What was your "Wake-Up" Call in life?
If you had one...
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still waiting for it
False allegations brought upon me by my psycho ex-girlfriend. Everything worked itself out but forced me to change schools, priorities, etc. Looking back it is one of the best things that ever happened to me. I don't really believe that "everything happens for a reason," but there are definitely moments in life that seem pretty shitty that with a little testicular fortitude you can make the best of.
Parents found out I did cocaine, weed, and other drugs Never felt so much shame and embarassment in my life, it was a good wake up call.
I've always wondered what George W's was. After going to Yale then HBS and his dad buying him a baseball team, all of the sudden he quits drinking at 40? I think he screwed a tranny at his birthday party, woke up and thought fuck, I gotta give this up. I call it a "fucking the tranny moment" rather than a wake up call.
I apologize - tried to SB off of iPad and somehow clicked MS. Gave a second SB but can't remove the MS.
How much weight I gained from spending three years of my life after college doing nothing but drinking/partying, eating out and playing video games, and how I had nothing to show for it.
Enlightenment: The desire to live life to the fullest. In a nutshell: "But feeling good and enjoying life are prerequisites to success, not by products of it" (Requoted from go.with.the.flow)- Midas Mulligan Magoo
Failed first year of college (drugs, booze, shenanigans, etc.), switched schools, but no wake-up call. Spent my first year at the new school doing jack shit, and coasted with a B. Still no wake-up call. Then half-way through my second year I took part in a trading competition at school, just for the hell of it. Best decision of my life. Literally fell in love and became obsessed with the entire world of finance. As I started to do more research about careers in finance, I came across resources like WSO and M&I, and quickly realized how much harder I needed to work if I wanted to break into the industry. At that point, I had two choices: either I say "fuck it" and find something else, or I put my head down, nose to the grindstone, and work my ass off. It didn't take me long to come to the conclusion that if I was working a back-office job making $150k at the age of 40, I'd shoot myself just to bring an end to the monotony. So, I went with the latter - it's been two years, and I haven't looked back since.
When I masturbated three times in one day.
Shameful. My highest is 8/day
I don't leave the house until I hit mid-teens.
Sounds like a typical Wednesday.
You gotta pump up those numbers - those are rookie numbers.
hahahahaha
That's called Tuesday
when i banged a sloot without protection and got her pregnant
delete
you don't need one. you have it every day – time doesn't fly, it just disappears.
Almost dying in Guatemala, life's short y'all. Don't waste time, enjoy your family and friends, and go out and take what you want from life!
Getting dumped by my SO of 6 six years, suddenly realising there is a great big world out there and the sad fact that I have absolutely nothing to show for my 23 years of fucking existence.
Wrote this for an assignment while still in college:
While I was abroad last semester, I had the pleasure of spending a week in Paris with several friends. One day we decided to make a trip up to Normandy to see the American cemetery at Omaha Beach, where the majority of Allied forces landed on D-Day. What I didn’t realize was just how profound an experience it would be walking through the rows of crosses and down on the actual beach.
Here lay 4,000 kids 18 and 19 years of age, from every religion and walk of life, who just so happened, as it were, to draw the generational short straw but instead said “fuck it, let’s roll.” An obelisk monument bears witness to this: 550 Rangers bears tasked with erecting ladders tall enough to allow infantrymen a chance at neutralizing the myriad turrets dotting the embankment… contemporary accounts recall soldiers shielding those behind them with their bodies as bullets rained down on them, and when one was killed, the other right behind him threw his body off the embankment and took his place securing ropes. I walked down on the beach, and sure enough the first scene of Saving Private Ryan materialized around me as I imagined the hell that had played out on June 6. Any soldier on the U-boats who made it to shore had over 250 paces (I counted) to run before he reached any sort of cover. To be sure, we Americans have a distinct stereotype around the world, but this small plot of land on the shores of the English Channel prove we will always be viewed with a tinge of awe and wonder at the net positive effect we’ve had on this world, for “if ever there were proof we fought for a cause and not for conquest, it could be found in these cemeteries: all we asked… was enough soil in which to bury our gallant dead.”
