What was a big catalyst in your life that made it change?

In seven decades there were more than one.
Some of them...

To become an adult by when had 16, far from my family of origin.
To studdy Sciences and Tech.
To meet and keep my splendid group of lifetime friends.
To survive a dictatorship that killed 1 of each 1000 here.
To have a 1st marriage that if had been just a little better would qualify as a disaster.
To experience war.
To joyfully become a father.
To become a single parent and the only available one and rise my kids on said conditions.
The intense experiences of my professsional life.
To find the love of my life in almost my sixties.
To lost her.
Some other stuff.