Turning Points

Turning points occur in every person's life at some stage, and they can be for the better or for the worse, but invariably they are brought about by an intense incident; something that shapes you as a person by causing you either drastically change your behavior or your outlook on life. And usually these things have lasting repercussions which ripple throughout your life as well as the lives around you.

In my own life, I can say that there have been many turning points, most of them directly related to my depression. An example being when I was in Matric and I realised that I had no idea of what I wanted to do the following year; I immediately lost interest in working for anything because I felt I had nothing to work for. As a result I got bad marks, which got me down, which gave me even less motivation, so I worked even less, which got me down etc. It's a negative cycle which can, and often does in my case, bring about serious depression on either a physiological or physiological level.

But the turning points that usually have more powerful and lasting repercussions are those that endanger a person's life and make you rethink your behavior. When I was in 1st year university I was giving my friends a lift in one morning and we were running late. I had a math [my favorite subject at uni] test that morning and so I was driving fairly aggressively. I hadn't done anything crazy or reckless, but I was aggressive. A man did something stupid and smashed into the front of my car. That was a turning point for me.

He was the only one to blame because he didn't indicate or follow the rules of the road, which I was following, but I was being aggressive and I can't help but think that if I hadn't been so eager to go I would have been able to avoid disaster. But the thing that really made me rethink my driving was the fact that I had people in the car with me, who could have been injured. It wasn't my fault, and no one was injured, but had someone died I would never have been able to forgive myself.

These events change who you are as a person, and I'm happy to say that I am a much more responsible driver. Sure I can drive fast, and I can race, but I only do it when I am sure the odds are in my favor, and when it feels right. Not only have I had racing training, but I have learned to trust my gut instinct, and this has helped me immensely as a person as well as a driver.

Last night something terrible happened. It wasn't my fault, in fact it had almost nothing to do with me, and the truth is that the consequences of this particular event don't really change or affect my life, but they change my friend(s) outlook on drinking and how to do it responsibly and that then has a direct effect on me.

This was a terrible thing to happen [I don't have permission to say anything so I won't, but suffice to say it isn't something that anyone would have wanted] but on some level I'm glad it happened. For a while now I've been concerned that my friends were drinking irresponsibly, and were adopting a destructive attitude and all I can say is that I hope this changes things. No one is dead, but a lesson has been put across and we can choose to learn from it or to just let it slip by. Let's make the right decision.