My roommates told me two years ago their finance professor started an intro course by asking the class what they thought was the most important word in finance. The answer, to which no one came close: “time.” Time and any chance at opportunity in this world were never given to these men, but they gave us a world order conducive to globalization, US dollar hegemony, and a privileged position in the world of finance. May we never forget that we stand on the shoulders of giants.
So for all of us enjoying our last semester before graduating to “analyst” or whatever your life calling might be, that’s a lesson more important than any learned in the classroom or on the job: (as a high school classmate of mine wrote in the Yale Daily News) “that long after we’ve forgotten most of what we learned at college, we’ll remember the people with whom we spent ‘the shortest, gladdest years of life’; that time passed with friends is never wasted time; that these years are only really successful if enjoyed.”
I ended up writing this in response to Sam Polk’s op-ed in the NYT. Looking back on that trip and on my abroad experience, I can’t help but appreciate what a massive privilege we all have to travel, more or less fool around in college for four years, and ride the tails of cumulative advantage to the helms of business and statecraft. I think we all owe it to posterity and to the men interred on that hallowed ground to make of our lives—our immensely privileged lives—something maybe a little greater and worthy of their sacrifice than just solely “for the love of money.”
When I got a 2.7 GPA after my first semester at a new school. That shit almost ended me.
I was tired of being the 'cookie-cutter' type. Went into my old job everyday and felt I wasn't learning much. Left Finance and now working in a completely different industry. Making better money than I was in Banking and happier too.
What'd you go into? Also contemplating leaving but I'm pretty sure I know what area I want to go, just curious
I know this sounds lame but I definitely started taking things quite more seriously in school after a random talk with my father. I became overconfident after some achievements I earned (gave me false thoughts about reality), so I was thinking I don't need a degree to be successful seeing all these romantic stories about dropouts and entrepreneurs. Only during this conversation my father he mentioned well yeah, but you never hear about those who didn't make it, and those are the majority (this argument somehow never came in to my mind before that).
This is relevant;
https://warosu.org/data/lit/img/0048/63/1399477613686.jpg
Have a silver banana my good man.
I still haven't had my wakeup call. I've been through some things but the lesson never sticks long enough for me to make a fundamental change.
When my best friend died of cancer, dropped what I thought was a worthy cause and immediately pursued the healthcare industry. Haven't looked back since.
Also, when I realized was eating too many honey buns, helped with my powerlifting, but damn I was a chubby fucker.. but I do drunkenly stumble in the gas station once in a while, eyeing those delicious, sugary treats, oh lawd....
Realized I wasn't going to be a professional hockey player (enough for a 'career' anyways), hadn't graduated college, shit GPA, no internships, no goals, liked drugs/alcohol too much.
I second that. Still trying to find something I care as much about as lacing them up.
Having several guns pointed in my direction got me working a little harder
Ha. The words "you should leave now" have never sounded so sweet.
Knowing @"D M", it was probably a metaphor.
I was happy just treading water for most of my life. But I was watching an NBA playoff game 3 yrs ago when my uncle walks in the room and says: "so you're sitting on my couch each night living vicariously through a bunch of millionaires playing a game. Win or lose, they get to take luxury cars home to bang their model girlfriends. What do you get? As far as I can tell, you haven't made a cent or been laid. But carry on". He walks right out. I haven't watched a sporting event in its entirety since. And as you can probably tell, he also influenced my username. Been on a rampage since with backpacking through Latin America and learning Spanish, going for my MBA, mentoring teens, learning game, switching careers, etc. Just about anything to make sure I don't waste another day in this life, which is over before you know it.
Depressing. When did you become an atheist?
My moment was early in college. I had no idea what I wanted to do in life but at least had always done well grade-wise. I was dating this super hot girl who came from a rich family. Her parents were in town and took us to a high end steak house. I grew up as poor as a church mouse and had never been to a real steak house and was just blown off my feet when I ate that filet and washed it down with a great red wine. I had never tasted something like that before (I'm a bit of a food lover). We then went back to one of our places and had mind blowing sex. At that moment I asked myself how can I eat like that and fuck girls like that on a regular basis and what is it going to take for me to achieve that.
