and instead focus on things that ARE important. It's easier to finance this lifestyle.

 

[emkute]

In my early 20s, I learned about my personal limitations as a peace corps volunteer in Korea
In my 50s, I felt the miracle of compound interest. The first $400k was tough. The next million was a lot easier.
More recently, I learned how useless a lifetime warranty really is.

 

[scrabbler1]

What I learned while I was in my 20s, in my college years and shortly thereafter, was that being an outlier was a good thing, unlike in my childhood when I was teased, if not bullied, for acting or being "different" from most everyone else. Living in Greenwich Village (at NYU) for years, I realized those kids back in high school didn't know the meaning of "different" the way I did.

Being an outlier is a big reason I was able to retire 13 years ago at age 45 and join this community a year later.

 

[Sand101]

I was about that age when I stuck a fork in the wall socket and my face lit up

Just kidding

I did that with stamp tweezers. They fit perfect. Let's just say the parental units were not happy with that one.

 

[troutnut1]

As part of a personal housecleaning and inventory in 1998 (after giving up alcohol), it occurred to me that I could have made far better decisions in my life up to that point by simply flipping a coin. In hindsight, I hadn’t been right even 50% of the time. And that most of the things I had though horrible turned out to be great, and most of the things I thought great turned out horrible (or at least unimportant). It became clear to me that I had not been a very good manager of my life from 0-45 years of age. I wasn’t as smart as I thought I was.

Things have been much better since that discovery and changes that were made as a result.

 

[troutnut1]

When I was in grade school, among the first poems I read and had to memorize was "If" by Rudyard Kipling. That poem, particularly the first stanza, came back to me as a young adult and was another epiphany.

We must have had the same teacher. I thought it a waste of time memorizing that poem, but I needed it desperately 45 years later!

 

[PointBreeze]

Not a smack to the head, but realized when around college age I can only control my reaction to things, not necessarily control things themselves.

+1

You cannot control the cards you are dealt, but you do control how you play those cards.

Life changer.

 

[Car-Guy]

+1

You cannot control the cards you are dealt, but you do control how you play those cards.

Life changer.

In my experaince, those are absolutely critical facts to understand, especially when playing Blackjack and Poker.

 

[street]

+1

You cannot control the cards you are dealt, but you do control how you play those cards.

Life changer.

Very true!

 

[WWDog]

I was in grad school. Working on my Masters of Electronic Warfare Systems Engineering taking a class in antennas which involved solving partial differential equations. The professor was from Taiwon and spoke very poor english. Nobody in the class could understand a single word he said. We only had one test. The final which consisted of one take home problem as the problems took a very long time to solve. It had a lot of trigonometric functions in it which compounded the difficulty. I sat there for at least an hour at home trying to weed through all the trig functions to whittle it down to something manageable so I could move on to solving the problem. Then it dawned on me to use Euler's identity to convert all the trig functions into imaginary exponentials. That made the operand enormous covering three pages of figures in imaginary exponentials. After about two hours of very careful work combining the imaginary exponentials I was able to reduce the equation to a single line and then do the necessary integration from negative infinity to positive infinity in imaginary numbers with the help of tables of integrals from the CRC tables. Then convert to imaginary numbers to real numbers and solve the problem. It took me about five hours to do the problem and 12 pages of calculations. Got an A for the course.

 

[Sometime Soon]

About two months ago I realized that life is easier if you choose to be optimistic.

 

[Car-Guy]

Person X works very hard and earns $30,000 a year. Person Y hardly works at all, and earns $250,000 a year. I'm not saying that's morally wrong, just saying that as a youth, I assumed the harder you worked, the more $$$ you earned.

Often true... I was clearly in the Y class most of my professional career. The last few years on the job my annual compensation was well over 250k and that was ten years ago. Seems the older I got, the less I did and the more I made. Recently I had a new roof put on my house.... I don't know what those roofers made per day, but wasn't near enough.

 

[Music Lover]

I was clearly in the Y class most of my professional career. The last few years my annual compensation was well over 250k and that was ten years ago. Seems the older I got, the less I did and the more I made. Recently I had a new roof put on my house.... I don't know what those roofers made per day, but wasn't near enough.

Roofers can make very good money. I shingled my house and garage in 2020 mostly myself and saved at least $4000 in labour.

 

[Car-Guy]

Roofers can make very good money. I shingled my house and garage in 2020 mostly myself and saved at least $4000 in labour.

Yep, I figured the labor was about 4k to do my house too... However they were eight of them working as contractors for the company that did the work... I'm sure the company took a good bit of that 4k (at least half or maybe even more) I once did my roof by myself, years ago... Never again...

 

[easysurfer]

That our existence may be like on the holodeck on Star Trek The Next Generation.

Our lives may just a dream by Bob Newhart.

 

[John Galt III]

When noting other folks around me at work making lots of money for little effort, I decided I would allow myself to stop feeling resentful, and embrace the idea that 'if you can't beat 'em, join 'em" and started to look for easy jobs with high pay. I guess I was late 'getting with the program'. Having an easy job with high pay that was also fulfilling was icing on the cake.

 

[scrabbler1]

There is a joke from an old Seinfeld episode which has described my life since I ERed 13 years ago. It was the Season 4 episode "The Junior Mint" which aired back in March of 1993 (emphasis mine):

George has learned that a bank account he had as a kid and had forgotten about has increased in value, thanks to compound interest, to $1,900.

George: Yeah, interest. It's an amazing thing. You make money without doing anything.

Jerry: You know, I have friends who try to base their whole life on that principle.

George: Really? Who?

Jerry: Nobody you know. (he makes a funny face, out of George's view)

 

[Sue J]

I remember when I was in my late 20s and read an article that described an introvert vs an extrovert.
An introvert = a person that recharges themselves by spending time alone
an extrovert = a person that recharges themselves by spending time around other people.
Nothing more, nothing less.

Yes, that hits the nail on the head!

I am very comfortable being an introvert. My extrovert sister thought there was something wrong with me because I wasn't like her and she'd try to fix me. As we have gotten older she respects me and my differences.

My epiphany came around age 30 when I realized I didn't have to care about what other people think. My close family is very important to me and I care about them but beyond that circle I just don't let what other people think impact me.

Also, in this age of social media being everywhere, I realize I am a private person. I don't post places where my name is public on the internet. I know somewhere, somehow everything is being tracked and marketed so I can only control so much. It's ok that for me, I don't have to be public (Facebook, Instgram, Twitter, etc.) about where I go, what I ate and what I did.

 

[fruitful]

The Rule of 55. I was unaware that under certain conditions I could make withdrawals from my 401K beginning at age 55 without incurring the 10% early withdrawal penalty. I was 51 when I discovered this information. It solidified my ER plans. Thanks to the Fidelity person who chatted with me when I settled my mom’s account with them.

 

[WWDog]

Summer living on a farm that we rented the house in Kansas. I was the youngest of three boys. Middle brother got bored and decided he wanted to play stratego. I didn't want to play. My brother hounded me for several hours to play the game. I finally said OK. We set up the board and my brother had the first move. For my first move I told my brother that I couldn't move and lost the game since I couldn't make a move. I put all my mines across the front which are stationary and can't move. So I lost the game on the first move. My brother didn't bug me to play a game ever again.