Have you ever stopped to consider how the littlest of things can completely change the course of your life? The simplest of emails or text messages can alter your world and have such a massive change. It can be as vast and life changing as the eureka moment, or as calamitous as an asteroid hitting the Earth.

Last year that happened to me. So completely. On August 19, 2006, I received an email sent from a cellphone that would forever change the path my life would take. 14 months later, that single message has so totally changed my world in a way I never would have thought possible.

And it makes you wonder. I mean, really wonder. What would life be like right now if I hadn’t received that message?

For starters, I wouldn’t have had the guts or strength to reject my depression and my fear of being around people. I would never have gotten into the security job. I would never have discovered and met so many people I really enjoy the company of now. I would never have had the guts to return to the world of the living. I most definitely wouldn’t be working in IT again solving peoples problems and finding that, aside from a few niggles, I do mostly enjoy it.

I would never have had a great holiday earlier this year simply because I couldn’t have afforded it. And I definitely would not have been able to afford the holiday I’m taking later this year.

Truth is, if it wasn’t for that single message I would probably still be sitting on the dole spending every hour of every day playing games and avoiding contact with anyone other than my immediate family. I would still be living with crippling depression and would never have had the strength to fight it.

That’s not to say that I don’t live with the depression still. That will never leave me. But the major change is that now I control the depression, not the other way around.

Its amazing how a single simple message can so completely change your life. Don’t you agree?

Has any small thing changed your life in such a massive way?