Yes. I've been married for a while to a girl that I've been with for almost 15 years but I had a good run (she'd love me to hear me say that I don't fuck a hot girl anymore lol). I still eat good steaks a lot. We have two young kids, I don't have sex anymore.
My first day arriving at Marine Corps boot camp and wondering to myself, "WTF did I get myself into???"
When I got arrested in Japan for stealing a breast of chicken.
I've had several wake up calls. I was arrested at age 19 for being part of big party and almost (wrongly) charged with a felony, but ultimately I wasn't charged with anything. It was a huge wake up call. I thought I was invincible and didn't care what anyone thought because I was getting straight A's. While in the holding cell for only 5 or 6 hours, I realized I never want to do anything illegal, it's just not worth it. I matured that day and after that avoided many situations I saw others in college get involved in. It astounded me how many smart and high powered college students thought they had that same invincibility, but me, I had already been humbled, and that was a relief, for I had no inclination to be involved. This ranges from little things like drinking in public, to cheating in class, to cocaine/adderall use/sales. Yes, selling your buddy some adderall is selling drugs in the eyes of the gov't/police, and it doesn't matter your philosophical belief/justification, you can be put behind bars. Buying coke and handing it to a sorority girl can also end badly. Little things like that, people would say "it's not a big deal", "just helping a friend"...shit like that. It's not a big deal until it is, and your ass is in a lawsuit or has criminal charges pressed against you. Then you realize, it wasn't worth it.
.
@GoldenCinderblock See http://s2.quickmeme.com/img/24/24a920d9dac041d3fba2a9a26f06b5f6a24c61e1…
There's an office cocktail party in 10 minutes and I kinda have to shit but then I kinda don't.
wake up call: time shits better
When my asian parents illegally kicked me out of the house and "disowned" me, i decided not to bring in the cops but to suck it up and deal with being homeless. I couldn't afford my highschool graduation cap and gown because I was so poor I had to live on a subsidized $1 school lunch everyday. luckily as an asian kid I don't have any BO because I slept in the library and never showered much.
it sucked but I was finally free to re-assess my values and finally see how much asian tiger mom culture is really an extreme sense of insecurity. It sounds crazy but I was basically being treated as property, not a person, and I accepted it because I was trapped in their mindset. Sometimes i can't believe the shit they pulled I actually considered normal...
There are days I wish I were raised by a normal white family and western values - but you don't get to choose your parents =/
sometimes i cringe at the shit wso says about working for what they earned - if you were privileged to have been raised in a meritocracy, you have no idea how messed up the idea of "fairness" can be..
I know that low, all too well.
That is why I went military, put me on solid footing and with their resources at my back, success was all but assured.
My big wake up call came right before turning 19. Living with my at-the-time girlfriend's with her family, incredibly poor and hostile environment, was on drugs, and going absolutely nowhere. My uncles died on the USS Iowa, and is buried in Newport Beach. So for memorial day, my father and I went to visit his grave, and I couldn't help but notice how many damn Porsches there were (I've wanted a Porsche for as long as I can remember). I asked him how everyone could afford it, and he replied, "They're all business men." When I got home, I called my other uncle, who was in corporate finance. I told him I was interested in business, and he broke down all of the various fields. He said how proud and happy he was that I was wanting to get back into school, and that I was going to do great, and if I ever needed anything to let him know. That was the last conversation I had with him. He died not even a month later, a week before Christmas, I went up to northern California for the funeral and to be with my aunt and cousins, and spent a week away from all the shit going on in my life. Got to finally clear my head and think straight. My cousin wanted me to visit where she went to school for NYE, and I agreed. Spent a little over a week there and realized how fucked up my life was and that I needed to get out and start creating and living my life. I moved up there two days after leaving, enrolled in the CC, and haven't looked back. I've stayed clean for 2 1/2 years now, and I'm working on transferring to a good university in the next year. I'm a believer in "everything happens for a reason". I guess it's just what gets me through the shit in life. If it weren't for him passing, I wouldn't have been able to get out of my situation. That was my wake up call.
One night a coke dealer threatened to knock me out at a club and then proceeded to try and find my house saying he was gonna rob and shitkick me in my own living room because I owed him money...thankfully no one he knew had any idea where I lived.
