This was sometime in March of 2004, during my first job right out of B- School for a top publishing firm.  Around late evening, as i was busy wrapping up my day’s work, received a call on my mobile. I was too busy to answer, since did not want to miss the train back home.  Don’t know why, I did end up answering the call . On the other side was the Vice President of a company who wanted to hire me. He chatted with me for almost 30 minutes and called me for an interview. I was surprised that instead of a typical HR call, a VP had called me and after scanning through my resume on a job portal and that too that late at night.

On a lighter note, I was even worried that someone could be playing an April fool prank on me since he called me for an interview on first day of April. Since I had nothing to lose, I did go for the interview and got hired eventually.

The few years I spent here were most important to me as it offered me an opportunity to work in my preferred area of work – brand management and that too for clients across industries. It laid a strong foundation and this experience helped me immensely much later to start my own business.

So last week a thought struck me.

How different would have been my life, had I not taken that call?

And it’s not just about professional life, but even on personal front since its all interconnected. Would I have been a different person with a different life, altogether? And more importantly, would it be better or worse?

That decision to answer the phone actually changed the course of my life.

This thought is scary as well as pretty exciting, that one decision which looks seemingly small and inconsequential at that time, can have such a dramatic effect on one’s life

I am sure most of you would remember similar decisions made at various points of time in your life which resulted in who you are today professionally and personally.

Think of it. It’s not just about one decision in your life. Every small decisions we take, each day, leads us to a different path. So really we are changing the course of our lives every single day by the decisions we make. A new story and new chapter begins with every decision.

So on a random Sunday morning, that impulse decision to enroll for a dance class based on a coupon you received from a deal site may ultimately lead you to become the best dancer in the country. Who knows? Or you meet someone there, who could be the soul-mate you have been waiting for?  Or you find that friend who becomes your anchor for life. Or you could meet an investor friend who agrees to invest in your business and you take off. Or nothing major could happen after-all.  Possible? I think so.

So many possibilities based on that one decision to go to a dance class.

And then there is this scary question – Could we have made our lives better by taking some alternate decisions from the ones we took or in cases where we did not take any decision actually had acted.

Frankly, that’s really not the point. Cause its futile to evaluate this. There is no answer to this.

What’s important here, is that we know that the decisions we take however small, opens up an entirely different chapter in our lives and whenever we are stuck at some point and feel that life is not going too great, all we need to be aware of is – That it only requires that one decision to change the course of our life.

And instead of worrying about the present we could take that step to start the new chapter. Instead of just waiting things to happen, we can take the initiative, we could take that decision. To change the course of our life.  Whether that will make your life better or not is not the point, it’s the decision to move forward and take that chance which is more important.

 That’s what makes life so exciting and worth living.