First time I ever prayed to God (and meant it), went to church the next morning, and my life has never been the same since.
Some good stories in this thread. I haven't had a wake up call yet (1st year CF Analyst) but I'd definitely write if I had something like that.
LOL. good replies.
Honestly just for a coke deal? I've done fucked up shit beyond what most people could even comprehend but one figures out how that works out. When you can actually do a deal in Mexico, India, Thailand \,etc
Some of this is depressing. Getting laid a couple times a week!? Makes me hope I never get married to be honest..
I haven't really had a wake-up call yet. I've done some drugs and drank a lot, but it never impinged on my life in terms of work-ethic or anything. In addition to being socio-economically disadvantaged, I was pretty poor growing up. I got free lunches, had to use the oven to heat the house up, had to buy all of my own clothes with my part-time job, etc. But there was never really a wake-up call to work harder and not be poor; it was just something I knew I had to do.
Haven't really had one, either. I've grown up privileged, did an inordinate amount of cocaine just last night, and drink to the point of no morality - but Dad was pretty good about keeping me on a somewhat straight path career wise. Fucked up plenty of times but never bad enough for it to be a "wake up" call. I probably could've used a big one early on. I think my awareness comes from a culmination of experiences, rather than just one really bad low point.
I was partying way too hard (smoking cigarette, drinking booze, Redbull) and stressing about minuscule BS in my post-grad courses. One day I woke up with half facial paralysis called Bell's Palsy. This was about 6.5 months ago, but I am still recovering.
Since then I have quit smoking, been drinking much less alcohol and started meditating. Life has become much better.
My internship. It's made me realise finance sucks.
Watching all my friends get into the schools of their dreams senior year of HS lit a fire under my ass. Up until then I lived in a bit of middle-class malaise - I just assumed things would work out because I was a relatively-intelligent, fairly-good looking white male. But, things weren't really working out too well slacking and I decided to change that entering college and actually apply myself. I put my nose to the grindstone, got a better job that everyone else above me in my HS class, and couldn't be happier with my life all around (also became less of a p*ssy with women).
It's too bad you weren't really, really, really, ridiculously good looking
But why male models?
i got hammered and fell off a 3rd story balcony in Bangkok when i was 21. Shattered 3 bones in my arm, broke vertibrae, concussion, the works. Most pain I've ever felt (by far) on the flight back to U.S. for surgery, but the experience completely transformed me and i kinda got my shit together pretty quick after that. Moral of the story, stay away from Khao San Rd...
My perfectly fit and healthy 4 year old Daughter being diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes last year. It changed almost everything for me. (Type 1 = finger pricks 8x per day & insulin shots 5x per day, forever....)
My career based priorities got a HUGE wake-up call.
Time with Family and Availability VS. Commute and Crazy Hours.. Got a new job that is more 8am-5pm (Asset Management, semi Back Office) and is only 10 minutes from our house and her school (biggest advantage of all). I need to be able to leave at any moment if something goes wrong with her medically.
My advice: Make the climb while you can & as quickly as you can. Because things can change at any moment and slow your climb to a crawl.
From every diabetic I know, the best way to go about it to go with the pump. It completely removes the need for shots and just makes the grind easier...
I agree. She will be on the pump soon, is currently still under a year since diagnosis. But I agree that it should be a bit easier and better average numbers once we get that all set up.
Diagnosed with cancer twice, too many setbacks to count. Feels bad man :( . I transferred schools, started lifting, and lurked WSO until I got an offer. A wake up call is only as good as how you choose to respond.
Relatively tame from other people in this thread, but I was just a bum who didn't give a fuck about anything other than video games and shit. It changed when my parents sent me to military school. It wasn't the military environment that changed me, it was the other kids. Kids who had felonies for assault, dealing drugs, etc. and it was an awful place that didn't even change kids. Put like minded kids together like that and they will on the surface follow the system and below they don't change, they were their own support group. One of my major turning points in there was when I got a roommate who was 14 and didn't know how to add fractions or do percentages and was a complete fucktard (couldn't add 1/2 + 1/3). I realized I couldn't ever be like that guy and changed my act around. Got into an pretty decent college and now I'm working my way up.
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